Coheed and Cambria - Year of the Black Rainbow
List Price:
Our Price: $5.22
You Save: $6.76 (56%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $3.72 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more CD details
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
CD Details
Artist: Coheed and CambriaEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2010-04-13
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
- One
- The Broken
- Guns Of Summer
- Here We Are Juggernaut
- Far
- This Shattered Symphony
- World Of Lines
- Made Out Of Nothing (All That I Am)
- Pearl Of The Stars
- In The Flame Of Error
- When Skeletons Live
- The Black Rainbow
Music reviews of Year of the Black Rainbow
Music Review: I figured that I'd review this after the hype wore off...
Rating: 3 Stars
Now that I am coming down off of the "New Coheed Release" high, I can review this fairly objectively. I have been a Coheed fan since 2002, and I had myself really hyped up for this album to come out. When I first heard it, I thought it was great. Now it is just kind of forgettable to me. I know there are many here that love it, but this just isn't the Coheed that I fell in love with. This feels like an album full of filler songs with nothing that has the same substantial or epic feeling of previous albums. These tracks would've made GREAT, and I mean GREAT filler tracks for other albums, but the album doesn't really feel cohesive.
Anyways, track by track review:
1. One
This is a pretty cool opening track, and it really does help to set the tone for the rest of the album. The only thing really unifying the album is that the tracks (well, the first few at least) have a semi-industrial feel to them. This track also features the SSTB piano motif, semi-obscured by the noises around it. Nothing to complain about here.
2. The Broken
This was the first single released for this album, and it is a pretty cool track. This also establishes the vocal transition that Claudio was initially going through for NWFT. The first 3 albums had a more relaxed vocal style to me, it seems. Now he is really pushing, and it tends to make the vocals feel really overdone to me. This might just be a product of him getting older and his voice changing more. It just feels weird to me, though. But ya, this song is cool, but it feels like they cut it off short. They could've done so much more with this track to give it the scope of "In Keeping Secrets". Overall, though a solid track.
3. Guns of Summer
This is probably my favorite track off of the album. It's really straightforward with quite a lot of energy, and it is just fun to listen to. The chorus kind of reminds me of turn-of-the-millennium post-hardcore in some weird nostalgic way. Anyways, granted this is my favorite track, there really isn't much to say about it. It's a cool track that also feels like a filler track.
4. Here We Are Juggernaut
This was the 2nd single released from this album, and it is the most polarizing track to me. I literally HATE the beginning of the track. I absolutely hate it. The riff is cheesy, generic, and uninspired, the lyrics in the beginning are awful ("Keep your secrets in the dark, nothing matters anymore, bodies breaking, drive me crazy"). I just remember thinking "Wow this is awful" when I first heard it. Then all of the sudden, a really great chorus breaks out of nowhere. The song manages to be the best and worst part of this album at the same time. Verses are absolutely awful, yet the chorus is really really good. It feels so out of place from the rest of the album, though. It might have to do with the order of the tracks, but this feels like it should have been later into the CD. This song feels like an arrival, and we haven't even traveled anywhere yet. Once the song gets to the point where it is essentially just the chorus, it is really good. This one doesn't feel like a filler track to me, but it suffers from the same problem that "The Broken" suffered from. It got cut off very short. They had a great idea, but didn't know how to expand upon it, really. No development happened. The idea was thrown at us and taken away. This is the problem generally with this album as well.
5. Far
This is one of my favorite tracks off of this album. It might actually be tied with "Guns of Summer". It has a similar feels to "Feathers" from NWFT, but different at the same time. The solo section is simple, but very nice. This song feels more like a Coheed song than any of the other songs on this album to me. It has more of the fantasy feeling than any of the other tracks could offer us, and that's always been my favorite thing about Coheed. They have the ability to take us into their fantasy world. This album is just straight rock for the most part, so this song is a nice throwback to that fantasy world.
6. This Shattered Symphony
This track also suffers from an issue mentioned on "Juggernaut". The feel of it makes it seem like it should have been way later in the album, possibly before "Juggernaut". It feels like it would be a good lead in. It is yet another track that feels wrongly placed, and therefore has a less impacting place within the structure of the album. The song itself is really catchy. Claudio's slight harsh vocal lead in to the chorus is nice every time I hear it, the guitar in the beginning is a nice surprise, but, yet again, it feels like they had an idea, threw it at us, and took it right back. This isn't something I expect from Coheed. They've lost their progressive rock attitude and have just become rock, and that leads me to the next track...
7. World of Lines
"Hey guys, Iron Maiden is one of our inspirations." This track feels like it was written directly by Maiden. I mean, if you took out the vocals and told me that Maiden wrote it, I'd probably believe you. I really don't have much to say about this track other than "This is Iron Maiden". It just feels done.
