Comore
Montana (2004)

Comore by Montana (2004) was part of a three-scent series meant to evoke the vibe of three different island, including Comore, Samar, and Malaita, all being French spellings of said Islands, of course. Of the three, Comore is the only one marketed to men, and because guys in the online fragrance community are usually the ones more-obsessed with vintage, discontinued, or otherwise obscure fragrance treasures to brag about, Comore is the one that often has the most reviews. Opinions and readings are all over the place for this one, with some saying it smells like Loewe pour Homme (1974) or Enrico Coveri pour Homme (1984), some saying it recalls more of a similarity to Lagerfeld Photo (1990), and still others claiming a resemblance to Guerlain Coriolan (1998). Now some of those be some mighty big unicorns brother; but before you wet your shorts in anticipation and run out the door screaming with flaming cash in hand, to jealously snatch all remaining bottles from existence into your hermetically-sealed oakmoss hoard, listen up to ol' Varanis here because he wants to save you some stress palpitations.

Yes, you've smelled this before if you're a "vintage head", and you've smelled better, plus you've probably paid a lot more to smell better, so relax. What you have here is a rather hilariously anachronistic fragrance marketed in 2004 as something "youthful", I'll grant you that; but the heart-achingly-beautiful display of classic mastery and perfume-is-dead-long-live-perfume vintage superiority this is not. If not just because by 2004 most of the materials typically associated with such "inarguable supremacy" were already gone or restricted into unusable quantities, then because Comore has a noticeably-synthetic riff running throughout it that reads as an attempt to modernize what is presented into something that might trick the youth market it courts into buying it, as if Montana bought an unused old formula, then tried to resto-mod it. In essence, this opens like fougère with bergamot, lavender, and dry nutmeg, before drying down like a chypre with rosemary, oakmoss, and very synthetic musks a la Kenneth Cole replacing any of the usual goodies found in a "vintagist-approved" chypre.

That last part is really why I toss out the big red flag, wave the huge stop sign like a paid traffic control guard, and honk the air siren like being at a Brazilian football game. Most of the guys who get incontinent at the smell of old Yves Saint Laurent pour Homme (1972) and other scents I could compare this to - such as Cacharel pour L'Homme (1981) or Quartz pour Homme by Molyneux (1994) - will suddenly shriek like a dog whose tail has been stepped on by accident at the first sign of the actual drydown. A then-modern musk profile to my nose makes this actually pretty unique, but I know my reader audience too well and how they strictly bifurcate along schools of thought; I know where they'll compromise and where they won't. All of this of course tracks perfectly well with Montana, who much like Moschino or Jacomo plays fast and loose with rules and convention, if only because their fragrance R&D budgets aren't high enough to have principles, as it were. If necessity is the mother of invention, then poverty breeds creativity, just not the kind most of the guys in the online fragrance community will appreciate. Thumbs up

Opens with a spicy citrus. The citrus quickly fades and dry coriander *really* shines amongst rosemary and lavender. If you're averse to coriander, maybe you should stay away. A cypress note soon joins in the fun, and we're left with what I am tempted to describe as the best smelling aromatic antique furniture ever. That won't make sense to anyone but me, but I'm going with it anyway.

Comore offers a similar old school vibe as Guerlain Coriolan and, to a lesser extent, Boucheron Pour Homme and Cerruti 1881 Pour Homme. Hard to believe Comore was launched in the mid-2000s. Needless to say, it was a flop and was quickly discontinued. It flopped so hard that you can still find it at discounters for a pittance. Brave move by Montana nevertheless... we salute you.

It projects surprisingly well and longevity is 8 hours on my skin.

Masculinity Level: Donald Sutherland saying how JFK left him standing with his dick in the wind during the Cuban missile crisis.

In this unassuming bottle with its faux-chrome cap, we have a rather beautiful fougere that was destined to be dead on arrival at the time of its release in 2004. So out of step for trends of the time, Montana made the same mistake Guerlain had six years prior with its similar release, Coriolan, which likewise made no strides and is quite a collector's item these days.

Coriolan is beautiful in its own right, but Comore is almost an improvement on it, if that can be believed. The coriander and citruses sing longer, the addition of lavender lends a more dimensional aromatic quality that almost seems missing in Coriolan, and overall, the performance is much better.

The rosemary and cypress also impart a coniferous lift that quenches the sharpness, crisp and invigorating, and the dry down is a straight up marvelous classic fougere fond that wouldn't have been out of place in the 80s, with just the slightest touch of Epicene base that makes appearances in other Montana frags.

How curious, right? Montana once again says pshaw to supposed anachronisms and gives us this unheralded gem.

The similarities to Lagerfeld's Photo(which is 15 years older, by the way) are striking,not only regarding the top notes (lavender,lemon).According to pyramid by Osmoz.com they share ingredients in middle(coriander) and base notes(sandalwood) too!Comore even smells harsher and more synthetic.Who needs exact copies then?Neutral rating,only because I like Lagerfeld's creation.