A lot of my focus will not just be on the sounds and instruments, but the relation of this album to previous albums and also on Claudio Sanchez, singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the band. It's also fair to warn you ahead, in case you are yet aware, that this album continues the sci-fi story that Coheed and Cambria's music is infamous for.
I had some benefit beforehand of listening to the multiple singles that got released prior to this album release. Basically 1/3 of this album was at my disposal to listen to ahead of the official release of all 15 songs in one package. This kind of colored my impression of the album beforehand, but...well, let's just see what my general first impressions are of this album.
Prologue
Well it's nice to see some things don't change. Coheed has stuck with their album formula by starting this one with an atmospheric instrumental. This time it features rumbling whispered narration, setting up the basics of the storyline this album is to unfold. The instrument selection is both good and bad to me. While it's refreshing for Coheed to utilize both soft piano tunes as well as more synthesizers/electronic sounds in this album, it can feel like a drastic shift away from standard Coheed, being more like Claudio's side project Prize Fighter Inferno. But previous Coheed intros Pretelethal and Keeping the Blade were both awesome, and this one stands out like those do.
The Dark Sentencer
I made a comment on the Youtube video for this song that basically described this song as Domino the Destitute, a song from the band's Afterman Ascension album, if it was written for The Color Before the Sun album. This song, to me, is an example of cliche Coheed music as it currently stands. The tone of the guitars and vocals, and pacing of the drums and bass, sound pretty similar, almost too similar, to other songs in recent albums. It's supposed to be the hard hitting, 7 minute, prog rock opening anthem of the album, but it doesn't pump me up the way In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth 3 (IKSSE3) or...well, Domino does. It's also a tad slow for an anthem to me.Perhaps two other major crimes this song commits include: 1) Continual "Heys" in the beginning that feel purposefully manipulative so that audience members will chant that live in concert. Compare this to the actual IKSSE3 song, where the audience willingly shouts "Man your own jackhammer! Man your battle stations!" because it's a good part of the song and they voluntarily sing along because it's fun to shout. 2) The lines of "Welcome home" in the chorus also feels intentionally manipulative, giving a throwback shoutout to the band's most successful song ever.
Unheavenly Creatures
This song is kind of more new signature Coheed, representing the strengths and weaknesses of Coheed's music from the last four albums. I'll admit that it is super catchy and probably my favorite out of the singles. It has a pleasing tone, with a surprising start that highlights the electronic keyboard sounds that the band has brought in for this album. This song, even when the song goes hard rock, shows off Coheed's poppy and punkish side simultaneously. The downside to this song is that lyrically, and even to some extent instrumentally, it sounds like something that a high school band would write and perform, which was a critique I had with some of the songs on their album The Color Before the Sun (TCTBS). The odd thing is, I kind of want to hear what this song would sound like if Coheed performed it back in their Live at the Starland Ballroom days, when they were closer to high school age.
Toys
Here is where the album actually begins to truly catch my interest. This is the first song of the album that, to me, demonstrates Coheed's new standard in recent albums while also doing a sonic experiment in a different direction. The first minute or so is like Claudio making an attempt to replicate Justin Vernon's work as Bon Iver. Afterwards it's a Coheed flavored 80s hair metal power ballad. There's also a blazing guitar solo about 5 minutes in that's pretty fun.
Black Sunday
Can't say I'm too crazy about the name, but I actually enjoy the tone of the tune. It's menacing and grungy, drawn out like the nu-metal pieces of yore (meaning early 2000s). The bass and guitar have those sinister sounds that nu-metal was known for. Basically I'm saying this song truly stands out from the rest of the pack, while still maintaining a sense of standard Coheed and Cambria sounds. This truly feels like the progress of a band who made songs like Gravity's Union and The Audience.
Queen of the Dark
For the first half of the song, the instrumentals remind me of Coheed's performance of IRO-Bot at Neverender. In a good way. The pacing is somewhat slow, but there's something about the harsh fuzz on the guitar and the steady pacing of the drums and vocals that keep my attention. It's, as a the name may suggest, a dark sounding song, going for minor notes and lower register for Claudio's voice. The worst thing about this song to me is probably how repetitive the lyrics are (Claudio says Queen of the Dark probably a hundred times before the end).
True Ugly
Dang, this thing kicks off into high gear right out the gate! That snare drum and buzzing bass are in the driver's seat here. This is the kind of song that you blast out your windows as you blaze a trail down the highway. I can imagine this would be a fun song to jam out to seeing this band live. I can see this as the kind of song that flies under the radar for other Coheed fans, but remain an underrated gem in my eyes, similar to their This Shattered Symphony and Mothers of Men.
Love Protocol
This one demonstrates a kind of hybrid of classic Coheed and new Coheed. The plucky guitar and backing instrumentals in the verses are reminiscent to me of songs from IKSSE3 and Good Apollo 1 like Backend of Forever and Mother May I respectively. The main chorus is the kind of galactic love jam that Coheed seems to love in songs like Here to Mars. It's at this point in the album, however, that I begin to realize how many romance-focused songs there are on this thing, which seems to be a topic Claudio loves to write about in recent years. Not necessarily a bad thing per se, and I overall blame this romantic focus on the relationship of the main characters in album's storyline, but there's only so long you can listen to songs about characters who love each other within an hour.
The Pavilion (A Long Way Back)
Is this happy Coheed? It's surprisingly upbeat. This song follows the overall tone from The Dark Sentencer, but makes it brighter and more chipper. The classic string instruments in the background are a nice touch, not overwhelming but pleasantly noticeable. I know I keep bringing up a lot of comparisons in these analyses, but there's something about the echoing rhythm guitar and overall sound that makes me think of The Killers for some reason, just at a faster pace. I can see Brandon Flowers singing this song...if the instruments were a tad quieter.
Night-Time Walkers
Did we enter an 80's sci-fi flick? The intro keyboard tones are very surprising at the start. Then the drums and bass kick in, and you know you're back in Coheed-territory. Those synths dominate this song though, they provide both atmosphere and freshness in the music. This is almost an experimental song for Coheed, it doesn't sound like anything else in their discography. The newness actually works in a good way, it expands the band's overall tone rather than totally divert away from their roots. The vocals kind of annoy me in the chorus, but then Claudio uses some technical effects in the second verse that would impress Bon Iver's Justin Vernon and Kevin Parker from Tame Impala.
The Gutter
What is with these piano intros, Claudio? I'm genuinely confused by this song. It overall has some gentle sounding vocals, except for random sporadic screams in the middle. It wants to sound hard and fresh, but it comes off more harmless and generic. This isn't the kind of progressive rock that has multiple layers of different sounds, time signatures, etc. This is radio-friendly alternative rock not at its finest. The sounds in this song are the new cliche Coheed officially established in TCTBS. Basically, from the first time I heard this single, I expected more out of Coheed and Cambria than what this song gave me.
All on Fire
Seriously, WHAT IS WITH THESE PIANO INTROS ALL OVER THE PLACE? Oh wait...we're in Ten Speed guitar land also?...Okay. This song has got very rough'n'tumble guitars in those low minor notes that Coheed is very comfortable with. This is one of those songs that seems to be playing with quick switches between time signatures and tones, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. In some ways, this almost sounds like an attempt to do classical-inspired metal, but it definitely maintains that Coheed and Cambria flavor.
It Walks Among Us
This song is itself a hybrid of songs on this album, part galactic hard rock, part 80s synth-drven sci-fi soundtrack. Perhaps because it is a hybrid, it doesn't really stand out much to me. The sounds are very repetitive from other sounds I already heard on this album. Every once in awhile, a guitar squeals or the bass drum gets doubled, but that's like the occasional grease pop noise over the sound of frying bacon. Pleasant enough, but you kind of get accustomed to the noise after awhile.
Old Flames
It wants to be as catchy as Unheavenly Creatures, but it's not, and it unfortunately suffers from the same problem of sounding too high school-ish. I've seen some people compare this song to the In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth 3 era songs, but I think the closest connection is the silly "Nahs" that fill the entire last third of this song on constant repeat. Which is another moment in this album that feels like the band is purposefully trying to manipulate the listeners so that the audience will constantly chant that during live performances. The other problem is similar to The Gutter, it sounds like generic alternative rock that makes it hard for Coheed to stand apart as a unique band.
Lucky Stars
Ah, the acoustic ballad! Finally, I get to hear those gentle tones. Somewhat surprisingly, the instruments are lacking an electronic influence (at least in the first half). It's all strings, including a string quartet in the background. Without that classical music influence, this would mostly feel like a 60s folk ballad, almost Simon and Garfunkel-esque (I really do apologize for the constant comparisons). I do wonder though: Why is Coheed putting these acoustic songs towards the end now, instead of using them as a breather in the middle? Also, there's a sweet jazzy rock guitar solo that gives us that uplifting electric feeling.Top 5 Songs I Recommend from The Unheavenly Creatures
Black Sunday, Queen of the Dark, True Ugly, Night-Time Walkers, Lucky Stars
Additional Thoughts and Comments
There's something about the production quality of this album that rubs me the wrong way. It feels super computerized, too reliant on gadgetry for both the instruments and the vocals. Lots of people gave Coheed's Year of the Black Rainbow (YOTBR) album crap for the studio magic and manipulative production, but for whatever reason lap praise on this one. In YOTBR, the studio magic was an aid. Here on The Unheavenly Creatures, it's a distraction.
Something that stands out to me in this album, and also in some of Coheed's recent work like TCBTS, is the vulgar language. I noticed plenty of F-bombs and similar words throughout the songs. Not that they absolutely ruin the songs for me, but the way I remember it, such words were used sparingly in most of Coheed's other albums, maybe an F-bomb on 1 or 2 songs per album max. It stands out more here, and whenever I hear those words in the lyrics, it just sounds unnecessary and frankly juvenile.
Another bizarre feature of this album worth noting is how repetitive the lyrics can be. There's always that sentence or phrase that Claudio repeats dozens of times in each song that makes him seem if not a little lazy then at least a little unimaginative. Yeah, it sounds like harsh nitpicking, but you try listening to someone say Nah, Hey, or Queen of the Dark on loop for even 5 minutes straight without thinking something negative about it.
A part of me almost wishes Claudio would experience another heartbreak or have some other strong emotional experience. What I mean is that not only was early Coheed was imaginative, but Claudio used that imagination to channel his heartache from a breakup into the songs on Good Apollo 1, the best album the band has ever put out. Either the creativity isn't like it used to be or things are just going too well for Claudio and the rest of the band to get super inventive.
I do not know whether it is a good or bad thing for me to say that this album makes me want to go back and revisit Coheed and Cambria's first three albums. Going back to earlier albums, and hearing the sounds between something like IKSSE3 and this album makes it sound like they were put together by two completely separate bands. Granted, Coheed's earlier production had less money for quality, but they made up for it in skill, energy, and creativity.
The Unheavenly Creatures is drastically different from the past, though perhaps it cements the sound and style that Coheed and Cambria has been going for the last 5+ years. Offhand, this album is definitely better than TCBTS, but only time will tell where exactly I would put it in the bottom half of my Coheed album rankings.
P.S.- Where is the 4 song suite of imaginative prog rock songs!? We only got 1 prog song on here that is over 7 minutes long and every other song being 5+ minutes doesn't make up for that!
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