My disappointment stems from a few problems that this album has. The first problem being that half of the songs lack a certain edge to them. Whether this is a memorable hook, a riff that melts your face off, or a vocal line that leaves you with your mouth open, too many of these songs just don’t have that edge. A prime example of this problem would be the song “Goodnight, Fair Lady”. This piece of music is one of the most boring, generic things I have ever heard Coheed and Cambria put out. This song goes nowhere in the three minutes it lasts. The guitar sits in the background the entire time and the “hook” is virtually non-existent as it passes in the blink of an eye before it sends the listener right back into the bland verses. It honestly reminds me of a very watered-down version of the song “Faint of Hearts” from the In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 record. Another example of this problem would be “Mothers of Men”. This song also goes nowhere for 3 minutes, teasing us constantly, but never reaching a true climax.
The
lack of edge actually seems to be a trend with all of the non-Key Entity
extraction songs. Because of the concept, the KEE songs end up being the only
ones with any character. Because of this, the series unsurprisingly ends up
being the highlight of the album with the exception of the oddball “Holly Wood
the Cracked”, a song with a hook that reminds me of Motley Crue. The two songs
that stand out the most from this series are “Domino the Destitute” and “Evagria
the Faithful”. “Evagria” is a beautiful song full of emotion and catchiness. It
is as close to classic Coheed and Cambria as you get on The Afterman. “Domino” is an eight-minute juggernaut of a
song dripping with hooks and swagger. It is truly one of the best songs I have
heard this year and if the rest of the album was on par with its quality then
this would be a contender for album of the year.
The
placement of it on the album, however, is something that puzzles me. It is the
first real song on the album and because of its quality compared to the rest of
the music here, it makes it seem like the album blew its load far too early. It
never manages to gain enough momentum to reach this peak again and consequently
leaves you with a feeling of being underwhelmed. It makes me wonder if “Domino”
would serve better as the album’s penultimate song, taking us on a thrill-ride
before softly singing us to sleep with the twinkling, acoustic “Subtraction”.
Like I
said earlier, overall the KEE series is a good series of songs, but only in the
scope of this album. When you compare it to another series of songs like The
Willing Well or The End Complete, it falls flat. It doesn’t hold a candle to the
feeling of epic-ness that both of the aforementioned series give you. This
flatness isn’t just a problem with the Key Entity Extractions either, it’s a
problem with the entire album. There just seems to be something lacking here
that was present in previous albums. One thing that could possibly be causing
this is the seeming absence of Travis Stever’s guitar everywhere on the album
except for a select few moments like the solo at the end of “Vic the Butcher”.
Another cause for the flatness is the lack of emotion in Claudio’s voice for
half of the album. We rely on Claudio to make us feel what the characters are
feeling in these songs and sometimes the emotion just doesn’t seem to be there.
Overall,
The Afterman just comes across as mediocre. There are some great moments on
here, especially in “Domino the Destitute”, but a lot of the album feels too
flat and passive. The songs don’t punch when they need to punch. The
breathtaking sing-along climaxes of Coheed and Cambria’s past just don’t seem
to be here. The Afterman isn’t bad by any means, but I know that Coheed can do
a lot better than this and that’s why this seems so painfully average to me. We
still have The Afterman: Descension to come out in four months, and I sincerely
hope Coheed and Cambria bring their best.
