What is that to you - coherence?

After I accepted that, I started wondering - what does that mean, coherence? Inside a song or track, I can imagine one expects the use of matching chords, and perhaps (but optional) a recognisable set of choruses and verses. 

Across an album, however, what do we expect there? Is it required to have matching songs, in terms of chords, structure and feel? If that is the case, wouldn't a lot of albums become very boring? Or, the other way round, aren't a lot of albums pretty much incoherent? Or is an album incoherent if it mixes elements from different genres or styles in what (some) people consider the wrong way? 

There are many options, and I'm pretty sure that I never consiously take it into account when reviewing. All I can imagine is that if styles or genres are mixed in the wrong way, I'd recognise it - for example by recognising how Hooks in You as a straight forward hard rock track doesn't match the rest of Marillion's Holidays in Eden album. That makes the album incoherent, perhaps, but not necessarily bad. I could hold the same reasoning for You Know What I Like on Genesis' Selling England by the Pound, which is a completely different beast than Firth of Fifth and the Dancing with the Moonlit Knight. Then again, there are elements in these tracks that match the rest of the album - the typical guitar sounds of Rothery and Hackett for instance.

Some albums have a uniform style of play, use of instruments, etc while others have a narrow or broad range of style.

A need for a particular degree of coherence may be more of a personal preference, i'd guess.  I haven't heard Corvus Stone II yet.  It's on my list. :)  I wonder if I will have the same reaction.

Would love a list of 'incoherent' albums so I may understand what others think this looks like.

I think this has as much to do with what one expects of the given album but also what one has come to expect from certain genres. 

Coherence, or lack there of, can also merely stand for how the whole thing comes together, so to speak. An album can feel like a mess and still be as slick as a baby's bottom and vice versa. 

Maybe, and I'm merely speculating here, the folks who made this comment about the new Corvus Stone felt a lack of coherence due to the music being recorded separately in various countries and not together as band in the studio? Like I said, I'm only speculating.

That's an interesting view. So Into the Electric Castle is incoherent, but still good, by your definition? Actually, that is not a bad example - that album contains music composed by different people as well (not everything was done by Arjan himself) that was brought together into one album. Maybe Ayreon's debut is an even better example, with a death metal piece next to the renaissance sound of Ye Courtyard Minstrel Boy. 

Some albums actually feel coherent because of the way they overtly display an incoherent approach to the music (that made sense in my head).

Yes, of course! Epping Forest is an even better example than I Know What I Like.  <-- Where's facepalm when you need him?

Not sure if prog doesn't fit any genre, but it's supposed to 'progress' from those genres, right? That means change the rules, or bend them - I tend to agree.

Thanks, Thanos.

Errmmm.... yes, that is abstract, but it works for me. :)