A stacked studio does not necessarily result in quality music. Noel Gallagher of The Oasis and his better band, High-Flying Birds, features on a song which is a who’s who of Leadmill soundtrack fodder. The early doors playlist before that cultural institution was carved up and sold off. All this faux, post-hippie craze connection with the cosmos, with the mantras and chanting of a soulful, yoga-adjacent life, feels out of touch. But give Domino Bones a chance. A song which features alumni of Oasis, The Who, and Happy Mondays. Not an adaptation of their sounds, that’d be disastrous, but certainly a shared interest, the same influences, and a desire to build with like-minded musicians. You can put off listening as long as you want, but when a group has three songs in just as many years, you eventually have to brace yourself. Mantra of the Cosmos has captured a noise better suited to cartoon opening credits.
But there’s a charm to that which makes Domino Bones, at the very least, fun. Nonsensical is what this group of musicians does best, and we can applaud them for that. Ryder has that maddening, soulful voice, which works brilliantly for a song like this. He has this image as a wildcard frontman to live up to and does so by listing off the audacious, the outrageous, tasks at hand. Reliable, punchy music is hard to come by. Domino Bones is a barebones experience, though that does not stop it from being a relatively fun but forgettable piece. It’s an instrumental cacophony. Fundamentally, a song with so many in the studio has to have an element of fun in the creative process. You can hear the band having fun, a supergroup of notable names. That doesn’t mean quality is guaranteed, and the group works hard to get this free-spirited style.
Domino Bones struggles, though. It feels too Black Grape-like in its delivery, and that’s not just because of Ryder. Part of it feels tripped-out in that inevitable style. Once more, the group heads into a structure of music that’s expected of them because of their public image. Domino Bones has no interest in challenging that, and the clustered sound it creates makes it very hard to pull out a new sound or fresh idea. Glitching, blistering instrumental work with a few jagged and open-ended lines for good measure. It’s not quite setting the soul on fire but it does maintain an energy expected of a Starkey and Bell-featuring percussion. Those veterans of the stage know what makes a song tick over, but they’re both lost in the mix of Domino Bones.
That instrumental spiral is nothing special. Nor are the lyrics. What comes through for Mantra of the Cosmos here is the liberation of free-wheeling sound. That sense of freedom which comes from creating with no purpose but to enjoy the world and endure the times ahead. It’s not that the band aren’t clear with what they stand for, it’s just behind the times. What they hope to achieve has already been done, and they get around this stumbling block by bringing on the noise. Ryder may claim Domino Bones is dangerous, but there’s no thrill-seeking here. It’s the standard noise which Ryder has made with other groups in the past. Nothing about this loud and crashing song can overhaul that much further. It’s the peak of what the band can offer with this current sound. A crazy notion only works when the idea is fresh, and not just a collection of established musicians wandering around, retreading the old days.
