Author: Willa Rudolph
Photo by Jo
On September 20th, London-bred and New York City-based musician Comet, born Comet Candler, released a new EP, Two-Winged [editor’s note: at 7 tracks and 30 minutes it‘s a well-endowed EP], whose tracks echo elements of metal and noise rock. Comet lures you into a trance, head down, letting your hair cover your face and get stuck in your lip gloss.
Her mystical combination of metal and grunge intertwine to create a rhythmic charge of bass and guitar, with a groaning angelic voice floating between the repetitive downward strokes. Like a stripped down King Woman (King Woman’s Kris Esfandiari served as an informal advisor on the EP’s third track, “Gooseflesh”), Comet’s low voice is haunting and even throaty at times, emotion palpably exhaled.
Led by singles “Dirty” feat. Lucy Loone and “One,” Two-Winged seamlessly merges 90’s rock influences like Hole and Deftones with post grunge, modern sonic twists. Comet keeps her lyrics extremely poetic, grappling with loss of innocence and being an object of desire.
Imagery is clearly of utmost importance to the alternative rocker, the music video for “One” featuring Comet as a fallen angel being poked, prodded, de-winged, and tortured, followed by that for “Dirty,” directed by Comet and Lucy Loone, in which Comet is pulling a truck by a chain, crumpled on the desert floor, and marrying a big menacing guy in a dirty “wife-beater.”
One my favorites of the EP, the 7-minute-long slow burn that is “My Butcher,” begins with reversed & reverbed guitar strokes before Comet’s voice moans into the track.
“The day you clipped my wings
My eyes bled black
Grasping at straw to earn them back
Bare naked I remember your face
As you took that cleaver to my waist”
Dissonant crooning explodes these words out that so viscerally project dejection and the feeling of being used and abused.
Two-Winged describes a violent and violet reimagining of what seems to be a coming-of-age experience, but through a dark and obscured lens. The theme of the record, across each song, can be described as the duality of girlhood: experiencing desire and being desired; feeling helpless, but your words being your machine gun; feeling trapped but trying to please your captor; wanting more but giving everything…
Editor’s Note: Listen to Two-Winged wherever you stream music or, better yet, wise up and purchase the compact disc HERE featuring a fold-out poster and 8 pages of album art and hurry cuz there’s only 100 copies in existence and it’ll give you access to the album in MP3 and FLAC formats too
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TWO-WINGED
Vocals and Guitars: Comet Candler
Guitars: Sam Klein
Guitars: Lea Jaffe
Bass: Grant Lepping
Drums: Kevin Jacobsen
Produced by Comet Candler and Grant Lepping
Engineered by Grant Lepping and Bailey Kislak
Mixed by Grant Lepping
Recorded at Flux Studios NYC
Mastered by Justin Termotto
*Additional Writing and Production on “One” by Richard Orofino
Additional mixing on “Velvet Lined Panic Room” by Bailey Kislak
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BONUS: BELOW FIND A COUPLE VIDEOS FROM COMET’S PREVIOUS EP, WAKE UP CLEAN, AND HER 2021 DEBUT SINGLE, “BEAUTY MARKS”…