Album Details

• Artist: Coheed And Cambria
• Album: Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star Iv, Volume One: From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness
• Label: Sony
• Year of Release: 2005
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: kev_stev on 2007-07-14

Media

Being a huge Coheed and Cambria fan, I was eagerly awaiting this album.  However, even after numerous listens, it was evident that something had drastically changed with the release of Good Apollo; the vitality and emotion within the band's music had disappeared, and as a replacement came pretentious titles, long-winded songs, and the suffocating influence of classic-rock bands.  Songs sounded like renditions of 70s music; for instance, the album’s best track “Welcome Home” is so similar to Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” I was awaiting a lawsuit—and, sadly, “Welcome Home” stands out on the album for being somewhat original and overall a good song. 

The album is filled with a tremendous amount of filler; acoustic tracks like “Wake Up” are overly sentimental and highly misplaced on this attempted rock-n-roll epic, while ridiculous tracks like “Once Upon Your Dead Body” contain lyrics that are egregiously dim-witted and, frankly, embarassing to read: "I hope you die right now / Will you drink my chemical?"  This album was such a disappointment on all levels; it was more like a collection of bad songs instead of a cohesive, crafted album like their first two releases, and from the success they have attained from Good Apollo I doubt I’ll ever hear the band I grew up with again.  Listen to The Second Stage Turbine Blade or In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 if you want to hear an original band playing riveting, emotional music.

User Reviews and Comments

Review:

on 2007-08-11 SolitaryMan Said:

I haven't heard Mother Superior...where can you find that? I think The Running Free is great, their best single-styled song since "A Favor House Atlantic".
Rating: 9/10

Review:

on 2007-08-10 Alotofnothing Said:

Mother Superior or The Running Free? Both are good. Th Running free is just the obligatory single that they were bound to make since they're on a major label. It's not half bad, though.
Rating: 7/10

Review:

on 2007-08-10 SolitaryMan Said:

thoughts on the new song?
Rating: 9/10

Review:

on 2007-08-10 kev_stev Said:

I'm a cobalter too :]
Not Rated

Review:

on 2007-08-09 Alotofnothing Said:

lol, you've got us wrong. We're also members on Cobalt and Calcium, Coheed's fansite. So is Vince, and lmartini, along with maybe a few others. :p

Edit: and Kevin, I know. That's why I said us, lol.
Rating: 7/10

Review:

on 2007-08-09 SolitaryMan Said:

Jeez, you guys have progophobia or something, haha. They're really no more pretentious than other bands of their ilk. If anything they're one of the least pretentious progressive bands around.
Rating: 9/10

Review:

on 2007-07-31 kev_stev Said:

I'm terrified actually, but they still put on great live shows regardless. They're playing with Clutch this fall, which will be an amazing experience regardless of what is on GA2
Not Rated

Review:

on 2007-07-31 Alotofnothing Said:

Yeah, I'm like that too, which is why I rarely listen to GA now. I have to admit that I'm pretty scared for the upcoming release.
Rating: 7/10

Review:

on 2007-07-31 kev_stev Said:

I'm the kind of guy that is turned off by one bad, pretentious song on an album. Since I found so many of those songs, I was disgusted by the whole thing. I will admit though, I do like "Keeping the Blade," "Welcome Home," "Ten Speed," "Crossing the Frame," "The Suffering," and "The Final Cut." That's 2/5 of the album, which almost explains my rating.
Not Rated

Review:

on 2007-07-31 Alotofnothing Said:

I completely agree that the tracklist was out of place. I'm a huge fan of Coheed, but a lot of aspects of this album disappointed me. The band seems to be trying to appeal to everyone in a lot of ways, which they show by isolating all of the prog sound and feel to "The Willing Well" at the end of the album. They also show this in a very noticeable way by shortening nearly all of the songs to 3 minutes. Claudio also had this little thing about crafting an almost syd barrett-esque song and then ramming killing in at the most awkward of times. I can agree that this album was a disappointment, but I'd say that I still enjoy around half the songs.
Rating: 7/10

Review:

on 2007-07-30 kev_stev Said:

I love coheed and cambria, but this album just did not do it for me. I think "Wake Up" and "Always and Never" just should not have been on the album, especially "A&N" because of its track placement: if "Keeping the Blade" led into "Welcome Home" it would've been a lot better than having the abrupt "A&N" placed in between the two. I guess I'm glad people like this album because I love the band, but I was just highly disappointed in the mediocre music (at best) that I was given.
Not Rated

Review:

on 2007-07-27 SolitaryMan Said:

I don't agree with either of these reviews and that usually doesn't happen here. "Good Apollo" is easily on par with "In Keeping Secrets", if not better. They've obviously matured as a band, letting in more of their progressive influences while leaving the less-inviting emo-ness out of it for the most part. Perhaps it isn't fair to call that "maturing", but it's definitely a step in the right direction in my opinion. The similarities between "Welcome Home" and Zep's "Kashmir" lie solely in the tempo and tuning, the actual songs themselves are totally different. Kashmir doesn't open with an acoustical passage or lead into a song-highlighting solo-fest. Besides, "Welcome Home" is one of the least-best tracks on the album. Most notable would be "Apollo I: The Writing Writer", "Wake Up", "The Suffering", "Always And Never", and most of all, the "Willing Well" tetralogy. Much like "In Keeping Secrets" before it, this album is chock-full of fantastic classic/progressive-infused alternative rock, with shades of emo (mostly in the lyrics and on softer tracks "Wake Up" and "Always And Never") mixing things up. They are quite good in whatever style or frame of mind, and you get the feeling each song or grouping of them finds the band at such times; at one point they're fierce and unrelenting, the next melancholic and pure-at-heart. They pull it all off, and they do it better than just about any band out there today. Can't wait for the 2nd part to this monumental (and horribly horribly underrated) album.
Rating: 9/10

Review:

on 2007-07-27 blackxdan Said:

I agree with this review to a point. Lets face it, this album was very disappointing, but some of the songs were okay. And the other half of the songs? The long name songs were overcompensating for the bad music. I enjoyed most of the songs that became hits and the song 'Wake Up.' I believe that album carried a lot of passion with it and the lyrics in the song were very emoional. This album still isnt as great as the previous albums. I wouldnt suggest starting with this album if you were looking to get into Coheed and Cambria. I would easily choose the advice within the review for that. But you're better off downloading a select few tracks off the album, rather than buying the CD. Not like i suggest you all to download music or anything....
Rating: 6/10