Agent Cooper - Agent Cooper



1. Wasting Away (3:25) 2. Don't Get Up (3:30) 3. A 13 Year (4:32) 4. Little Town (4:44) 5. Disinfect Your Mind (3:37) 6. The Desolate Supreme (4:56) 7. Helmet Head (4:03) 8. Good For My Soul (3:50) 9. The Drive Song (4:42)

Total Running Time: 37:39



I've always considered the right formula that makes a band achieve status and recognition a mystery. Obviously, many aspects take part on a band's success, including its musical capabilities, the albums' production, its exposure, its manager's contacts, the support offered by its record label, and luck, just to name a few. Let's put it this way; it's fairly common in the music business to have a couple of bands that are considerably similar in sound, composition, and approach, and, mysteriously, only one of these gets the limelight all to itself while the others are left behind with only an obscure little cult. The irony is that, sometimes, obscure bands are musically stronger than their recognized counterparts, but somehow the mainstream simply refuses to embrace them. Just yesterday, I was listening to the Pixies and these thoughts bothered me considerably. You might think that these comments are a bit far off, since I'm dealing with an entirely different genre here, but this tends to happen in most styles, and, I although I hate to admit it, this is constantly reflected upon prog rock.

If we now warp to our modest prog universe, this seems to be the case since a rather long time. As soon as the "prog" tag is placed on a record, its obvious synonym pops up: "no commercial potential." Big record labels seem terrified of even naming the label in their halls, let alone have one of these new prog artists appear in their catalogue. They state that "prog" is a movement of the past, represented in flesh & blood by bands like Pink Floyd, Rush, ELP, and Yes. I could never even consider disagreeing that these bands are the true core of progressive rock, but on the other hand, the line "prog is a movement of the past" is simply unacceptable. Truly worthy musical outfits are easily discarded by having this term placed along their names, and this brings us to the relevance of these comments regarding the review. These preconceptions are going to be a big burden for Agent Cooper, a fresh band just at the beginning of its career.

On its debut album, the band offers a healthy dose of alternative/prog rock music with heady, well-thought out arrangements, straight-forward compositions with an edge, great vocal melodies with catchy hooks, and (the obvious element) odd-tempo changes; but contrary to most prog acts, these guys serve their time-signature changes with a very digestible approach, sometimes even passing unnoticed by the listener. Tracks go from rock-driven, guitar-riff-oriented songs to mellow-melodic pieces, resembling well-known alternative bands like Live and Collective Soul. Songs like "Helmet Head" and "Wasting Away" would surely be capable of being radio hits, if only given the chance. The main problem that jumps at me is that these guys will most probably never even see the leftovers of the aforementioned bands, and will only end up with a small and loyal following.

Clearly, these guys are not even close to being considered "the saviors of rock & roll," but they do offer a very worthy release. If the music industry were remotely fair, these guys would surely be one of the new acts that catches the eye of a bunch of A&R guys, but then again, not even children respect rules on their own games, so hey, what can one really do…

-by Javier Elizondo

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