Coheed and Cambria - Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures

If it weren’t for the genuinely enthralling heaviness of the epic symphonic metal banger, “Welcome Home”, Coheed and Cambria probably wouldn’t really find themselves talked about all too much in metal circles. They’ve had a few other flashes of metallic vigor since then, like “The Broken” and “Here We Are Juggernaut”, but for the most part, Claudio Sanchez and his instrumental company have focused on providing a mostly pop/proggy (and only slightly metal) backing to Sanchez’ ongoing comic series, The Armory Wars. The band’s momentary break from scoring the series on 2015’s The Color Before the Suntook a surprisingly successful and emotive turn for the poppier after the seemingly forced pre-prequel double release, The Afterman.

The band are back to the lore of The Armory Wars on this new album whose lengthy title I’m just going to avoid writing, and with their longest effort to date at almost 80 minutes.

The lead single, “The Dark Sentencer” launches into a blood-pumping beat and chant-driven prog metal opus after the album’s spoken word prologue. It’s expansive, but it does lose its steam pretty quickly and doesn’t really do enough to justify its length. The plincky electronic intro of “Unheavenly Creatures” leads into a standard poppy post-punk cut the band made their name on, one that feels like it would be at home in Hot Topic, but not quite as cringy as the music it would probably be surrounded by on the playlist. The album moves on to its second-longest song “Toys”, which does a bit more to maintain its energy, with a somewhat theatrical drum crash intro leading into the kind of skilfully sung emotionally tinged alternative rock/post-punk anthem that I enjoy hearing from the genre, supplememted well with a melodic solo and wrapped up well with the song’s empathetic chorus.

The song “Black Sunday” plunges the album into darker waters, but quickly adjusts to the colder temperatures with the band’s more familiar, tempered approach to this kind of heaviness. The grand, heavenly sung outro ends the song on an unexpected, but definitely appreciated, cathartic note. The subsequent “Queen of the Dark” rides a floor tom beat through a growing atmosphere of uneasy guitar echoes and distortion. “True Ugly” leans again toward the band’s post-punk tendencies, with an emphasis on the punk with the driving snare beat keeping the song adrenalized. Not that the band don’t dip into their diva-ish melodies at some points to break it up, though they don’t necessarily dip into their best reserve of those melodies. I found the repetitive bridge to be a little unconstructive, but luckily it doesn’t stick around too long before the song “Love Protocol” relieves it of its duty with another soaring chorus that would get even the most lovesick emo to lift their chin a little.

Moving on to “The Pavilion (A Long Way Back)”, the band again crank out another infectious, soulful alt rock chorus that takes me back to the best days of that style in a rush of lighter-waving melodies. The electro-tinged “Night-Time Walkers” is a bit more dragged out and less passionate than the long string of heartstring-pulling cuts before it does end on a more emotive note, and the following introductory piano of the emo metal cut “The Gutter” kickstarts the album’s teeming guitar-cruch-driven and gang-screamed declaration of confidence, reinforced by the angelic soloing surrounding the “maybe over my dead body” refrain.

The song “All on Fire” is one of the milder new-proggy alt metal cuts on the album, but not so low of a slump it drags the album down too far to disrupt its momentum. No, the song “It Walks Among Us” does a bit more damage with a hollow punk rock attitude and a vocal delivery I just can’t dissociate from Chad Kroeger. I’m sure that’s not what the band were intending, but the rest of the song is pretty autopilot and doesn’t do enough to draw my attention toward something notably positive. The album is picked back up from this one-two punch of staleness by the much more feelsy melody of the alternative emo rock of “Old Flames”, which eventually concludes with a unifying repetition of emotive “na na nas”.

The album’s last song, “Lucky Stars”, wraps everything up with the calmest display of sentimental balladry on the album, not the most convincing display of it, with songs like “Always & Never” bringing a lot more raw emotion to this kind of ballad. It’s a welcome cool down, though, and one that the band certainly deserves.

This is probably the most consistently metallic I’ve heard Coheed stick to in a while, but also the most vibrantly emotional and unashamed music surrounding The Armory Wars in a while. The break from the story they took in 2015 must have been just what they needed to recalibrate and put their best foot forward on The Armory Wars, because this is quite possibly one of the band’s most consistent and well-constructed albums, if not their best, rivaling the mighty Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: Fear Through the Eyes of Madness. I mean, damn, this album is the stylistic nostalgia trip I didn’t know I wanted. Why the fuck in my mid-twenties do I like this so much. Bravo, Coheed, bravo. I thought I’d be reluctant for this and a potential second volume, but you have me looking forward to a follow-up.