Of all the histrionic emo songwriters whirling through the mainstream over the past few years, Claudio Sanchez has always stood apart: While his guyliner-clad peers wrote about bad break-ups and bitter blog posts, the Coheed And Cambria frontman crafted epics like 2005's From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness, a science-fiction-based concept album filled with preening glam-pop choruses and fearless classic-rock guitar solos. The genre that Sanchez and his bandmates emerged from was often predictable; Coheed's music was anything but.
Yet therein lies the problem with this rather safe fourth album: Sanchez mostly recycles what worked on Coheed's last effort, sleepwalking through apocalyptic riffs on "The Hound (Of Blood And Rank)" and the Zeppelin-esque acoustic balladry of "The Reaping." The whole thing culminates with a proggy five-part suite called "The End Complete," but by that point Sanchez is out of tricks. Ultimately, Tomorrow isn't a shoddy version of what Coheed has always done, but at this point, it could have been far more inspired.