Coheed And Cambria - Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. 2: No World For Tomorrow

by Simon T Diplock

Prog-rock big-wigs collapse on album number four

"After ten years of living with such a weighty concept and difficult sound it simply sounds like the inspiration, the motivation, and the actual point of it all have dried up and disappeared."

Coheed And Cambria are a spent force. They’re over. Finished. Seriously, stick a fork in them, they’re done. And their new album - the pompous, soulless, dismal, dry and ridiculously-titled ‘Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. 2: No World For Tomorrow’ - proves it.

Things are rocky from the off. Where it feels like there should be a grand or beguiling entrance, ‘The Reaping’ sits, tired and throwaway. Where it should pick up the pieces and kick up the gears, the title track sounds distant and flabby and where these boys used to really rock, even the heaviest thing here descends into the sort of ugly, tacky sounds Bon Jovi would make covering the nearest slice of manufactured pop. None of it is complete shit but, especially when put up against Coheed’s own back catalogue, it is tedious and absolutely uninspired. Hell, there aren’t even any grand departures to blame, no giant risks that haven’t paid off; instead it simply feels like guitarist, frontman and brains of the outfit Claudio Sanchez doesn’t really care anymore.

With personal demons, shaky relationships and line up shuffles to deal with while recording, Sanchez may be forgiven for not having his mind completely on the job. But it’s more likely that ten years and four records into a concept and a sound that must be truly hard work to live with, the inspiration, the motivation and the point have disappeared. At least if the songs here are anything to go by, whatever creative juices once powered Coheed And Cambria so vividly are long since dried up.

First single ‘No World For Tomorrow’ is horrible, epic but tedious and stupid, ‘On The Brink’ runs through as many sounds in a minute as some bands manage over while albums but the noise is never once engaging, and there is just no way that new drummer, former Dillinger Escape Plan sticksman Chris Pennie, could be excited by the thought of ploughing though the most basic beats here for the next 18 months.

Despite initial plans to extend the story across five full-lengths this is apparently, thankfully, the last installment of the story Sanchez has so immersed himself in over the last few years. But the end should have come years ago though, because now the band, or rather the man, behind the tunes has pushed a once interesting conceptual premise too hard and a progressive musical flair too far. And this torrid chapter just isn’t worth investigating.

Chicago_fog said on November 12th 2007 [report abuse]

Wow! This guy is clueless! Coheed and Cambria left me speechless after their Chicago NOV.2 show. ...simply AMAZING! ...I was so curious as to who could have written this nonsense so I looked in to the author a bit...yeah that explains a lot... Consider the source here on this one folks..Seriously, Coheed & Cambria rock. I haven't been able to to play anything else on my 160gb ipod since I got this Album. Simply put: This CD is one of the best albums of the year.

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