Coheed and Cambria revert to old and ordinary

Imagine a filet mignon, dripping with juices, cooked exactly the way you like it.

You’ve had a long history with this dish, and you know how it’s supposed to taste. Every restaurant gives it different seasoning, but in the end, it’s still filet mignon. 

Yet this time, when you go to take the first delectable bite, you find out it isn’t filet mignon, but an impostor! Your filet mignon is really a slab of tofu, bland and lifeless, only shaped to resemble the real thing.

Unfortunately, this is exactly the case with Coheed and Cambria’s latest (and final) release, Year of the Black Rainbow. In a series of five collections detailing “The Amory Wars”, an epic tale about love, treachery, and the characters from which the band’s name is taken, Rainbow is last. It is the band’s final release overall, which, looking at an evidently declining pattern of musical quality, may be good for it. 

 The band is well known for its unique style, which includes front man Claudio Sanchez’s high-pitched vocals and the progressive-emo guitar stylings. However, instead of simply changing the “flavor” for this work, it seems C & C have presented us with something different altogether: a less-inspired, less-ingenuous jiggling brick of tofu. 

This is not to say that it isn’t a “good” album. To the contrary, there are some great hooks, some provocative lyrics, and a few rad instrumental sections. These are things a music lover can definitely support. “Here we are Juggernaut” might be one of the better songs I have heard from the progressive-rock genre lately; however, these are just not things Coheed and Cambria lovers can support. Nothing here can match the highpoints of previous works. 

The album opens unspectacularly with “One,” a song mediocre in both lyrical content and style. It is musically sufficient, but, like much of the work, will take lots of listening before it can become familiar to listeners’ ears. From there, the songs progress solidly but nothing really jumps out. Instead of sounding like a great band’s final work, it sounds like the naïve first dabble or maybe a rushed sophomore production. 

One good thing about this album might be its ability to reconcile storytelling with popular music; it’s much easier to jump into without having heard the story or the other works than perhaps the last two albums have been. These, although starkly better in sheer catchiness and appealing guitar work, were at times mired in the storytelling so new listeners felt nerd-tastic or out of the loop. The lyrics from Black Rainbow are vastly more universally applicable. 

I am not into prog-rock, but I really dig Coheed and Cambria’s earlier stuff. Sanchez’s high voice has something crazily wonderfully captivating about it, making their more unique songs stand out to a ridiculous extent. If you want some classic, catchy, infectious C & C, start with “Favor House Atlantic,” from their Silent Earth (second release), or “Welcome Home” from Good Apollo (third release). Better yet, listen to the whole albums. 

As a caution, I would urge a new listener not to pick up this album. Only seasoned C & C fans have a chance of really liking this work, which is a crying shame, but the first three albums are absolutely sure to get one hooked. After all, who wants to carve into tofu for their first filet experience?