It’s really no insult to call Coheed And Cambria the dorkiest band in recent memory. With their seven previous albums inexorably linked to The Armoury Wars sci-fi saga, the concept was king and they wore their Dungeons & Dragons kinship with pride.
The Color Before The Sun is a whole different kettle of goblins, and sees frontman Claudio Sanchez write from his own heart rather than those of his imaginary characters, and after initial queasiness at a moment of amorousness in Eraser (‘I’m just a toy waiting for you to play me’), it quickly becomes business as usual in terms of their shamelessly enormous pop-rock music.
Here To Mars, for example, may be a declaration of undying love, but it’s still married up to a Will-Smith-punching-a-Martian, Bruce-Willis-humping-an-asteroid anthem of loveably preposterous proportions.
The fact that they follow it up with Ghost, a pretty, acoustic moment of reflection, suggests they’ve got this whole thing under control after all. Subtlety be damned: if you’re gonna go, you may as well go boldly.
