In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth, Vol. 3

Album Review

Coheed and Cambria continue to combine metal, pop, and sometimes punk influences on In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3. The high-register vocals of Claudio Sanchez are reminiscent of Shudder to Think's Nathan Larson. The vocals combined with the glam metal-pop music of such tracks as "The Velourium Camper I: Faint of Hearts" and "Blood Red Summer" can at times bring out the influences of Queen, T. Rex, or the Cars, and the recent influences of Cap'n Jazz or Jets to Brazil. Coheed and Cambria could look a bit more to these influential bands that they take from and cut down on song length and tedious poetry. The production of In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 keeps the passionate emotion at bay. The double-tracking of guitars can give an interesting metal-influenced sound, as on "Cuts Marked in the March of Men" and "The Crowing," but production choices hold back the distortion and push up the reverb, keeping the whole record a bit too safe. Coheed & Cambria are at their best when they combine the half-time chumpdowns of Braid-like emo with late-'70s/early-'80s-influenced glam pop stylings. "Three Evils (Embodied in Love and Shadow)" and "The Velourium Camper III: Al the Killer" are Coheed and Cambria's best examples of their uses of angular, driving metal and passionately sung/screamed double-tracked vocals. In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 furthers Coheed and Cambria's efforts to make an epic record, but that may only be in length and a grand vision of the final outcome that falls a bit short.