COHEED AND CAMBRIA — Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow (review)

COHEED AND CAMBRIA — Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow album cover

Album · 2007 · Metal Related

4/5 · 2010-11-10
Conor Fynes

'No World For Tomorrow' - Coheed & Cambria (8/10)

While I have been able to recognize a level of progressiveness in each of Coheed & Cambria's releases (to varying degrees) this album definately has the most progressive flavour to it. Songs like the title track 'No World For Tommorow' sound nothing like the emo stylings they had earlier in their career with 'In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth.' Nowadays, although theres still that mainstream feel to some of the songs, most of the music (especially the songs in 'The End Complete' suite) has a good prog vibe to it, and even the songs that don't pass as being complex are still really good and catchy ('Feathers.)

This album starts out fantastically, to say the least. The acoustic prologue 'The Reaping' is a nice change from the traditionally boring Coheed album intros. It leads into the epic, melodic 'No World For Tommorow,' which is one of the strongest tracks on the album.

'Feathers' is the next highlight (the third track is nothing special) which has a definate 'single' feel to it. It's really a great song, with some vintage guitar sounds. It sounds like an above-the-crowd 80's pop rock song, which by definition sounds really bad, but trust me, it's a beautiful song.

'The Running Free' is another great song, and the first song I listened to off of this album. The vocals from Claudio are exceptional; a very emotional (and occasionally intense) performance.

'Mother Superior' is a charming ballad that Claudio originally composed for piano, but transposed it onto guitar. It has a bit of a 'frontier' campfire sound to it, without sounding like country. The last highlight before the suite rolls around.

The rest of the stand-alone songs are alright, but not superb. The suite (a loose suite of sorts has been present on all save the first C&C album) is probably the most cohesive of the suites, and the best to listen to from start to finish as a suite, while the other suites worked exclusively on a stand-alone song base only.

The suite offers the most progressive dish this album has to offer. The typical suite on a Coheed & Cambria album isn't your usual 'epic.' It's usually passed me as a collection of songs that the band figured would appeal more to their prog audience, over the others and have a connecting lyrical theme, that I have yet to analyze and look into, although the idea of having a concept running through multiple albums is very interesting. The final highlight this album has to offer is the grandiose closer 'On The Brink,' which sounds like it wouldn't be out of place on a Broadway musical, before breaking down into a hard rock finale.

And thus technically ends the plot arc of the Coheed & Cambria's story, the 'Amory Wars.' Although there's still yet another scheduled release from the band, it functions as a prequel to 'The Second Stage Turbine,' which makes this album the conceptual 'last' album by this band. It's a very dramatic album, and of all of Coheed & Cambria's works, this should appeal the most to prog-fans. Four stars.