Rock Opera Personified

Having had 2 weeks to soak up the incredible conclusion to Coheed and Cambria’s double album, The Afterman, I can safely say it’s the band’s most ambitious, most eclectic, most operatic – and dare I say, best – album to date.
In particular, I’ve felt more closely connected to the album’s underlying science fiction rock opera this time more than ever before. But more on that later…
When you stack up the two halves of the album back to back, the music takes you on such a journey, with several unexpected stylistic twists and turns along the way.
Ascension
Six albums later, the band still somehow managed to open with yet another epic rallying cry in Domino the Destitute. You’d think after Time Consumer, In Keeping Secrets, Welcome Home, No World For Tomorrow, and the Broken that the band would eventually tire out the formula, but no. Domino clocks in at over 8 minutes and has incredible production value (I particularly love the oohs and aahs Claudio layers underneath the build up to the final chorus – SO operatic).
Then the title song, the Afterman, catches you completely off guard. Ballads are rare for Coheed, and usually don’t hit you before a sizable slate of heavy songs. Not here. The song is just pretty; such simple, subtle beauty.
Goodnight Fair Lady is another first half highlight. The song harkens back to some of the pop/rock songs from earlier Coheed albums – all the while being about a suspicious date-rape predator who targets the story’s leading lady, an unexpected contrast considering the song’s light tone.
Holly Wood the Cracked is about as industrial as the band has ever gotten – and it rules. When the key change hits – “She’s a few cards short of a full deck, a joker in the game, ohh” – just awesome classic Coheed.
My favourite song on the first half though is easily Evagria the Faithful, the band’s first real attempt at ethnic sounds with its infusion of Latin-esque percussion. And what a chorus: “Goodbye forever, my darling whether…”
Descension
I didn’t think Descension could top the first half, but it did. Sentry the Defiant – again – another epic battlecry. Production-wise, the band could have probably done more with it, however.
The album’s incredible core though is in the sequence of the Hard Sell, Number City and Gravity’s Union.
The Hard Sell grooves unlike any other Coheed song in the verses and then goes big and heavy for what are great classic choruses.
Number City is my favourite track from Descension – and of all things, it’s a dance song. Just so catchy and so much fun. For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you’ve surely noticed random citings of numbers, which in this song have never been so much fun to shout. Plus, again, similar to Goodnight Fair Lady, the song’s upbeat tone contrasts the underlying plot, which is about a car crash and major turning point. Oh, and there’s HORNS!
Gravity’s Union completes the loop. Upon first listen, I thought it was just an extension of Number City, but the two were blended on purpose. Aside from maybe The End Complete (from No World For Tomorrow), there may not be another more self-contained direct rock opera in all of the Coheed catalogue, which often shrouds the plot in metaphor.
The conclusion of the album is highlighted by the Dark Side of Me, which is just a great soaring rock ballad – akin to The Road and the Damned from No World For Tomorrow – about self-reflection and regret, something with which we can all relate to some extent.
The Saga of Sirius Amory
Even though The Afterman is a prequel to the original story of Coheed and Cambria, I’ve never been so enthralled before by what is happening behind the music. Some of it has to do with the fact that there is actually dialogue in between some tracks, but I think it probably has more to do with how character-rich the story is.
Whereas the 4-part story of Coheed and Cambria has an assortment of main characters, this is Sirius (pronounced Cyrus) Amory’s story.
(Nerd alert!)
Sirius is the man who discovers the Keywork, a mysterious energy source connecting the 78 planets of Heaven’s Fence. This would later be harnessed and exploited by the evil dictator, Wilhelm Ryan, to seize power over Heaven’s Fence years later.
On his journey through the Keywork, Sirius quickly learns that the energy is a form of purgatory containing lost souls with unfinished business. Along the way he encounters 5 in particular: Domino the Destitute, Holly Wood the Cracked, Vic the Butcher, Evagria the Faithful, and Sentry the Defiant. Domino, who destroys Sirius’ spacecraft, was a former boxer who eventually committed suicide in disgrace after becoming obsessed with fame, success, and drugs; Holly Wood was an insane superfan of an artist she eventually kills so that she can assume her identity; and Vic was a ruthless army general who committed egregious crimes against humanity. The three entities torment Sirius as he is forced to experience who they were and what twisted things they did in their lives.
Meanwhile, back home, Sirius’ wife, Meri – who never supported his mission of scientific discovery, equating it with suicide – hears reports that he has died after traces of his spacecraft are recovered. Saddened, she goes to a bar to drink her sorrows away, but is targeted by a date rapist. Before she can be seriously harmed, however, she is saved by Colten, a police officer and one of Sirius’ friends. Believing Sirius to be dead, Meri engages in a relationship with Colten.
In the Keywork, Vic attempts to trap Sirius, but Evagria comes to his rescue and shields him for as long as she can. Eventually her power is completely drained and it again seems that Sirius will be doomed to suffer an eternity of Vic’s horrors. However, Sentry – a former rebel soldier who opposed Vic in their past lives – then emerges and confronts Vic. The two battle, Sentry wins, and Sirius helps him ascend beyond the Keywork purgatory.
Sirius then returns home with Evagria’s help, but discovers that over a year and a half has passed when he was certain to have only been gone a week. He not only struggles with what to share with the world with respect to the nature of the Keywork, but also learns of his wife’s affair with Colten and that she is carrying his child. Amidst a huge blowout argument with her while driving in his car, Sirius, overcome by anger, purposely crashes, gravely injuring himself and killing Meri.
When Sirius is revived, he is distraught over what he’s done – for killing Meri and for neglecting her by leaving for the Keywork in the first place – and considers committing suicide. After much self-reflection, Sirius decides to return to the Keywork so that he can find his wife’s soul and help her ascend.
As he prepares to take flight, the artificial intelligence unit on his spacecraft reminds him of the dangers of the Keywork: “You fought to withdraw from a location which has incited severe, quantifiable pain and nearly terminated the mission – nearly terminated your life. Yet, you desire to set a course back to it. I am not equipped to comprehend human rationale.” It asks, “Sirius, is this what love is?”
Sirius replies, “Yes.”
(Nerd transmission: over.)
Wow, right? And that is just a basic plot summary that omits many of the story’s nuances and character backstories.
This is why I love this band. The story is not only epic in scope, but it laces the band’s music with such high stakes drama, permitting them to essentially do whatever they want musically. This is why they can cross genres at will, use language no one else does, and produce such uniquely rich soundscapes – all while taking listeners on an unforgettable journey.