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Bloat for bloat, Coheed finally match their dinosaur-rock influences

Coheed And Cambria - Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume 2: No World For Tomorrow
Alternative Press - Rachel Lux on 1/16/08 @ 12:46 PM - altpress.com

[3/5] Until recently, the biggest source of tension in Coheed And Cambria's world was literally a figment of frontman Claudio Sanchez's imagination: How to resolve the final chapter of his George Lucas-besting four-part concept-album saga. Last year, however, when the band's rhythm section split... Well, okay: It barely had an impact on the direction Coheed were heading. Because for a band who've drawn so many comparisons to prog-rock heavyweights Rush, Coheed have long had one of the most predictable rhythm sections in rock. Drummer Josh Eppard and bassist Michael Todd weren't a weak team, mind you; they just played it safer than the presumed polyrhythmic influences of John Bonham/John Paul Jones, Neil Peart/Geddy Lee and Mike Portnoy/John Myung would indicate.

Anyway, all of that's been set to change with No World For Tomorrow. Though Todd eventually rejoined Coheed in time to record the album, he found himself doing so alongside two of the most formidable drummers in rock. In the studio, it was Taylor Hawkins, the only man Dave Grohl trusts enough to fill Foo Fighters' drum chair; and it's new full-time member Chris Pennie, whose brain-bending work in the Dillinger Escape Plan had defined the term "math metal" since 1997. Both drummers are probably playing beneath their abilities behind Todd, Sanchez and lead guitarist Travis Stever, but the impact they've made on the band's direction is... Well, okay, it's not immediately noticeable here, either. What gives?

Hence the problem with No World For Tomorrow. Produced by Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Stone Sour, Velvet Revolver), Coheed's fourth album simply doesn't deliver on the suspense (Star producer! Ace drummers! Cliffhanger storyline!) that's been loaded into it. Where 2005's From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness reconciled Coheed's '70s-prog influences with their emo handicap to deliver not only powerful songwriting, but also memorable singles, No World finds the band drifting further into the dinosaur-rock muck. And though they've emerged with late-period Who keyboard licks ("The Hound (Of Blood And Rank)") and leftover Asia and Alan Parsons Project riffs ("Feathers"), Sanchez & Co. have lost something of themselves in the process. The title track, with its harmony leads and syncopated, economical riffs, and the driving, unashamedly poppy "Radio Bye Bye" (part two of a 26-minute, five-part suite) are classic Coheed; but the tracks they support too often sound like the band raiding their record collections for inspiration and not being able to agree on whose stuff trumps the rest.

All bands have their "difficult album," and with a monster back catalog and a newly revitalized lineup to support it (to say nothing of a rabid, unblinking fanbase that's probably drafting hate mail to AP as you read this), Coheed are poised to eclipse any present shortcomings. And even though it's never been necessary to understand Sanchez's lyrical storyline to enjoy Coheed's music (at this point, you're better off not trying), it's sort of poetic that the band would enter this phase just as their frontman's fictional universe was drawing to a close. (COLUMBIA/EQUAL VISION) Aaron Burgess

ROCKS LIKE
Asia's Asia
The Alan Parsons Project's I, Robot
Rush's Roll The Bones

WEBSITE: coheedandcambria.com
RELEASE DATE: Oct. 23

TRACKLISTING
1. The Reaping
2. No World For Tomorrow
3. The Hound (Of Blood And Rank)
4. Feathers
5. The Running Free
6. Mother Superior
7. Gravemakers And Gunslingers
8. Justice And Murder
The End Complete
9. I -The Fall Of House Atlantic
10. II - Radio Bye Bye
11. III - The End Complete
12. IV - The Road And The Damned
13. V - On The Brink

Official Website: http://www.equalvision.com



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