8. Made Out Of Nothing (All That I Am)
My first instinct tells me that the placement of the track relative to the tracks around it is a little weird, and it is. However, I think that this track is EXACTLY where it needs to be. The other tracks surrounding it are out of order, though. This track feels a little bit more Coheedy than a lot of the other tracks on this album, but at times it can feel a little trite lyrically. I like some of the things that Claudio does vocally, like the transition at around 2:30 into the track. I like this track overall, but it feels like it could've been part of something bigger.
9. Pearl of the Stars
This track is very interesting to me. The track starts out with a very warm acoustic guitar with a constant synth that reminds me a bit of the manner in which Dntel creates atmosphere. The vocals in the beginning are very, very different for Claudio. They are supposed to represent Dr. Hohenberger, I do believe. He quickly gives up on this and goes back to his normal voice. The vocals seem less in your face in this track. I like this track because there are a lot of surprises that you could COMPLETELY overlook if you aren't listening carefully, like the trombone in the chorus, and the soft synths that you will hear randomly as well. The solo section is nice, if not a little predictable. This track is the high point of the album. It is the real climax to me, which is actually kind of upsetting. I'll explain why in my conclusion.
10. In the Flame of Error
The beginning of this track is deceiving. It would have you believe that this track is going to be the highpoint of this album, but it isn't. Its placement is appropriate, though. The falling action is happening here. The track makes it feel like the album is going to be coming to some kind of explosive end, and... well, more on that later. The track starts out with what is supposed to be an epic guitar part, but it is just kind of "meh" to me. It falls short of that epicness that is trying to get. The verses of this track are rather forgettable. The chorus is slightly less forgettable, but forgettable nonetheless. I don't go around humming it really, which wouldn't be a problem if the form of the track itself wasn't standard song form, which generally means that a memorable melody is a good idea. I like this bridge of this song somewhat, but overall this feels like a filler track to the album full of filler tracks.
11. When Skeletons Live
I think that this was the first track that they recorded. You can still hear the ghost of former Coheed in this track, especially in the verses. The verses can be a little sparse, but they do still have a semi-Coheed feel. The chorus, however, feels very empty to me. There is a semi-lead part going on in the chorus that should have definitely been brought out more, but it gets buried. The bridge to this song feels good because it has a bit of Claudio harmonizing with himself, something that this album is REALLY missing. The way this track ends is a little lackluster, but that can be forgiven! The next track will be a "The Light & The Glass" scale work, right? Right?!?!
12. The Black Rainbow
Starting out, this track is really cool. At this point, I am hanging onto the hope that the last track can redeem this album. The album is already coming to an end, and it feels like it hasn't even been 10 minutes. It doesn't feel like there has been a journey at all. Maybe this last track can take us on a journey, right? Well, it certainly presents itself like that, but this track was LITERALLY just the guys messing around one morning. at around 2:15 into the track, the track starts getting big with Claudio saying "It's over, it's over". The feel at this point is that this track is going to progress and become amazing. Then you realize that what happens at 2:17 repeats for about 4 minutes. That's it. It does start getting a lot denser as it goes on, but it doesn't necessarily progress. However, this does provide one of the coolest moments for the album, where at a little after 6 minutes in, the sound suddenly, and VERY VERY VERY abruptly gets cut off. It shocks you every time that you hear it, and then the music from "One" starts back up, where you can also hear someone laughing in the background. I haven't finished reading the novel yet, so I don't know if it is Ryan, Hohenberger, or who, but there is laughter there nonetheless. But anyways, this track is supposed to be the cork on the bottle that has been filled with this music, but it is a damaged cork being put on a bottle that is only half full.
I have said positive things about the tracks themselves, but Coheed has never been about individual tracks to me. In fact, I can't really listen to just one track by Coheed. I need to listen to an entire album. All of their tracks on previous albums feel relative to each other. For enthusiasts of art music ("classical"), here is a parallel that I can run: Listening to one track by Coheed is the equivalent of listening to one movement of a symphony. Sure, you can feel satisfied, but you are missing the entire point of the work if you leave out the rest of the movements. To understand a whole work, it is necessary to listen to all parts. Coheed has always been better about producing albums that are that cohesive than most other people could ever dream about. "Year of the Black Rainbow", however, completely fails on this front. The progression from track to track makes no sense. Part of this problem, to be quite honest, is the fact that Claudio no longer has the fantasy in mind when he writes the music. The fantasy is what really was able to drive the previous albums to such incredible degrees, and the loss of the fantasy is the loss of the quality. The other albums can take you up Mount Everest. This one takes you up an elevator to the top floor of a 20 story office building.
