COSMICITY PURE ALBUM A DIFFERENT DRUM RELEASE: DECEMBER 30, 2001 REVIEW: MARCH 1, 2002

Mark Nicholas has a lot of bad things to say about his old girlfriend and some wonderful stuff about his new one. These are his private obsessions, recycled if slightly reinvented from album to album and generously elaborated on the band web site, if you should happen to be interested in the actual names of the girls.
Nicholas is obviously no great poet, but his brand of synth pop melancholy blends rather nicely with the simple rhymings of the sensitive, suffering young man so prevalent in nineties independent music. It all adds up to something cosy and endearing.
"Pure" is a return to form, leaving former clumsy attempts at a techno sound behind and embracing the warmth and safety of simple, no frills synth pop. The ever-present shadow of the Pet Shop Boys has also faded almost to the point of non-existence. As far as nice and harmonic synthpop goes, "Pure" keeps anybody quite happy.
But Cosmicity has never settled for so little. Mark Nicholas wants to paint grander pictures, never minding a shortage of colour and a canvas much too small. "The Princess of Detroit", for all its pumping beats, does a poor job of capturing steamy eroticism, while anything dealing with bigger things than light post-relationship trauma comes up somewhat short of expectation. The expressive abilities of Cosmicity are a bit limited, but Nicholas still excels in smooth vocals and sugar-coated harmonies.

MATTIAS HUSS