| Galactic Cowboys | 1991 |
| Space In Your Face | 1993 |
| Machine Fish | 1995 |
| Feel The Rage [EP] | 1996 |
| The Horse That Bud Bought | 1997 |
| At The End Of The Day | 1998 |
| Let It Go | 2000 |
Progressive metal in the vein of King's X with affecting harmonies and crunching riffs, the Galactic Cowboys are a great deal more lyrically and musically off the wall than that band, with lyrics that border on outright silliness at times, but at other times they're creative and entertaining. The music, meanwhile, switches gears during songs as much as any band in the genre, with not a whole lot of flashy soloing, but some killer riffs and quite unexpected changes.
I must warn you before getting to the reviews, though - their first self-titled release in my opinion is very very much a humble beginning for the band... in fact, a lot of that material is downright awful, with no single song being good all the way through, as much as I've tried to figure out one. It was at one time the worst album in my collection. Thank God I had purchased their second album Space In Your Face first, as it's an infinitely better album with not only good, but sometimes amazing and original, tunes.
--Nick Karn
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
The Galactic Cowboys first album had the potential to be quite an interesting release, a weirder and heavier edition of the underrated hard rock trio King's X, but unfortunately something went terribly wrong for frontman Monty Colvin and the gang - they had the tools for success on this release, but the arrangements end up way too unfocused, with the time changes being sloppy, the melodies usually weak at best - great ones are few and far between, and almost all of the songs painfully overlong and unmemorable, with not one of them holding up as good straight through.
Probably the worst aspect of this album is the lyrics, with the main offenders in that department being "Kaptain Krude" (which also features an atrocious "ay-yi-yi" harmony part) and "Pump Up The Space Suit" (with an annoying dinky-sounding guitar, and distorted, unmelodic vocals spewing out the dispensable words), having God-awful cartoonish nonsense passing as these. Somehow the few good points made me hold back from throwing the friggin' CD out the window after suffering through these songs, which also include the undistinguished, relentlessly lengthy forgettables "My School", "Speak To Me", "Sea Of Tranquility", and the infectious (disease of) "Ranch On Mars Reprise". The choruses to a couple of them, "Someone For Everyone" (a fairly boring ballad otherwise) and "I'm Not Amused" (which is unfortunately followed by "that damn slow section") are actually good (not great, just good). Overall, what really makes me shake my head over Galactic Cowboys is that their follow-up Space In Your Face would somehow be outstanding after an almost complete disaster of a debut.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
Whoa... this is definitely one of the more dramatic cases of musical improvement from one album to the next I've ever come across, in that the Galactic Cowboys' second album Space In Your Face is an excellent, but not totally consistent, effort that mixes Beatles-esque vocal harmonies with quite unexpected and completely off the wall time changes and mood shifts along with some incredibly inspiring choruses and hooks (basically, everything the debut tried to do, but failed so miserably it's hilariously awful). The lyrics this time learn more towards the relentless weirdness and sometimes even viciousness of Faith No More than horribly cheezy cartoonish space imagery, and the songs also feature more convincing riffs that recall Anthrax and Metallica (a prime epic song structure influence from the latter).
Although the album begins with a couple average, fairly standard thrashers, the following "I Do What I Do" is the first complete score of the band's career, with a phenomenal uplifting chorus melody and a dramatic feel in the verses after a heavy intro. "If I Were A Killer", apparently dealing lyrically with abortion, sees the promise of the first two tracks completely molded to its' potential, with a positively convincing riff to go along with the frightening lyrics and awesome chorus harmonies. "No Problems", meanwhile, radically shifts in an unpredictable fashion as an absolute triumph, capturing every ambition the band had at this point perfectly - amazingly uplifting melody, an odd flavor to the lyrics, unpredictable progressive solo sections, time changing verses and choruses.
"About Mrs. Leslie" is an amazing aggressive tune with whimsical British lyrics and a relentless pounding solo section, while "Where Are You Now?" combines a perfect slow grind and relentlessly fast solo sections, also featuring well-placed Monty Colvin phone conversation samples with two girls he once knew in high school. Rounding out this often mind-blowing album are the more Beatlesy tunes (due to the harmonies at the most massive) in "Blind" and "Still Life Of Peace" (one of two hidden tracks, the other "Ranch On Mars", another brilliant progressive metal song with an excellent chorus, not to be confused with the horrible reprise on the first album), and another exciting riff-oriented tune in "Circles In The Fields".
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
The Cowboys' third album seems like somewhat of a regression to me after the band seemingly found a great songwriting voice on their last one. Musically, a good amount of this stuff is not unlike what you'd hear from a generic punk/metal band whose album happens to be playing in a used CD store or somewhere like that. The often punkish, thrashy riffs and overall guitar work here are incredibly non-distinctive and generic, and they don't even make up for it with interesting song structures and twists like they did before. Even the lyrics don't really offer very much in the way of intrigue, with a couple big exceptions. Not to mention that the album is 69 minutes, which is dreadfully long for a release with such a frustrating lack of variety. Several of these songs seem to partially explain why my interest in hard rock and metal from the 80's and 90's has declined considerably. Satisfied with the reason why it took so long for me to review this?
The saving grace of the album, though, is that these songs are distinguished somewhat by the band's harmonies, not to mention that quite a few of these songs have really catchy vocal melodies, plus the songwriting really does get better as the album progresses, especially within the last few tracks. But starting the album off with six remarkably similar thrashers before closing side one on the most Beatles-esque pop ballad "Easy To Love" (a nice Lennon sort of melody on this one) probably wasn't the best of ideas, even if almost all of them have memorable choruses (particularly "Stress"), while "Fear Not" pounds well, "Feel The Rage" is a fine mosh pit-styled opener, and "In This Life" has a humorous quality to it. The somewhat unmemorable "The Struggle" and the really boring, muffled sample coda to the 7 minute "Psychotic Companion" drag, though. Too bad.
Side two starts off with more generic blah ("Red Sun", "Idle Minds"), but the last five tracks on here are all enjoyable in their own way. I think it's cool the way you can really envision the band actually playing in your room on the really hook-filled hard pop of "The Lens" and the really captivating introspectiveness of "In A Lonely Room", with well-written lyrics on insecurity, a neat little bridge and a top-notch melody making it the best on the album. The aggressiveness of "Pattin' Yourself On The Back" works, too, if only for the way the chorus is sung ('someday your arm's gonna SNAP....'). "9th Of June" is another fine example of the band's considerable harmony talent, and even the closing "Arrow" doesn't drag despite a really slow pace - it's got quite a compelling refrain ('somebody shot me with an aaaaaarrrrowww....') to keep you interested. There's actually not much interesting to say about these songs, though - they're pretty formulaic. But at least the catchy, nicely constructed, hooks on here can captivate the listener, so that's why it still gets a decent, if definitely not spectacular, rating.
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