Also, the new drummer, Chris, really didn't do much on this album. His stuff with Dillinger was nuts, but it seems like he is just doing basic patterns and waiting for a paycheck. Can't say that I blame him, though.
In summary, the album does not flow well, the tracks make good filler tracks (not good for an entire album, though), but this album is ultimately forgettable. I hate to say this, because I love Coheed, but this album is by far their worst work. If you are already a Coheed fan, you more than likely have this album already. If you are thinking about getting into Coheed, DO NOT use this album as your judgment of the band. Listen to the first 3 albums that they put out, for those are their best works, and they are arguably some of the best albums of the last decade. I still love Coheed, but this just wasn't them.
Description of Year of the Black Rainbow
The eagerly awaited prequel to "The Amory Wars" tetralogy, Year of the Black Rainbow provides the long awaited prelude to the band's four previous inter-related concept albums -- The Second Stage Turbine Blade (2002); In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 (2003); Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness (2005) and Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow (2007) - which comprise "The Amory Wars," the conceptual narrative driving the band's lyrics, penned by Coheed and Cambria frontman Claudio Sanchez. Year Of The Black Rainbow is also likely to be the final installment of the narrative of "The Amory Wars."Year of the Black Rainbow is produced by Atticus Ross (Nine Inch Nails, Jane's Addiction) and Joe Baressi (Queens of the Stone Age, Tool). The new record also features the studio debut of Coheed and Cambria drummer Chris Pennie, who has been playing alongside Sanchez, guitarist Travis Stever and bassist Michael Robert Todd since 2007 and was featured on Neverender: Children of the Fence DVD.
Hard Rock & Metal CDs
Music Genres
Bestsellers in Hard Rock & Metal CDs
Sunshine of Your LoveMusic CD
Best price: $4.44
Hawkwind - Acid Daze 1Release date: 1994-06-08; Music CD
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops:
America - HourglassAmerica; Release date: 1994-05-17; Music CD
Best price: $9.94
Price in other shops:
Entombed - To Ride Shoot Straight & Speak the TruthRelease date: 1997-10-28; Music CD
Best price: $74.98
Rick Cua - Way Love IsRelease date: 1995-04-11; Music CD
Best price: $35.00
Incantation - IncantationRelease date: 1996-04-23; Music CD
Best price: $7.82
Price in other shops:
![Kiss Unplugged [VHS] Image](/images/Kiss-Unplugged-VHS-6303998534-X.jpg){kind=small}
Kiss Unplugged [VHS]Polygram Video; Release date: 1996-03-12; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $11.20
Price in other shops:
![Poison - Flesh, Blood & Videotape [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
Poison - Poison - Flesh, Blood & Videotape [VHS]Capitol; Release date: 1991-12-03; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.50
Price in other shops:
Various - Operation Rock N Roll [VHS]Sony; Release date: 1991-07-02; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $19.69
Ultimate Ozzy Vhs20th Century Fox; Release date: 1997-09-16; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $53.40
Similar CDs
The Amory Wars: In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3 Vol. 1 (Armory Wars)by Claudio Sanchez, Peter David
BOOM! Studios; Published: 2010-11-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.92
Price in other shops:
The Amory Wars: Ultimate Edition HC (Direct Market Edition)by Claudio Sanchez
Boom! Studios; Published: 2010; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $44.94
Prize Fighter Inferno - My Brothers Blood Machine (Dig)Equal Vision Records; Release date: 2006-10-31; Music CD
Best price: $10.12
Price in other shops:
Amory Wars: In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 Ultimate Edition (The Amory Wars)by Claudio Sanchez, Peter David
BOOM! Studios; Published: 2012-05-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.76
Price in other shops:
Coheed and Cambria: NeverenderSony; Release date: 2009-03-24; DVD
Best price: $12.92
Price in other shops:
Coheed and Cambria - The Second Stage Turbine BladeRelease date: 2002-03-12; Music CD
Best price: $8.37
Price in other shops:
Coheed & Cambria - Second Stage Turbine Blade (Reis)Release date: 2005-09-20; Music CD
Best price: $8.31
Price in other shops:
Coheed & Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3Release date: 2004-06-22; Music CD
Best price: $5.07
Price in other shops:
Coheed & Cambria - Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through The Eyes of MadnessColumbia; Release date: 2005-09-20; Music CD
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Coheed & Cambria - No World for Tomorrow (Deluxe)Columbia Records; Release date: 2007-10-23; Music CD
Best price: $11.64
Price in other shops: