When I was very young I had the idea that most of my best ideas were being stolen by psychics and being sold to others to be developed and profitted from.

I am reminded of this because at one time I was training to be a musician, and while I never followed through, from time to time I've engaged in a game of 'What if'.  I predicted the existance of Slip Knot by some ten years.

More recently I imagined writing entire albums as singular story arcs, and each album itself being a part of a greater story arc... expanding the 'rock opera' genre, perhaps.  I remember quite clearly where I was when the idea struck, it was October of 2001 and I was walking down the road that passed between the parking lot and the building I lived in. It was close to midnight.

Enter Coheed and Cambria.  God damn psychic thought theives that they are, they've taken my idea and, motherfuckers they are, made it something awesome!

Two years ago I bought a strangely named album by a band I had never heard of before.  The Album: Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness; the band: Coheed and Cambria.

Despite being ripped into various music devices and listened to a few times I let it languish, only revisiting it almost by accident just a handful of weeks ago.  By far my favorite track is 'Welcome Home', but the entire album is worth a listen.

But here is the thing:  Lead Singer and songwriter Claudio Sanchez isn't just writing strange and evocative music... No, he's telling the story of the Amory Wars, a comic book he wrote and sells... a story that is facinating despite a strong element of Mary Sue-ism... called the Amory Wars, and each album is a retelling of one 'issue' of the Amory Wars.

As this was, ultimately, my original idea... spun up and taken to 11 by random strangers I had never met... I find this utterly facinating.  As a would be writer I find the non-linear story arc and the uniqueness of the setting and events to be equally facinating.

I am torn, naturally, between forming a task force of concerned citizens, keeping an eye out for other instances of Psychic Thought Theft, and simply praising them to the lower heavens and stealing shit left and right from them to use in my own creative space.

Mine, Always, in Megalomania
Spike

Quote from: Spike;322113....and simply praising them to the lower heavens and stealing shit left and right from them to use in my own creative space.

Mine, Always, in Megalomania
Spike

Well, sounds only fair.

Also, to solve your Though Thieving issues, I've got some very nice and useful anti-psychic tinfoil hats which I could be convinced to sell for the right price...

Interestingly enough, Coheed and Cambria  showed up in our Scion game.  Our grouop was a heavy metal bans, see, and we played with them.  I am not a metal head, and don't know Coheed and Cambria, but some of our group did and said they sucked really bad...so we killed them.

Just sayin'

I suppose the amount of 'suckage' they have would depend entirely on how you define 'heavy metal'.

Comparing them to Black Sabbath or Metallica or Cannibal Corpse... depending on what you consider 'Heavy' is going to make them look bad.  They are, apparently, 'Progressive Metal', and I, for one, could hear evolutionary strains of Pink Floyd in the one album I possess.  

Not helping their case: Claudio sounds like a little kid when he's singing.  Definitely a lightweight sound for a 'heavy' lead singer.  It was his voice that caused me to set aside C&C after the initial purchase.

Noteworthy: what caused me to look into the band was a random question by a friend regarding the 'soundtrack' of the '9' movie trailers.  Coheed and Cambria were listed as one of the two. This led me to re-rip the CD into the Zune player... along with a host of other CD's, and then, later giving it a deliberate, rather than casual, listen.

Listening to the music from a technical standpoint rather than a genre standpoint they are far from 'bad'.

Agreed.  C&C is mostly noted as a progressive rock , then hard core heavy metal.  Claudio has often stated that he relishes the bands that his father grew up with, and attributes his sounds to their influences, such as Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.  Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Vol.1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness is a fantastic CD.  Besides Welcome Home, Ten Speed and Mother May I are exceptional songs.  The continuation to this album Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow, is pretty decent as well.  Songs like: Running Free, Mother Superior, and Gravemakers & Gunslingers reminds me of why I liked the first Apollo.  

All in all, this band holds their own.  Thanks to Spike's ideas being stolen, I now have to research the band further and look into the comic/story arc they are linking to the albums.

