The Comas' Indie Style Steadily Rises to the Top

The Indie music scene, steadily gaining popularity in today's increasingly alt-favorable culture, invites another rising band, "The Comas," to join the ranks.

The old school, subtly-psychedelic sounds of "The Comas" dabble in the neo-folk genre alongside the like of 70's reinvention bands like "Jet" and "Rooney."

The North Carolina natives released their third (and breakthrough) record, Conductor, in August of 2004 and plan to promote it further with a tour lasting throughout February.

One can hear the quirky personalities radiating from the band members on the record. Conductor follows a theme of robots and funky sketches, only appropriately paired with lyrical references to invisible drugs and rainbows. The band's official website, www.thecomas.com, even features a random picture of an orange Bengal tiger under "Band Photos."

Each and every track on Conductor utilizes at least three different genre-types, sometimes all at one time. For example, intro track "The Science of Your Mind" paints the picture of the lead man, Andy Herod, barefoot and clad in a white-linen shirt, just sitting on an empty, white sand beach, plucking away at his Latin-tuned guitar and soulfully serenading the ocean. Think that's detailed? Well every song on this album paints a completely different, but still copiously detailed, picture equally as elaborate.

The surreal, echo-y, faraway composure of each song on the album induces the thought that the band chose its name per they dream their music. The songs possess multiple mixing-board layers that make closing your eyes and listening to Conductor in the dark a real trip.

A rarity found on Conductor, and hardly anywhere else, is the fact that there exists a certain inability to name a dominant music style to explain the album. Some songs seem simply to be slow, minor chord-ed outpourings of hearts, while other songs sound as upbeat and guitar-pumped as any other pop rock hit. The ten-track CD does entail, however, a distinctly distressed vocalist, accompanied by supporting mournful music-makers.

"When you break up, it just sucks and you're miserable and there's no happy ending and there's no credits rolling," Herod told "Rolling Stone" magazine.

It's futile to ignore the break-up based lyrics. In the case of Conductor, where Herod laments and vents about former girlfriend, Michelle Williams from "Dawson's Creek," the CD can be rightly dubbed as part-Emo, due to the emotional extensiveness of the moody tunes.

That doesn't stop the group from climbing Top Ten lists and CD charts galore. "Spin," "Rolling Stone," "Flaunt," and "Magnet" magazines all contained features of this maturing band in one, if not several, issues. "Rolling Stone" and "Spin" called Conductor one of the "best records you didn't hear," while "Magnet" named the album as one of the "top twenty of 2004" (Conductor ranking as No. 3).

But while the acclaim runs a list longer than track 10 on the album (technically it's two songs, "Falling" plus a hidden track), the East Coasters remain a whispered name in Indie merely beginning the journey to being shouted.

By Amanda Chamberlain
Published: Thursday, February 17, 2005

Check out the original article here.