Opus. Derek Smith & The Cosmic Vultures

Derek Smith and his galactic scavengers with wings have featured several times this year in respective singles posts. It will not come as a surprise to find the band's album Opus here as well. The band takes the listener on a nostalgic trip to the 70s as if the decade is not behind us for longer than most people are alive on this planet. It's all good and more though.

For me Derek Smith & The Cosmic Vultures was a new name until recently, so let me introduce the band. Derek Smith sings lead and backing vocals and plays rhythm guitar, Michael Strakus lead and rhythm guitar, Steve Constantino is on bass, Dalton DeLima plays drums and Justin Lopes all sorts of keyboards. Together they are responsible for a wide and deep sound. This band is not afraid to provide is the world a big sound where it feels like it.

As I wrote, Opus is a nostalgic album. Not so much because of the band, but because of the mood the album puts me in. I am remembered of all sorts of music I liked and oddly enough did not like in the 1970s. Something odd happens when time passes. Appreciation of music you know well, has a tendency to change over the decades, so I have noticed living through them. In a positive sense, but even tunes I hated at the time trigger something in me, a feeling that is hard to explain rationally. It may have to do with memories, good and bad, people who may no longer be there, or vanished from my life as people do over time. Several songs on Opus remind me of a host of songs and all's good.

Photo: Nicole Ritchotte

Hence I am moving from The Doobie Brothers in the Michael McDonald era to Rupert Holmes but also several great hitsingles from the pre-punk era, and all from the U.S. Derek Smith c.s. do not hide their love for this kind of music. Just listen to the smooth-sailing 'Masterpiece'. In search of the perfect pop song the band went and may have hit the jackpot on the way there. There are so many details in this song, while Strakus plays a few great guitar solos that would have sounded good in Boston, to name one band. The keyboards, the backing vocals, little things here and there, they all work, with a great song as a result.

On the face of it most songs on Opus have this quality in it. Whether any of these songs would have resonated on an album back in the day is impossible to establish. In 2024 the collection of these ten songs works a miracle. Opus is the kind of album that anyone with a love for 70s pop-rock music should get acquainted with. Opus deserves it.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght

You can listen to and order Opus here:

https://dereksmithandthecosmicvultures.bandcamp.com/album/opus