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Skillet - Comatose

 

	RELEASED: October 3rd 2006 PRODUCER:John Cooper & Brian Howes LABEL:Atlantic/SRE BAND: John Cooper Korey Cooper Ben Kasica Lori Peters
+ Great production, Orchestration, More vocals from Korey - Some generic songwriting, Ballad overload	TRACKS: 1.Rebirthing 2.The Last Night 3.Yours to Hold 4.Better Than Drugs 5.Comatose 6. The Older I Get 7.Those Nights 8.Falling Inside the Black 9.Say Goodbye 10.Whispers in the Dark 11.Looking For Angels

 

OVERVIEW

If nothing else, you have to give rock veterans Skillet credit for never making the same album twice.  Over 10 years,  Cooper and Co. have dipped into and out of grunge, techno-pop, industrial hard rock, worship, and straight-ahead hard rock before releasing this year's "Comatose", which is basically what you would get if you threw every existing Skillet album in a blender with a double dose of pop hooks.  Easily their best produced and most accessible work to date, Comatose is packed to the gills with soaring tag-team vocal melodies (courtesy of husband-wife duo John and Korey Cooper), Ben Kasica's signature alt-rock guitar crunch, and Lori Peters' airtight drumming, all of which combine for an experience that might not always be your thing (especially if you’re a hard rock purist), but it’s certainly always at least somewhat interesting.

SONGS

Comatose kicks off in grand style with “Rebirthing”, which is easily one of the strongest tracks on the record and everything a great rock single should be – crunchy, melodic, and full of great orchestration that gives the song a huge, epic feel.  “The Last Night” strays even more in the major-key pop direction, and “Yours to Hold” is a full-on, unashamed ballad, which, although well-written, is the first instance of John Cooper’s increasingly pop-oriented songwriting – this song could’ve easily come out of some Nashville songwriter’s office.  “Better Than Drugs” brings back the crunch, but features what is without a doubt the cheesiest metaphor for God’s love that your faithful reviewer has heard in quite a while.  Anyways, better things are on the way with the rockin’ title track, which manages to sound desperate, hopeless, uplifting, and longing all in under 4 minutes.  “The Older I Get” is another straight-up pop ballad, an ode to love and heartache that works much better than “Yours to Hold”. “Those Nights” is…wait, another poppy ballad?  Well, sort of, it rocks harder than either of the other 2 slow numbers, but it’s definitely still an adolescent love song that, somehow, works incredibly well considering it’s being sung by a 30-year-old dude who’s wife is playing keyboards.  “Falling Into Black” darkens it up quite a bit, a welcome change after the previous 2-song foray into pop territory, which we find ourselves right back at with “Say Goodbye” – a grandiose pop tune that wouldn’t be out of place at a prom or 2 in a few years.  “Whispers” kicks it back into crunch mode for the last time, with Ben Kasica throwing down a gut-busting solo that should put a grin on any rock fan’s face – the kid is a seriously underrated guitarist, and seeing him get a chance to flex his muscles is long overdue.  The closer “Looking For Angels” is a seriously sobering closer that, if anything should prove that John’s concern for the youth of today is no act.

CONCLUSION

At best, this album is one that’s almost always pretty good at what it’s trying to do, but at worst, it’s inconsistent and some of the songs are an obvious attempt by Atlantic to produce some radio singles.  Is it worth picking up?  Definitely, but at the end of the day, I buy Skillet albums for John Cooper’s distinctive songwriting, not to hear him write like the 3,829,472,934 major-label pop writer’s out there.  Comatose is solid, mature, well played, well produced, epic, and memorable – but occasionally much more poppy than most of us rockers are looking for.

Review by Matt Rewinski

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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