GOOD APOLLO, I'M BURNING STAR IV, VOLUME TWO - NO WORLD FOR TOMORROW

My first experience with COHEED AND CAMBRIA was not entirely successful. Though I gave their album "In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth" a 3-star rating, it was mostly out of promise, as the music really disappointed me after the first few good tracks, gradually turning into a emo-punk-pop bore fest. For some strange reason I decided to buy their latest record, "No World for Tomorrow" (the name is actually longer than that), and I'm quite happy to say the band has addressed many of the issues present in their previous work.

First of all, the vocals, which still sound very similar to other bands like THE MARS VOLTA, seem to have matured now. The tone of course is the same, but they're deployed in a much less annoying way, with more restraint, with less of that emotional (emo) vibe that they had in their earlier records. The singer sings more and whines less, which only helps to create a better experience.

But the most important change can be found in the music itself. If their preceding records still reminded me of an MTV program featuring emo-pop-punk bands, COHEED AND CAMBRIA have almost (there's still a little bit of it here and there) stripped themselves completely off that emo tag, now sounding much, much more like a true progressive-art-rock outfit. The whole album now is full of progressive references, not just the first tracks. It's easy now to detect influences like PINK FLOYD in the music, especially in the last track, "The End Complete V: On the Brink", and the riffs have also gotten much more complex, at times even getting close to progressive-metal territory. Even when the album is at its most "pop", in the infectiously catchy song "The Running Free", it never sounds trivial or blatantly commercial. It just sounds catchy. The "Oh Oh Oh Oh" that constitutes the chorus (or third section actually) of this track is really an idea that gets repeated throughout the whole disc, which helps to build a much more credible, coherent concept album.

The musicianship is still stellar. It was never a problem to begin with, but now, with better music, it shines even brighter. All in all, a far superior effort by COHEED AND CAMBRIA that's still not perfect (a few songs sound too similar to each other; the central part of the record is not as brilliant as the first five and last 3 tracks) but in general, this is a success story. With a little bit more development, I'm sure this band has what it takes to come up with a truly fantastic album. For now, 4 stars would do just fine.

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