Review Summary: Dust off your jackhammers and man your battlestations: Coheed and Cambria have a new album out.
Second Stage Turbine Blade was a great album. It featured Coheed and Cambria at their rawest and most intense, mixing post-hardcore with pop-punk with spectacular results. And they will never make an album like it ever again.
And there’s good reason, too. SSTB was recorded by a band still raw in the ways of music. Their lead singer, Claudio Sanchez, was still in the process of finding his voice. Bassist Mic Todd was still fairly hit and miss. Drummer Josh Eppard was still part of the band. Since recording Second Stage Turbine Blade, they have been through a five-year journey that might have destroyed many bands of similar stature. Death, major line-up changes, and drug addictions have all led to this point, the dramatic conclusion of their sci-fi epic series,
Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV Volume II: No World For Tomorrow.
Rest assured, this is not the Coheed of old.
For while I might have made their journey to stardom seem like some sort of terrible soap opera, the truth is that
Coheed and Cambria have emerged from the wreckage of 2006 like some sort of vicious monster (or perhaps even a Monstar…), and delivered what may be their most dramatic and solid record yet. Nowhere is this more obvious than on the epic titular track, which may well be the best thing Coheed have ever committed to record. Featuring massive riffs courtesy of Sanchez and Travis Stever, thick, pulsating bass licks from Todd, and new drummer Chris Pennie (through Taylor Hawkins) delivering brilliant fills like Coheed have never attempted before, the song is the perfect way to display just how much the band have moved forward.
One of the best parts of the new record is how nearly every song seems to be like an improved version of another Coheed song.
Feathers simultaneously one-ups both Blood Red Summer and Mother May I, creating a strange amalgamation of the two that is simultaneously catchy, technical, and emotional.
Mother Superior is everything The Light and The Glass wishes it was: an epic (in size and power) ballad that can be equally beautiful and aggressive. Sanchez once again proves himself a brilliantly diverse vocalist, morphing from crooning angel to snarling beast within seconds.
Gravemakers and Gunslingers is the first real answer to the classic Al The Killer, and it wastes no time punching you in the face and rubbing the wounds with sandpaper, with ridiculous solos blazing like firearms.
Where the band occasionally runs into trouble is when they can’t improve on the past.
Radio Bye Bye has a very Good Apollo Vol. I filler pop song to it (not very specific, huh?) It redeems itself with a chorus that, if not necessarily catchy, will certainly get stuck in your head.
Justice in Murder, unfortunately, is the only truly non-redeeming songs on the album. It’s slightly poppy, but not catchy. It’s slightly heavy, but not really aggressive. It’s just kinda… there. Thankfully, this is the only song of its kind on the record.
Of course, when the band tries something new, the results are equally spectacular.
The Road and the Damned is one of the most profusely touching songs Coheed and Cambria have ever attempted, fueled by a lovely string arrangement, without all the syrup of ballads like Wake Up.
On The Brink further expands their influences, and harkens back to Pink Floyd on more than one occasion. Deliberately slow and forced, Sanchez takes the lead again with beautiful vocals against an otherwise mostly empty canvas. The ending is no less spectacular, bringing you back to one of the band’s now famous themes for one final jam.
As always with the band, Sanchez and Stever are the focal points, trading off ferocious guitar licks and solos. What’s new is how well incorporated Todd and Pennie are in the overall sound. Todd has always been a great bassist, but he really shines here, especially on track like
The Running Free, where his funk-tastic bass grooving keeps the song from becoming filler. Pennie, the band’s newest member, fits in perfectly, and while he never tries to steal the show from the guitars, he still is given ample room to provide some great beats.
Of course, it really wouldn’t be a Coheed and Cambria review if I didn’t speak of the lyrics. They are every bit as climactic as you would expect from the final chapter in a five-album concept suite, and end the story in a fitting (if tragic) way. I would hate to spoil the story for any of you die-hards, so I’ll refrain from giving any specifics. I’ll just say this: So much of the story comes from Claudio’s delivery, and he is absolutely wonderful here, conveying every emotion flawlessly, and when the story finally comes to an end, you might feel crushed, but what you’ll really get from the record is an overwhelming feeling of hope.
No World For Tomorrow is a bit rougher around the edges than From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness was, but that’s just one of the many charms of the record. Though the world is falling apart around them (both in terms of concept and personal struggles) they have licked their wounds, bandaged their scrapes, and presented us with a powerful conclusion to their sci-fi epic.
