Coheed And Cambria - Year Of The Black Rainbow Review

Coheed And Cambria are always at their finest when they’re being dramatic, and as such ‘Year Of The Black Rainbow’ is possibly their best record to date. Most notably, though, it’s definitely a prog-rock record, and it’s important to underline this as they’ve arguably only flirted with the genre so far. ‘Here We Are Juggernaut’ is one of the finest songs they’ve recorded. It’s so hugely anthemic and contains a whispered conversation between frontman Claudio Sanchez and one of the fictional characters invented for the script that inspires the band’s music. All of which sounds a bit pompous, as does the fact that the special edition of this album features a 352-page novel, but it’s highly impressive that the ambitious, vivid nature of this record makes that seem entirely justified. Songs such as ‘In The Flame Of Error’ are so immersive, so expertly emotional and darkly affecting, it feels easy to join Sanchez in the fantasy he has created. Rock Sound looks forward to reading said novel, and will never tire of listening to this excellent fifth album from Coheed And Cambria....full text Coheed And Cambria has always been remarkable for the extended science-fiction tale that runs through its albums, one that’s also manifested as the comic-book series The Amory Wars (written by Coheed’s leader, Claudio Sanchez). But the band’s fifth full-length, Year Of The Black Rainbow, has higher aspirations: cinematic ones. The disc kicks off with “One,” an eerie, soundtrack-like instrumental that would feel right at home in a J-horror film. The rest of the album is similarly atmospheric, even when it colossally rocks. Reconciling its post-hardcore roots with the progressive-rock flourishes that have been eclipsing the band’s sound over the past couple albums, tracks like “Here We Are Juggernaut” and “World Of Lines” far outshine the recent output of Coheed’s closest peer, The Mars Volta—even when Year succumbs to its own gravity about halfway through. Still, bending the tonal and narrative demand of Amory—whose prequel is presented here—into an intricate, melodic, ultimately anthemic album couldn’t have been a breeze, but Sanchez and crew have dovetailed their two massive ambitions into an effortless, seamless whole. Now, with a novelized version of Year being released in conjunction with the CD, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that a film version could surface at some point. And even if it doesn’t, the disc’s widescreen scope makes such an epic easy to picture....full text So, in the process of writing this review, I wrote at least 4 different introductory paragraphs TRYING to come up with something epic enough to represent how incredibly badass Year of the Black Rainbow is, but the best I came up with was an image of Claudio Sanchez holding up a machine gun guitar and blasting apart Nazis that may have been zombies. Seeing as how I am not a skilled enough artist/photoshopper to actually put this mind-blowing picture together, this could very well be totally worthless. However, all is not lost: just imagine that picture in your head, and you’ll find a pretty good place to rest your thoughts as to how Year of the Black Rainbow sounds.

In all honesty, you can also find a pretty easy sketch of the album by thinking back to his solo project, The Prize Fighter Inferno. A lot will be made of the album’s more electronic/industrial sound being caused by Chris Pennie’s input, but a lot of the sounds can be traced back pretty definitively to that side projects sound. In A+ B = C terms, it’s In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 plus My Brother’s Blood Machine. For fans of the hair-metal of No World For Tomorrow and who were expecting even more bombastic arena-filling riffs and choruses, this may come as a slight disappointment. To older fans of Coheed…well, at least there isn’t a song like “Justice in Murder” here. The shift to a more pop-industrial sound is probably going to be just as controversial as either of the Good Apollo’s shifts in sound....full text