The disc starts off with "Pretelethal", a mysterious, mythical tune that evokes the sounds of The Mars Volta with frontman Claudio Sanchez's voice running rampant throughout the song and allowing the song to billow in intensity all the way throughout as the instrumentation grows stronger until it's filled to capacity. "Key Entity Extraction V: Sentry the Defiant" is an expansive, cohesive rocker that picks up the storyline from the previous album and allows the listener to pick up where the last one left off, and continue in the saga of their long running The Amory Wars series, in which this is a prequel to the storylines explored in Coheed's earlier works which might seem a little bit confusing to some, but you'll grow to understand it a little better as you're listening along to the record. My favorite track off the album is "The Hard Sell" an intense, melodic juggernaut that has the perfect combination of incessant guitar riffs and Claudio's high impact vocals making this an all around perfect track and represents the overall sound of the disc as a whole and what it's trying to achieve. "Number City" picks up the melodic spillover of the prior track into an intense, all hands on deck affair that completely lacks the will to die and just increases in intensity as the album rolls along.
The album's second half features "Away We Go" a downtempo, mellowed out rocker that allows us to take a little breather from the high intensity energy featured in the first half, and allows us to see the band in a different light and what their true capabilities are as musicians going forward in the second half. "Iron Fist" features an intricate, acoustic guitar melody that displays Claudio's interchangeable vocals that can reach falsetto length and drop down to a mere, mellow whisper within a matter of seconds, something that is extremely rare in this day of age. The disc gets ready to close up shop with "Dark Side of Me", a dark, ominous tune that begins the end of another chapter in the ongoing Amory Wars storyline that gets more expansive and complex over time. The album ultimately draws to a close on "2's My Favorite 1", a track that brings together all the musical elements that we heard in succession after one another, and presents us an encapsulated overview of the album as a whole, and what we've experienced by listening to the album together as a perspective listening audience. Coheed and Cambria have been one of my favorite bands for almost 10 years now, after first hearing "In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3", I was immediately intrigued by the band's ability to weave a complex storyline within their music that made you appreciate that much more what the band brought to the table musically and put it on a plate for you that seemed a bit complex at first, but the more you listened to it, the more you came to grasp what the band was trying to tell you through story.
All in all, another terrific entry in the ongoing saga of Coheed and Cambria and their tale of The Amory Wars, a band that is wholly unique in their ability to weave a comic book like tale within the vain of progressive rock that will have you listening all the way throughout to get a full scope of what is going on between the characters in the story.
Album Score: 4/5
Track Listing:
- Pretelethal
- Key Entity Extraction V: Sentry the Defiant
- The Hard Sell
- Number City
- Gravity's Union
- Away We Go
- Iron Fist
- Dark Side of Me
- 2's My Favorite 1
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