Coheed And Cambria - 'The Father of Make Believe' Album Review

Tracklist:

Yesterday’s Lost
Goodbye, Sunshine
Searching For Tomorrow
The Father Of Make Believe
Meri of Merci
Blind Side Sonny
Play The Poet
One Last Miracle
Corner My Confidence
Someone Who Can
The Continuum I: Welcome To Forever, Mr Nobody
The Continuum II: The Flood
The Continuum III: Tethered Together
The Continuum III: So It Goes

I’ve been a regular listener of rock and metal since my teens, so that’s cough 30-odd years of music that I have listened to. Yet I am always amazed how many bands that have existed for decades I have heard of, but for some reason I’ve never got round to listening to, and Coheed and Cambria belong to that list in a big bad way. I remember a friend I went to uni with was a HUGE fan of theirs, so I heard a few tracks at parties etc and enjoyed them, but for some reason I never went to seek them out.

So when I got the opportunity to review this, their newest (10th!) album, I jumped at the chance, because it’s rare that a band with this kind of discography gets listened to as if they were new, and that’s what I was doing – essentially going into this review with fresh ears.

And I’m really glad that I did!

This is a cracking album, it’s got that kind of confident swagger that you usually only get from bands who have had a few albums and really perfected their sound, but it does also combine that with a variety in sound you don’t often get from rock/metal albums, which helps me see why Coheed and Cambria have had such longevity – after all, variety is the spice of life!

This album is full of great songs, and what’s great is that everyone’s favourite will be different depending on exactly what sort of thing they are looking for in a metal album. For me, the best songs on the album are “Searching for Tomorrow”, “Blind Side Sonny”, “Play the Poet”, and “Continuum III: Tethered Together”, but I didn’t find any of the songs weak.

The production value is immense, with mixing and mastering that really packs a punch and pushes through the quality and intensity of the music, a perfect partnership if you will.

As the album pushes closer to it’s end it seems to take bigger and bigger artistic swings. “Someone Who Can” feels like it came from the late-80s, and is absolutely not shy about it’s change of tone, simply smashing you in the face with the sheer almost pop-rock feel that shouldn’t work in context, yet somehow it does.

And then we get to the last four tracks, all of which are called The Continuum, with various subtitles. And these four tracks are wildly different, yet hang together in a way I would never expect. “The Continuum I: Welcome to Forever, Mr Nobody” starts with a punch and doesn’t let up throughout it’s runtime, “The Continuum II: The Flood” has some amazing guitar work, and then “The Continuum III: Tethered Together” feels like a natural progression from the previous two tracks. Then the final track of the album – “The Continuum III: So It Goes” is something entirely new and different, I don’t even know how to describe it, you just have to listen to it!

In short, this is an album that pulls no punches. They don’t care what you expect, they don’t care what you think you want, this is an album that gives you exactly what they wanted to give you, which is the way all the best music is created.