The ComasConductorGrade A+
Equal parts Radiohead and Weezer, The Comas prove that blending dreaminess and catchiness is not only possible but preferred.
Hailing from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a hot bed for music of the indie rock persuasion, The Comas have released four albums thus far and show vast improvements with each one. Conductor comes off like a-well, a coma. But a pleasant one.
Each song on the album contains a well-crafted atmosphere of sound through the utilization of some kind of effect or toy. On the majority of the songs, synthesizers burp and swell as frontman Andy Herrod spins his outer space tales of life and love on earth. Drums echo and crash as guitars travel through time, space, and places unknown with the help of some essential guitar tools like reverb and delay which expand the amount of “room” or space that is being heard. In other words, the song sounds like its being played in stadium or chapel, which gives the songs the aforementioned dreamy quality.
Herrod weaves stories of what it’s like to dominate and be dominated, to alienate and to feel alienated. On “The Last Transmission,” one of the album’s strongest tracks, Herrod takes the point of view of a being from another world spying on us all and spreading the secret of our weaknesses to his superiors.
“I am transmitting to you, sirs, from Channel 21. It is my great pleasure to record we have already won.”
Herrod cleverly places himself out of the herds of “animals” as he calls the people of earth and advises his comrades to attack and eradicate humanity “for the glory of our interstellar queen.” It’s an amusing and slightly disturbing approach to describe the isolation of the narrator and the feelings of abnormality based on the boredom he encounters in his everyday life.
Conductor rarely picks up past walking pace, but it manages to explode on the thundering and fuzzy track “Invisible Drugs.” Over buzz saw guitars, Herrod spouts cryptic lyrics of a chemical induced state as guitarist Nicole Gehweiler sings along.
“Slow death blues, you got one thing right. Icy hammers ring on sunshine. Pink balloons big as mountains levitate the sound of summer.”
Despite the fact that Conductor rarely picks up the pace, the journey is a pleasant one except for the slightly creepy “Dirty South” which features a rather melancholy/ominous guitar line repetitively played throughout the song with a slide guitar swooping in and out. Herrod employs a pensive whisper that leaks bitterness steadily as it grows into a pool that reaches its depth in the song’s prechorus and chorus.
“What should have been the end of that night wasn’t even the beginning. Frozen like a mannequin with fright. Hung up on a wall again. With you, I don’t feel like dancing.”
Only in the second verse do we realize that the song is the backdrop to Herrod’s fantasies.
“Fell asleep again with shoes on. Had a dream about you with no clothes on. It’s your dirty mouth.”
You might find yourself falling asleep with your shoes on if you put on this album, which is as close to a trip through space as you’re likely to get. It’ll be a coma you might not want to wake up from.