I've never listened to them, so I wasn't making a judgement call, just pointing out that they were in my game.

Quote from: joewolz;322262I've never listened to them, so I wasn't making a judgement call, just pointing out that they were in my game.

Oh, I got that.  I'm suggesting why your players might have said that they sucked, so that you didn't take that one critique to heart without consideration, if you were otherwise interested.

I'm not a metal fan myself...but the Scion game was fucking awesome.

We ran it as a gonzo-ass heavy metal fest of gore, fighting, and heavy fucking metal music.  It was like the KISS movie, but didn't suck.

As an interesting thought process I have had the thought that I could review the various tracks on the album and attempt to place them in the Amory Wars as I can understand it from web resources.  I have a hard time following lyrics of songs, but I don't want to 'cheat' by reading along with liner notes...  Also, I picked up 'The Second Stage Turbine Blade', which is the first album. The growth and maturity of the songwriting and performing is obvious, but irrelevant to what I'm about to do.

The first track is 'Keeping the Blade'. There isn't much to go off of here as its an instrumental, and not your typical 'rock instrumental'... its a strings peice, sounds orchestral but expirence has shown that this does not necessary follow with a large group, as the same sound can be replicated by a four piece chamber set.   There is some piano as well.   Its been twenty years since I could read music, but I want to say its done in a minor key, its very mournful regardless and I believe its meant to presage the tragic events of the next track.  The strings will be making further appearances throughout the album, making for a thematic link across the various songs, which is a very nice touch that reminds me of the first time I realized what Beethoven was doing across the entire 9th Symphony.

Always and Never is the second track.  Musically it involves the sounds of small children playing and comes across as something of a lullaby from a parent to children.  Of course it ends with the line 'to kill all of you'.  It is, at the very heart of it, creepy.  It is easy enough to place this in the Amory wars saga, even without help from the Wiki folks:  Coheed Kilgannon, father of the messianic hero Claudio Kilgannon is murdering his children, specifically his youngest (with poison) to save the world.

Welcome Home breaks from the first two tracks twofold. The Story of the Amory Wars is nested in a metanarrative of being told, in story, by a writer who is going crazy.  As I understand it, Welcome Home involves the suffering of the Writer's failed relationship with his love, and the refected relationship of Claudio, the character (not the musician... I warned you there was mary-sue ism here...).   Musically it is much faster and harder. It starts with some very fine pick work on a guitar that sounds latin in origin, then slams in with drums and then the accompanying, now strident, strings, changing the acoustic guitar for electronic at this point.  Rather than deceptively soothing lyrics, the singing becomes strident, accusatory.  Claudio (the musician, duh) may not have a particularly appealing singing voice, but he has learned to manipulate it quite effectively, using it to compliment and improve upon the music driving behind him. Its highly effective, particularly here.  THe line that gave me the most trouble in interpreting the song was the line 'Hang on to the glory of my Right Hand', which I eventually determined refers to the Writer's hand, telling the Amory Wars, with full control over the characters, which I understand the Writer is delusional enough to mistake the characters he writes for the people he bases them off of.  The only down side to the song is the very long and repetetive end 'solo', complete with an 'ooh oh oh' chourus of masculine voices that does seem to drag on a good thirty seconds longer than wise... but the last thing you really hear are the strings, closing out the song.

Ten Speed:  The name gives me the best clue to the narrative of this song, being the Writer's evil 'devil' character, a ten speed bike that talks to him and tells him to murder off the supporting characters of the Amory wars to spare the hero the pain of going through the rest of the story.  This then is Ten Speed 'seducing' the Writer, or possibly a dialog between the Writer and Ten Speed.   Musically, this song keeps up the pace and general tone set by Welcome Home, but lacks the strings or accoustic guitar.  It doesn't 'drive' or 'soar', but is a much more stripped down song, almost catchy.

I'll do more songs after a while, but I'd like to process them a bit more, as I've covered the low hanging fruit already...