Jobie Reviews Music 63: The Second Stage Turbine Blade (Re-Issue) (album) by Coheed and Cambria

The Second Stage Turbine Blade is a 2005 (originally 2002 - the version I listened to was the reissue) progressive rock album by the band Coheed and Cambria. The album contains 13 tracks, spanning 1 hour and 13 minutes of music. The album, in relation to The Amory Wars (the comics/books that go along with the album), sequentially comes after Year of the Black Rainbow, despite being released before Year of the Black Rainbow.

With that out of the way, the album continues the events that transpired in Year of the Black Rainbow, following the main characters as they seek to resolve the issues presented during the events of Year of the Black Rainbow (please research this on your own time - the story is way too long to fully explain here). The album shares a name with the comics of the same name, which explain the album’s themes and story. You can find a full breakdown of the comic’s story on either Wikipedia or the Coheed and Cambria wiki.

The story of the album is quite interesting, but it’s very lengthy (not that that’s a bad thing), so if you’re looking to read it for yourself, just be warned. Aside from that, the story that Coheed and Cambria made for this album is incorporated into the songs perfectly, with nods and direct quotes from the comic being a part of the song's lyrics. For example, characters from the comic’s names are directly said in the songs lyrics, such as in the song “Everything Evil”, where the lyrics directly refer to the character Claudio - one of many characters in The Amory Wars - “And she’d scream, ‘Claudio! Dear Claudio!/I wish, God damn it, we’ll make it if you believe”.

You might be asking yourself, “Do I really need to read 10 issues of a comic to fully enjoy this album”? Well… no. The album is as enjoyable without having read the comics in full (I know this because even I didn’t read the summary of them all in full). Coheed and Cambria’s clever use of instrumentation on this album stands on its own, from dark, reflective guitar tunes to powerful progressive rock sounds, Coheed and Cambria offer up a wide range of variety on this album.

I’ve already sort of talked about this album’s lyrics, but I think it’s worth elaborating about what I think about them. Coheed and Cambria’s lyrics on this album are excellent, with such verses like “The young stale memories of, play the roles to your part/Librarian, find me the pole, the one that kicks your head in/To my own time, roll your own innocence by/Grab on to my sleeve, the one that grabs at your knee”. The lyrics never feel as if they were only written to be filler; they’re all necessary to the song’s overall structure and theming in every case. The next thing that I’ll be talking about in this review are the bonus tracks that come with the reissue of the album. These 3 tracks are “Elf Tower New Mexico [B-Side]”, “Junesong Provision [Acoustic Demo]”, “Everything Evil [Demo Version]”, and “IRO-BOT”, with “IRO-bot” being a hidden track on the demo version of “Everything Evil”. The first of the 4 tracks sadly falls flat, with clearly unrefined vocals being present throughout the song.

This, however, is no fault of Coheed and Cambria. According to Claudio Sanchez (one of the writers of this song), recording was stopped shortly after the band realized that the vocals would’ve been too hard to actually perform. I can see why, too. From what I can tell, the refined version of this song would’ve seen some rather unconventionally sung vocals being performed. Some trivia: the song also relates to Claudio Sanchez’s real-life difficulties with his ex-girlfriend Nikki Owen. Keeping this in mind, Coheed and Cambria hardly ever perform this song live, and refrained entirely from doing so up until 2011.

The second of the 4 bonus tracks is an acoustic demo version of the finalized Junesong Provision. The song has very minor differences from the original, so there’s nothing of note to talk about here.

The third track is perhaps the most changed of other demos included in the album. Although lyrically the same as the finalized version, the demo version of “Everything Evil” includes one significant thing: “IRO-bot”, a bonus track that was found on the original version of the album. This bonus track is oddly mediocre, with vocals that fall flat and don’t match the rest of the album’s great vocals. This is likely why this track was changed heavily for live performances.

Some of the best tracks from this album are “Time Consumer”, “33”, and “Delirium Trigger”.

Overall, Coheed and Cambria’s The Second Stage Turbine Blade hits the mark where it needs to, with masterfully done vocals and instrumentation which enhance the album’s main story and theme in an awesome way. The album’s main 10 tracks are where the album shines the best. Being Coheed and Cambria’s first album, it’s surprising that the quality of these songs were so high. Nicely done.

Overall rating:

9.3/10

LINK TO ALBUM:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0puQN87m8wxSu8lcDkwV2k?si=ekjee7beT0uY4JgOnccw-w