Style: Progressive metal, metalcore (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Between the Buried and Me, early The Contortionist
Country: Finland
Release date: 8 November 2024
Earlier in the year, myself and my colleague Zach tag teamed a little album called Reconciliation by ALMO. Despite making a few ripples in the underground, we were less than impressed because of the tendency to borrow liberally from other bands: homages to Periphery, Devin Townsend, Haken and Between the Buried and Me abounded, sometimes so blatantly as to be offensive. This week, I was in our little music detective office with my feet up, smoking a stogie and sipping whisky listening to a jazz record when Zach came into the office: “Gee, boss,” he said, “There’s another case of musical homage gone awry. We’d better investigate.”
“TO THE PROGMOBILE!”
Coma Control’s debut Perennial starts well enough; the Between the Buried and Me influence is palpable in the sweeping solo over portentous chords, but we can forgive a little influence, can’t we? And sure, when the harsh vocals come in, you do think “hey, this guy really sounds like Tommy”, but a lot of singers sound like other singers, right? Unfortunately, as you get further into the album, it becomes apparent that Coma Control are determined to stand in the shadow of the one band they’ve heard. Of course, BTBAM are one of the most talented and complex bands in the prog scene; sounding this much like them takes a hell of a lot of talent, it just doesn’t suggest an original sound.
But perhaps I’m being unfair. To their credit, Coma Control jettison the zany tangents that are so indelible to BTBAM’s sound, and they lean on the heavier side, occasionally veering into melodeath as on the opening to “Scour the Air” or the majority of “Mending Arms”. This is the jewel in Perennial’s crown, opening with an eerie tribal rhythm and segueing into a delicious melodeath riff, the entire song highlights a slightly more original mode of composition with adventurous chords and blast beats providing a template of how Coma Control could evolve beyond their influences.
In the meantime, however, we have to contend with the… let’s call them ‘homages’. The calm mid-section on “Scour the Air” is ripped straight out of Parallax II, and closing track “Don’t Sleep or You’ll Fall” opens with a riff that’s far too close to the staccato climactic riff in “Silent Flight Parliament”. “Reunion: Regression”, meanwhile, borrows a little too liberally from “Memory Palace”. Sometimes the homages are less blatant but still noticeable—“Don’t Sleep or You’ll Fall”, for example, ends in a theatrical manner which feels just like “Goodbye to Everything”; I believe the young folk call this ‘writing in the same font’. We’ve said it a hundred times: sound too much like another artist and all you’re going to do is give the listener a hankering to listen to them instead of you; as Julian Barnes once put it, “who wants plonk when you can get château bottled?”
Coma Control aren’t the first band to sound really similar to a band they admire, nor will they be the last, but it’s simply not that interesting to listen to a band whose guiding compositional philosophy seems to be a WWBTBAMD bracelet. Certainly, it takes talent to sound this much like one of progressive metal’s most beloved acts, but it takes more talent to develop your own original take on that sound. Coma Control demonstrate that they could do that with tracks like “Mending Arms” but first they need to lay their ghosts to rest.
Recommended tracks: Mending Arms, Scour the Air
You may also like: Luna’s Call, ALMO, Rototypical
Final verdict: 6/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Coma Control is:
– Tapio Honka (probably everything? All I’ve got to go on is Metallum)
