If you were forced to live on a desert island with only a record/CD player, what albums would you take with you? I've played this game a hundred times, both online and IRL. I think I have my list pretty well figured out at this point, but since we've got a whole year together on this here blog, I figure this will give me a little more space to explain my picks.
Coheed and Cambria put out a new album in October, The Color Before the Sun. It was the band's first album set in "reality," which was a change of pace from the previous seven that took place in Heaven's Fence, the setting of Claudio Sanchez's epic (or overblown, depending on your perspective) story called The Amory Wars. Not that there wasn't a touch of reality in each of Coheed's conceptual records, but it was obscured ever so slightly by grand tales of space combat and the love shared between two androids whose son is destined to save the universe.
I've gone deep on Coheed and Cambria before and could easily do it a dozen times over, but that's not the purpose of this post. The purpose is to explain why I'd bring certain albums with me on a desert island, and the reason I'm bringing Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness (*takes deep breath*) is because of all Coheed and Cambria albums, this is the most Coheed and Cambria album.
Prior to Good Apollo I, one of the coolest things Coheed and Cambria did well was create huge-sounding records without a whole lot of extra atmosphere or background effects. The combination of Sanchez's high vocal register and the band's impressive musical dexterity created the expansive universe they aimed for - all with the added mystery of whatever story could be interpreted from Sanchez's cryptic yet relatable emo poetry. When you can just add a whole bunch of guitar reverb and soaring vocal harmonies, who needs a whole bunch of synths and strings?
Hey wow cool, check out those synths and strings! And the OVERDRIVE!
C&C probably started overdoing it with the keyboards and effects and such on the two albums that followed this one (Good Apollo II: No World for Tomorrow and Year of the Black Rainbow), but on Good Apollo I, they hit the sweet spot of musicianship, production and songwriting. A string quartet opening gives way to a lovely, spare acoustic number, which in turn leads into...well...this. Nobody is going to confuse "Welcome Home" with a stripped-down, raw piece of garage rock, but it's also not overcrowded with stuff as it churns ahead in all its grandeur.
That trend continues throughout this musically diverse track list. "Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial)" creates tension through its winding guitar riffs and powerful chorus. Same for "Apollo I: The Writing Writer," which opens with an eerie synth-and-keys soundscape but mostly thrives on its knotty interplay between the guitars and rhythm section. "The Suffering" is a classic Coheed pop song with better production, as is the quintessential emo love ballad "Wake Up." The whole of the Willing Well suite is 28 minutes of excellent guitar work, catchy vocal stretches, creative drumming, and well-placed electronic flourishes, concluding in a desolate-sounding number that sounds like an apocalyptic Pink Floyd.
You have to be willing to take some steps backward in maturity to enjoy Coheed and Cambria, in particular this album. You're about to absorb a mass of music that sets the stage for the third chapter in an unabashedly geeky space opera that, essentially, is about the lead singer getting dumped. If you can accept this, or choose to ignore it, you'll be rewarded in spades with a fantastic set of songs that is all over the musical map, and one of the best guitar albums of the new millennium.
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