THIS WEEK I’M LISTENING TO…DEAD KOSMONAUT – Retrospectre (Edged Circle Productions)

Mattias Reinholdsson, the founder of Dead Kosmonaut, once described their outlook by pointing out that the early metal bands had no restrictions on how their material should sound. “These were musicians who’d not grown up on metal music, because it didn’t exist, so their take on it had many different facets, and albums had acoustic songs, jazzy songs, bluesy songs, progressive songs... I want Dead Kosmonaut to be that sort of band, so that when you listen to one of our songs you don’t really know what’s coming next...” And that’s what makes albums like ‘Retrospectre’ so interesting.

photo by Johan Olsson

The Swedish quintet (who took their name from an older song Reinholdsson had written, after their first two choices – Astrakaan and Domkraft – were both bagged by other bands) already have two albums and an EP to their name: ‘Expect Nothing’ appeared in 2017, with the ‘Rekviem’ EP following in 2019 and then ‘Gravitas’ hitting the shops a year later. But since then things have been a little quiet. The usual problems life throws up, in addition to the hunt for a new deal, delayed the creation and release of ‘Retrospectre’, much to the band’s frustration, but now it’s finally complete it’s certainly a worthy addition to the Dead Kosmonaut catalogue. Their material can generally best be described as traditional metal with a twenty-first century twist and progressive traits, and ‘Retrospectre’ follows in this vein. “I just wanted to continue the path and philosophy behind our previous albums – keep it broad and focused on hard hitting melodies,” explains Reinholdsson, and in that respect the band have succeeded admirably. With “the themes of hindsight, memories and self-deception, and how they affect our lives” running through the album the seven cuts each develop slowly, taking their time to reveal their opulence. And although the band’s collective liking for Iron Maden shows though a little in punchy opener ‘Wake Of Aquarius’ the album soon forges a more diverse path with material like ‘The Lies’ (check out the superb closing solos to this one) and ‘The Retrospectre’ in particular demonstrating the band’s unwillingness to be constrained by conformity. The lengthy ‘The Battle Is Over’ features some more exquisite guitar work from Fredrik Folkare and Peter Hallgren, and ‘View From The Future’ has almost a Queensrÿche feel to it, with Reinholdsson himself claiming to be “very pleased with the way it turned out – the chorus is very strong, I like the guitar solos and Pelle’s [Gustafsson] vocals, and the vibe of the song feels quite different for us.”

It’s been a long time coming, but ‘Retrospectre’ is very exciting offering indeed and will, if there’s any justice in the world, hopefully be the album raises Dead Kosmonaut’s profile. They certainly deserve it.

Video clips:
‘Wake Of Aquarius’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a9a5ihrJBs

‘Out Of The Shadows Rising’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j7Xgckbk-Q

John Tucker May 2026