Coheed and Cambria: ‘Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV’
Dan DaranciangGood Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV
For fans of: Rush, The Mars Volta
Grade: 4/5 stars
Bottom Line: Some of the best progressive rock since its heyday in the 1980s.
In recent years, prog has made a sudden and unexpected comeback, with the likes of Coheed and Cambria and The Mars Volta leading the push. Some were probably happy to see it die off after such highlights as 1981′s “Moving Pictures,” the seminal Rush album, but for those that missed science fiction-themed lyrics, high-pitched vocals, and songs that last half an hour, this boom is certainly welcome. “Good Apollo” furthers the four-part space-opera epic that Coheed and Cambria has been building over their past two albums, and it shows the progression of the band into more and more of a progressive rock sound.
After starting with an emo-ish and slightly progressive sound, mainly because of lead singer Claudio Sanchez’s channeling of the not yet dead Geddy Lee’s soul, Coheed and Cambria has become increasingly obsessed with sweeping guitar solos and odd instrumentation. This obviously worked for them given the success of “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth,” and it continues to do the band well. Instrumentally, this is the same Coheed and Cambria that people have come to expect, with clean guitars, cymbal-heavy drums and lots of falsetto.
The album starts off slowly with gentle violins playing the theme last heard in “The Ring in Return,” moving into the soft and sweet “Always & Never,” which is so bubbly that there are even baby noises in the background. From there the album kicks into full speed on “Welcome Home” and is quite unrelenting from that point on. The songs flow nicely from one to another and manage to avoid getting stale, which can be a bit of a problem when the average length of a song is a little under five minutes. The album ends with a four-part song that is essentially a subplot within the larger context of the album, which will just be candy for already sated prog fans. The album never becomes something spectacular because it just continues the path that Coheed and Cambria has already been following, but given the style and story that they have been building over the past two albums, anything else would have been a disappointment.
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