1/27/05 by adam

I'd been hearing big things about Coheed & Cambria for a while but only this week did I finally buy In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3, the sophomore effort from this fearsome foursome; after listening to it nonstop over the past few days I'd have to say it's easily one of the three or four best CDs I've come across in the last couple of years.

Co&Ca sound like an unholy fusion of 2112-era Rush and ...and Justice for All-era Metallica: spacey, arty, and ultra-geeky while reveling in and perfecting neo-hairmetal thrash. The Rush analogy is furthered by the fact that lead singer Claudio Sanchez can stand proudly alongside Geddy Lee and Maynard in the High-Pitched Metal Dude Hall of Fame (my fiancee Jo, when I played Co&Ca for her for the first time, said "I thought the band photo had four guys - I didn't see a chick..."). What's even cooler - and even more WebDisaster-worthy than the simple rockingness of this band - is that Sanchez is also a frustrated Fantasy/Sci-Fi novelist, and instead of trying to keep his two loves seperate, he's simply and damn-near effortlessly fused them. In Keeping Secrets... is the second installment in the ever-evolving story of the half-divine/half-mortal warrior Claudio and his struggle to save his homeworld from invasion. I know, I know: you're thinking, "A sci-fi concept album that's actually listenable? Right..." Trust me. Coheed & Cambria, while fully dedicated to the endeavor, also seem fully aware of how utterly weird it is; that self-awareness seems to breed both a complete lack of pretension and a thinly-veiled sense of humor that permeates the entire album.

All-in-all I give Coheed & Cambria's In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 four-and-a-half RAWKS! out of five - how often can you geek out and get whiplash from headbanging all at the same time?