:: Sammy Hagar - Cosmic Universal Fashion

Sammy Hagar

When you take a look over the lengthy thirty-five year career that vocalist/guitarist Sammy Hagar has had, it soon becomes apparent that the infamous ‘Red Rocker’ is not an artist who’s willing to stick to one particular sound or musical path for any great length of time. And as you would expect, after making several successful albums alongside his backing band The Waboritas/Wabos, Hagar has once again branched out to release a solo album in ‘Cosmic Universal Fashion’. Promising to be a return to his rock roots, ‘Cosmic Universal Fashion’ does see Hagar revisit heavier territory. But unfortunately, his latest solo endeavour is a bit of a mixed effort, with the majority of the songs sounding too inconsistent and clashing in musical direction to make the album sound like a cohesive whole.

The opening title track ‘Cosmic Universal Fashion’ is quite an interesting experimental effort, with Iraqi song writer Steven Lost helping Hagar revamp Van Halen’s classic ‘Right Now’ anthem with some industrial overtones. Both ‘Psycho Vertigo’ and ‘Peephole’ maintain the darker feel of the opener with some heavy riffing and bludgeoning production and feel, giving the album an all-serious start. But it’s from this point that the album takes a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn, with Hagar producing an up-tempo remake of Jersey rocker John Eddie’s rocking anthem ‘Loud’. Despite being a great song, it just sounds too removed from the former tracks to sound like a streamline successor.
Hagar’s reworked Beastie Boys classic ‘Fight For Your Right To Party’ is somewhat of a disaster, and falls short of adding anything more to the original, while the laid back ‘When The Sun Don’t Shine’ is more in line with The Waboritas’ recent output. ‘Switch On The Light’ (featuring ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons on backing vocals), ‘24365’ (Bootsy Collins on backing vocals) and ‘I’m On A Roll’ are certainly more in line with Hagar’s typically rock sound, and serve as the album’s stronger cuts. But given the lack of genuine consistency, these seem to be a little too late in the album to really stand out as saviours.

Finishing up the album are live acoustic versions of Van Halen classics ‘Dreams’ and ‘Cabo Wabo’, which while interesting, are probably more interesting for those who were actually singing along to the live recordings themselves. I have been a long time fan of Hagar’s work (whether it be solo, with Montrose, H.S.A.S. or Van Halen), but ‘Cosmic Universal Fashion’ just doesn’t sound like the cohesive effort I was expecting from Hagar. Overall, ‘Cosmic Universal Fashion’ doesn’t sound so much like a new solo album, but more like a compilation effort from Hagar. And as long as you approach it from that aspect, you won’t be disappointed.