Following 2015's non-conceptual Color of the Sun in 2015 and a world tour, Coheed and Cambria returned to the Amory Wars storyline with 2018's Vaxis I: The Unheavenly Creatures - the first entry in a projected five-part saga. 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness, 2010's Year of the Black Rainbow, 2013's The Afterman: Descension. The group's lofty ambitions resulted in Top Ten albums including 2007's Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. Since their 2002 debut, The Second Stage Turbine Blade, all but one recording has been conceptual in nature, parts of Sanchez's vast science-fiction concept, the Amory Wars. They are led by songwriter, guitarist, vocalist, chief conceptualist, and author/illustrator Claudio Sanchez.
I might not suggest this album as a jumping-on point for new listeners, but if you've already acquired a taste for Coheed, this album will almost certainly satisfy your craving and then some.Coheed and Cambria are a New York rock band whose music incorporates elements of progressive rock, pop, heavy metal, and post-hardcore, rife with tight hooks, clever lyrics, and imaginative sounds. This is a band that refuses to rest on its laurels and continues to push itself in strange new directions. Maybe not every song was ready for prime time, but even the arguable failures are more interesting than most other bands' successes This album doesn't feel like it comes from a band that's tired or repeating itself. If anything, this comes off as almost too much unbridled ambition, and really, unbridled ambition has always been Coheed's defining feature. That said, this doesn't come off as laziness. Not every song feels like it's pulling its weight and earning its spot in the 1.3-hour run-time, and so the pacing of the album takes a pretty rough hit. However, I feel like the cost of all this productive experimentation is that the album feels a little bloated. A lot of these songs are some of the best work they've ever done. As for the music itself, it's definitely some of their most ambitious work in years, but with great ambition comes great risk. One could even see it as the spark that inspired this new pentalogy. In that way, not only does the "Vaxis" storyline seem to have a lot of fresh personal experience for Claudio to mine from, it makes "The Color Before the Sun" even more of a turning point in their discography and makes it feel like less of a diversion. He is now a new father tasked with building a future for his child. Claudio is no longer the lost child trying to find himself. That said, the change in perspective is interesting.
However, unlike "Second Stage Turbine Blade", which attempted to weave a sprawling and still very much unrefined mythology, "Unheavenly Creatures" focuses more squarely on the relationships of the characters and the story (which I have yet to read the novelization of) seems focused on a straightforward space station prison break. Once again, we have a story that seems focused on the progeny of two doomed lovers, and once again the first album is more focused on the tale of the lovers than on the progeny himself (but with four more albums, I'm guessing we'll have plenty of time to get to know the titular Vaxis later on). Long-time fans will find a lot of familiar smells, story-wise. If, in your mind, "Year of the Black Rainbow" felt too over-produced and forgettable, if "The Afterman" felt too scattershot, or if "The Color If, in your mind, "Year of the Black Rainbow" felt too over-produced and forgettable, if "The Afterman" felt too scattershot, or if "The Color Before the Sun" felt too terrestrial, "Vaxis - Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures" should feel like a return to form for Coheed and Cambria.
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