“The Phantom Menace of Rock Albums”
In the last ten years, thanks to the internet making all music easily accessible, it seems most acts are mash-ups or combinations of classic genres. Pop and rock music has become an inspirational free-for-all, and it’s quite exciting to see people paste together all these parts you normally think wouldn’t go together. All while creating fun catchy songs.
Coheed & Cambria exemplified this perfectly. They combined elements of pop, metal, rock (of the progressive variety), and indie to create music that was epic but accessible. Their “Amory Wars” tale (told in the lyrics through all their albums so far) gave hardcore fans an epic story to follow, but their songs were energetic and catchy enough where casual listeners could be let in.
I should probably state right now that I like C&C in spite of themselves. The “Amory Wars” story makes no sense and the Image comics depicting it (written by lead singer Claudio Sanchez himself) were lame. Best I can tell you is the main characters Coheed & Cambria are robots and then are killed by this other robot and their son tries to avenge them but it turns out he’s the Kwisatz Haderach and he has to fight the dark lord Xenu to release some alien souls…oh forget it.
My point is you didn’t have to know this to enjoy C&C’s songs, so you just kind of indulged them as they tried to fit everything in the structure they’d set up. Apparently the story has ended with the previous album “No World for Tomorrow”, so now we get a prequel to show how it all started in “Year of the Black Rainbow”.
A prequel? Would that make this the “Phantom Menace” of Coheed & Cambria albums? Y’know what, I’m gonna end that thought there.
“One” opens with what sounds like an orchestra warming up and delicate piano playing. I expect haunting intros from Coheed, but this one doesn’t leave much of an impression like their previous ones. It sounds like a robot whale singing through a sea of flange filters.
“The Broken” is the first proper song, and opens with the same Led Zeppelin march like their past hit “Welcome Home”. Is Sanchez going “Blah blah blah” at me during the chorus? I know he’s an overly wordy lyricist but it seems he’s just taking the piss now. Doesn’t seem so much a song as a mash-up of chants, screams, and guitar squealies.
“Guns of Summer” starts off with lightning fast drums and guitars with some synth growls. It sounds like Michael Todd’s bass is farting. The riff in the chorus has hints of vintage Coheed but not enough to make it memorable.
“Here We Are Juggernaut” suffers from the same problem. It feels like a big wall of white noise with Sanchez’s vocals washed in reverb. It made the riffs and rhythm a little difficult to discern. At the end of it I wasn’t sure what I had just listened to. This isn’t looking good so far.
“Far” opens with reverberating fuzz guitar and programming drum beats. Sanchez gets a little sweeter here in his singing. I want to call this a ballad, but it doesn’t have the tenderness of past ballads like “Wake Up”, or the build-up like “Mother Superior”. In fact this song has no build at all. It’s the rare “infinity song”, which since it has no build feels like it has no beginning and no end.
“This Shattered Symphony” has more lighting fast guitars and drums, with squawking guitars panned to the left. You remember when Eddie Van Halen would go at his guitar with a cordless drill to make a real wild-sounding solo?…Yea this is nothing like this. So far I’m not sure where Coheed is going with this.
“World of Lines” is the first song that approaches a memorable chorus and a memorable guitar riff, sounding almost like classic Coheed. It’s still way below the standard they’ve set for themselves though. Used to be you had catchy songs coming out of the wood work. Did their songs get infested with catchiness termites?
“Made of Nothing (All That I Am)” is certainly an apt title at this point, and maybe should’ve been what they called the album. So far I haven’t heard one catchy memorable song! I mean the chorus for this song kinda comes close, but it’s still not quite there. What the hell?
“Pearl of the Stars” starts out with acoustic guitars and more damn white noise! Stop it with the white noise! The electric guitars are washed in reverb again and sound like they might as well be a block down the road. I suppose this would be a good trance song, and those can be well done (“Disintegration” by The Cure is a great example), but this feels as directionless as anything else. Claudio sounds like he’s on fucking valium, and the song follows suit.
“In the Flame of Error” catches my attention with it’s opening lyric “I hate everything I’m becoming”. I know Sanchez is writing this “in character” but considering how sullen, tuneless, and self-loathing this album has sounded so far I’m wondering if he needs a hug and a warm piece of pie. The drums and guitars are quite furious on this one and feels like we’re getting closer to our goal, but it still feels like spastic thrashing instead of the purposeful songs of the past.
“When Skeletons Live” has a fairly memorable riff. Everything’s still caked in reverb but it feels like we’re getting somewhere. This is probably the most memorable song so far, so I guess you could call it my favorite (I guess).
Ugh, I don’t care anymore. The final track (the title track in fact) “The Black Rainbow” is long, droning, and has too much reverb. Even when the distortion kicks in it doesn’t up the energy of this song much. I’m wrapping this up.
What the heck happened Coheed? Everything I liked about you is NOT on this album. The catchy riffs, the sing along choruses, the pumped-up energetic rhythms, none of it! That’s the best way to describe this album: lack of energy.
I’ve heard from a few people that this record gets better on repeats listens, but with Coheed you didn’t NEED to do that. Their songs were so catchy they grabbed your attention right away and only got better from there. Even “No World for Tomorrow”, which was a VERY rear-heavy album, had more memorable songs in the first half than this entire record has.
Forget depressed, Claudio sounds like he’s falling asleep while singing. We can’t even get to the level of suicidally depressing because it’s just so DULL. You’d fall asleep from boredom before you even got the razor blade close to your wrist.
They finally complete the saga…and ultimately we don’t care.
My rating? Disappointing.
