It's easy to make comparisons between Coheed and Cambria's new album, Year of the Black Rainbow, and their previous efforts: that it's a departure from the prog sound they adopted in 2007's No World for Tomorrow, that it's way more tightly produced and in your face than their first two albums, that it lacks the instrumental hooks of Good Apollo, while seemingly shifting much of the melodic emphasis to the vocals. But in the first few seconds of "The Broken," after you're assaulted by a fleshy metal riff, topped by Claudio's distinctive vocals, you know it's still Coheed at its finest. Coheed's fifth album comes off as more polished but certainly no less refined, the logical culmination of a sound that somehow seems to thwart attempts at classification.
Coheed and Cambria combines two things that I love: rock music and science fiction. (The first which makes me cool, the latter which makes me extremely uncool.) Their five albums (to date, hopefully) chronicle an epic science fiction saga, conceived by frontman Claudio Sanchez and illustrated in a series of graphic novels. This essentially makes Coheed's work a step beyond the concept album; seeing as all of their material to date is related to this story, Coheed and Cambria is a concept band. (Take that, Springsteen!) As a result, their songs haven't always made sense but can be interpreted in any number of ways, from the profound and open ended ("In your last hour stand / you'll notice / the one that you have loved in dreams / is here among the others") to things that are seemingly profound, but aren't ("You may be invited / But you're not coming in"), to the absurd ("Die white girl! / Die white girl!")
The sound is definitely fuller and denser because of the addition of Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie, but the real change in sound comes in production. By enlisting Nine Inch Nails producer Atticus Ross, the band took a step away from the prog direction and has cultivated a sound that sounds more like their sound before No World for Tomorrow with a bit of an industrial infusion. This is evident on tracks like "Far" and "Here We Are Juggernaut," which sound more produced, more enhanced, more artificial. The album sounds powerful, not really like getting punched in the face, but more like having your head held underwater. At times it can be overwhelming, but never off-putting, as long as you are accustomed to Claudio's vocals, which have been known to turn many away.
The biggest complaint I have with Year of the Black Rainbow is the lack the instrumentals sections that punctuated the band's previous albums. Yes, there are guitar solos a-plenty, but there are precious few of the long riffs and more technical and vocal-free passages that were one of Coheed's unique attributes. There is no track like "2113" on Year of the Black Rainbow, and I feel that absence is the album's dark matter; something that feels like it should be there but can't be found.
I hate to give out a number of stars or some other form of conventional rating. I would equate this to a food, seeing as I seem to have some bizarre form of synesthesia, but I have already determined that Coheed and Cambria is a Passover Seder. All I can say is that I would order seconds.
