Coheed’s frontman lobs another thematic curveball.

The Prize Fighter Inferno - My Brother’s Blood Machine
Posted by Tim Karan on 01-Mar-07 @ 12:59 PM

[3/5] If you're among the many fans blown away by Coheed And Cambria's music but still puzzled by the elaborate sci-fi concept that ties together the band's albums, singer/guitarist Claudio Sanchez's solo project, the Prize Fighter Inferno, isn't going to make your understanding any easier. Written and recorded in spurts over the four years from Coheed's debut to the present, My Brother's Blood Machine simultaneously ties together (the "Blood Machine" is a reference from 2003's In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3) and adds new, as-yet-unfinished chapters to the Coheed saga. Musically speaking, the only thing uniting the two projects is Sanchez's singing-melodically complex and immediately identifiable, his falsetto infuses Blood Machine with the same warmth and drama found in the best Coheed material, while his deft guitar playing and warm electronic programming place the album in a confusing sonic netherworld between 1970s pastoral folk ("The Fight Of Moses Early & Sir Arthur McCloud"), burbling indie electronica ("Who Watches The Watchmen?"), and Michael Jackson's Off The Wall ("The Margretville Town Dance"). It's a testament to the power of track sequencing that the album's songs flow together at all, let alone into something resembling an album-although when the saga finally comes together, My Brother's Blood Machine may reveal itself as a series of rabbit holes instead. (EQUAL VISION) Aaron Burgess

Rocks Like: Headphones' Headphones • The Postal Service's The District Sleeps Alone Tonight EP • Bert Jansch's The Black Swan


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