Coheed And Cambria - Year Of The Black Rainbow

How am i supposed to review this thing, Skip?

Well, what are you asking Year Of The Black Rainbow to do, Bottle? Do you want it to be just another Coheed And Cambria album? Do you want it to explain the psychological climax that led to their fight against Wilhelm Ryan, the supreme ruler waging war to take over Heaven's Gate? Do you want it to be relevant to real life? Do you want to just crap on Atticus Ross' (over) production? 

I don't know, Skip. I'm not a normal critic, i'm an analyst. I break it down into its component parts, them reassemble them to show how it works. You just did that for me, review over. 

That can't be the whole story. You've got thousands of things you could say about it. 

Yeah, sure, but why? Anybody can search for the synopsis and experience it for themselves. Does describing it actually influence anyone to go listen to it? Is it just fun to listen to me rant? Aren't i supposed to be dreaming up creative ways to sell people my useless junk? I'm supposed to be marketing and making deals and building my brand so everybody else can have 5 minutes of happy and forget it? What does anybody get out of it? Business is the childish, greedy, entitled side of humanity. The goal is to squash your competition and make everyone do what you want against their will without getting caught. I can't be rich and decadent and feel superior unless you're all toiling away on my command! How many different ways can we say "that's dumb and we don't agree with you!" When skeleton's live inside your closets... we're all afraid of the one thing we can't be; free from the shackles of someone else's ego trip. 

That's the big secret, right? You can't become the hero by winning the war if there isn't a war to win. Nixon, Reagan, Thatcher, Bush, Trump, feed me, Seymour, feed me! 

It's right there in the Conservative handbook. People won't work hard unless you deprive them of their liberty, read i can't capitalize on the hard work of others unless i convince myself they are inferior and force them to do my bidding. What a little shop of horrors this is, and i don't want to buy any of the things they're selling. I don't want to climb the ladder. I don't want to Huckleberry Finn you into whitewashing my fence for me, i don't wanna have to build more fences in the first place. 

Ahem, I believe that was actually Tom Sawyer.

Yes, thank you Milton. May i continue?

Here's an example. Cars are great, they let you travel longer distances and accomplish things that used to take days in a few hours. But, time is money, so magically those accomplishments aren't worth the cost of keeping that car running anymore. Easy, peasy, we'll just use airplanes and spaceships to go further and further. Oh you want to stay in one place and grow tomatoes? Tomatoes are crap for rocket fuel, so no. Plus, Steve over there is already growing enough of my patented schmomatoes, so really you're the bad guy here trying to steal Steve's hard work. And, since Steve's hard work feeds my pocket, that means you're my enemy. Now, if you think you can sell more of my schmomatoes than Steve then we might have something to talk about, but Steve's ready to kill you 'cause i promised to hand the whole empire over to him when i retire. Why are you here, Skip? 

Because you said you needed a second opinion. 

Well, where did i take a wrong turn? How am i misunderstanding it? How is any of this NOT lying to get what you want by tricking people with the allure of shiny objects? 

I'm not sure i follow. 

Ok, what does the farmer grow? The farmer grows whatever we promised to pay for. What happens if we change our mind halfway through the growing season? 

Oh, ok, so you're saying there's a reciprocal relationship here? 

Yes, exactly. What i meant was are you here because you want to be here, or are you here because Gladys stabbed you and shoved your dead body down the escalator? 

I honestly don't remember, Bottle. 

Of course you don't, this place is a complete scattershot absurdity in someone else's dream. Is GREGORY a frightening monster lurking in the shadows, or is he an eloquent chap with a tragic dermal deficiency? Either way we're a record label with no bands, no money, and no interest in pursuing either of those things. I've been writing every day for no reason other than it was fun. I could just stop, there's no reason to keep doing it. No one would get hurt, the world wouldn't end. We'd all find something else to occupy our attention. No one is relying on me to review an album tomorrow. Actually, i bet deep down they think it's a silly waste of time. 

But, you like doing it. 

Yeah, i love it, but that doesn't mean it's worthwhile or valuable. Claudio's net worth is 3.5 million. He could just pay everyone what he owes them and watch tv 'til he dies. What keeps him going? Certainly not the critics saying "this prequal lacks all the ingenuity that made C&C fun to listen to. I'm bored, next." He made it 'cause the story called for it. They tried a non-story album and everyone including me asked "why?" 

Year Of The Black Rainbow is their best. It's their heaviest, but also their most coherent and consistent album. If we've learned only one thing from this whole adventure, it's that none of these amazing bands did it for the money, but they needed the money to pay for it. If Claudio's worth 3.5, then somebody worth 7 paid for it, somebody worth 14 signed off on a new ledger called "Coheed And Cambria," and the whole thing falls under the umbrella of a business loan from Sony to Columbia. I probably paid $17 for it and it's freakin' awesome. Does that mean i owe them another 50k? Who cares if i like it or not? 

Well, clearly you do, Bottle. You care a lot. You made this life out of nothing to cleanse your useless identity. 

Nice try, i can't follow this damned story to save my life. Who's singing which songs? How does any of this prepare 2, 3, and 4? Liking it doesn't make it good. 

So you're saying it's not good? 

No, it's fantastic. It doesn't make sense to me, but clearly it makes sense to them. Would it help to read the novel? I don't know, maybe. I just like the idea that Coheed, Cambria, and Inferno have no idea why they were created to fight someone else's war, then have to pass that war on to their children for equally no good reason. That part i get.