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COMA
"Excess"
(Armoury; 2010)
Reviewed by R. Scott Bolton
For the most part, Coma's "Excess" plays like a progressive rock record in the vein of the Alan Parsons Project, Genesis or, at times, maybe a little like Spock's Beard. There are tracks that step up the pace occasionally, including "Transfusion" and its guitar squeals, but most of the music hereon falls into that progressive rock genre.
And that's a good thing if that's what you're looking for. The songwriting, production and musicianship are solid throughout and most of the tracks will easily hold your interest from beginning to end, especially tracks like the opening title track and track #7, "Afternoons in the Colour of Yellow." Other tracks wear out their welcome by just plain being too long. While most of the tracks are more than six minutes long, one is over eight minutes, one over nine minutes and one is more than ten minutes long. Unfortunately, the longest tracks tend to be the most tedious and, by minute four, you're ready for the next track already.
Still, there's enough interesting (and some actually close to great) music on "Excess" and the record plays better after multiple spins. If you're a hard rock fan looking for some new progressive sounds, give this Polish band a try. I don't think you'll be disappointed. I understand from international reviews that the Polish language version of this album is considerably better than this one. It's worth looking into.
For more information, check out http://www.myspace.com/comagroup.
Rating Guide:
A classic. This record will kick your ass.
Killer. Not a classic but it will rock your world.
So-so. You've heard better.
Pretty bad. Might make a nice coaster.
Self explanatory. Just the sight of the cover makes you wanna hurl.
Copyright © 2011 by R. Scott Bolton. All rights
reserved.
Revised:
14 Oct 2024 14:01:58 -0400.
