Mind Noise Network
Coheed And Cambria - The Color Before The Sun
by Amarpal Singh - 2 November 2015
It's not a secret that with a lot of rock and metal fans there is a sub-set of geek-sheik. Just look at Avenged Sevenfold and Iron Maiden. We love our fantasy of hell, torture and lands beyond. Many rock stars such as Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance and Tom DeLonge formally of Blink 182 have side projects which have worked within the comic book and animation industry. Well if modern rock artists are now getting into the trend of comic book adventures then Coheed And Cambria were snap-backs before they came back.
The name Coheed And Cambria comes from the two protagonists in The Amory Wars. Now I could spend several reviews on only brief aspects of The Amory Wars as it is as detailed and as good as anything out of Middle Earth.
All previous albums prior to The Color Before The Sun were concept albums describing each chapter in The Amory Wars, and that my friends is where Coheed and Cambria get there magic from. Now I have sat around many alcohol drenched pub tables and argued with my friends over which was the most epic battle; Minas Tirth or Helms Deep. And yet, it is always agreed that both battles were epic. The strength of Coheed's music comes from the insane epicness you can hear in each song. Now the correct phrase for this type of music is "terminally climactic form". However, I like to call it, unbelievably epic epicness from beyond the exploding stars. Which is a far catchier saying if I do say so myself.
Imagine a rock band playing epic songs as Orks battled Elves in Middle Earth. That is what you get with this band and most obviously with their most successful song Welcome Home. Some songs even have secret codes at the end that directly link back to The Amory Wars directly. The difference with The Color Before The Sun is it is the first of eight albums that is not a concept album and the songs have no place in The Amory Wars, and that is where the album suffers.
Gone is the epic nature of battling galactic warriors in a space tornado with stars covered in electric barbed wire and what has appeared from the ashes is just...rock music. That's the most annoying thing. The album isn't terrible at all but compared to their old work which have this amazing fantasy aspect to it, the album fails in comparison.
The album opens with Island which goes to show the strength of Coheed with the beautifully powerful voice of Claudio Sanchez and the power pop-rock guitar power chords of Travis Stever. The next song Eraser could even go so far as to be classed as pop-punk which is a far more upbeat feeling than we have ever had from them before. The jewel of the album comes in the form of track six with Atlas which does contain all the hallmarks of classic epic Coheed and even pays off with the passion leaking into your ears.
In summary, this is an album which is a really good rock album but not a really good Coheed album. I understand that there must be pressures on churning out both collectively a new album and chapter of The Amory Wars but without both present, neither can assist the other and the major selling point of Coheed, the passion, is simply lost.
Amarpal's recommended tracks: Atlas & Welcome Home.
For fans of: Black Veil Brides and Avenged Sevenfold
Can you see these guys in the UK?: There's a few dates with the mighty Glassjaw:
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