Review: Second time around for Cosmic Assault, Californian guitar god and sometime Chrome member Barry Johnson's ninth album as Helios Creed. Something of a hard-to-pigeonhole classic, the album combines his ravaged and acid-fried hard rock and psychedelic metal sound with elements of industrial music, horror soundtrack style synths, and all manner of decidedly cosmic and intergalactic sounds. As a result, the set attractively veers from intense, mind-man gling workouts rich in heavy riffs and elongated guitar solos ('Cosmic Assault', 'Rise'), exotic excursions ('The Master'), and more immersive explorations of the outer reaches of the aural universe.
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