Coheed and Cambria - The Second Stage Turbine Blade Reissue

It’s no secret that musicians resent labels. The natural inclination of critics and scholars to clump performers into neat little groups is one of the great pet peeves of the musical community. But many groups do themselves a disservice by focusing so intently on defying attempts to categorize them. For every Outkast or Pink Floyd that successfully fuses clashing styles and sounds into a coherent musical picture, there are a million other bands that fail to satisfy such ambitions. Whether they like it or not, Coheed and Cambria belongs to this group of tweeners that would do much better for themselves if they concentrated on doing only a few things well. Coheed and Cambria deserves some props for being ballsy on their 2002 album, The Second Stage Turbine Blade, but they also needed to be told that they were spreading themselves too thin. The 10-song album features an aggressive mix of goth, emo, metal and pop that is clumsily admirable. On crunchier tunes like “Devil In Jersey City” and “33,” the band edges on total success. But the record loses its momentum too many times in sleepers like “Neverender” for the band to claim victory. An acoustic bonus track, “Junesong Provision,” does absolutely nothing to help the cause. This is an example of a band that still needs to sort out what it does well, and then do the hell out of it. Trying to do too much only dilutes things for Coheed. They were clearly onto something with the straight-ahead, take no prisoners sound. They’d be wise channel their energy in that direction, but they might have what it takes do more. [www.coheedandcambria.com]