xCAFx wrote:I'm not up to date on Coheed and Cambria, but i heard the (1st) song on thier Myspace and thought it was good. I'm not sure I understand the story thing. And how many albums does this make for them?
This will be their third studio album, and they also have a live album.
I'm not going to say "GO OUT AND BUY THEIR RECORDS" because they do have some spotty language occasionally, as well as violent themes. Also, for fair warning, their newest CD is going to be Parental Advisory with the labels "Strong Language" and "Violent Content" underneath (this doesn't mean it's worse than any other Parental Advisory CD. Actually, on the contrary: it's quite tame for most PA CDs, after reading the lyrics).
However, now that you've asked about the story..
All of their albums connect the tragic tale of the Kilgannon family. The first album, the second part of the story, The Second Stage Turbine Blade chronicles the deaths of Coheed and Cambria Kilgannon. Coheed and Cambria were a part of a special defense force known as the KBI(the Knowledge, the Beast, the Inferno) along with Coheed's brother Jessie (aka The Prize-Fighter Inferno). Somewhere in the events of "The Bag On Line Adventures of Coheed and Cambria", Coheed is injected with a virus by Wilhelm Ryan through a dragonfly imbued with the Ciache, a serum that will awaken the Monstar growing inside Coheed. The Monstar has the power to destroy the Keywork and the Stars of Sirius. The Keywork is the universe as they know it, a system of 78 planets surrounded by the Stars of Sirius, which connect in a triangle to keep the system of planets in alignment. If they fell out of alignment, they would go crashing into it and the Keywork would fall apart. SSTB tells how the Monstar awakens inside Coheed, the rampage he goes on, the deaths of his wife, daughters Maria and Josephine, and son Matthew. The only remaining son of Coheed and Cambria after Coheed's death is Claudio, who barely escaped this onslaught.
Claudio setting out on his own is where the second album and third part of the story, "In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3" takes place. In this album, a great war occurs in a premonition that happens at the end of Second Stage (a dream happens in the song "Neverender" and then the song "God Send Conspirator" is a song about Wilhelm Ryan's disdain for Mariah, a great leader of the Mages who is plotting rebellion against him...IKSSE:3 picks up right where Neverender left off). Basically, the Keywork begins to unravel and Wilhelm Ryan's plans start to come to fruition. Elsewhere in the story, Claudio's true power as the savior of the Keywork, The Crowing, come into play. His full power is never really expressed at this point, though we know that he is powerful. Claudio's love, Newo Ikkin, is taken by a man named Al, in a series of songs called The Camper Velourium (there are 3 parts to this series, I: Faint of Hearts, II: The Backend of Forever, and III: Al the Killer). Al is a psychopath and Claudio has to save Newo through the end of the CD. At the end of The Light and the Glass, and then in 2113, the dream that took place at the beginning of the album quickly turns into a nightmare as certain characters die...
Good Apollo: I'm Burning Star IV: Volume One - From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness is the first part of a two part story, the "final cut" of the Coheed and Cambria tale. The newest album is the beginning of the end. For the first part, it steps outside of the story and we see how the events in the writer's life will affect the story. Then, the story itself picks back up in a four part movement called The Willing Well (I: Fuel For the Feeding End, II: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness, III: Apollo II: The Telling Truth, and IV: The Final Cut).
It's all much more involved than that but that's basically the jist of it. It's quite interesting. None of what I said is gospel, and shouldn't be taken as such. It's merely my take on the story.