Comas' rock keeps Cradle audience awake

Two months after the release of their latest album, Conductor, The Comas staged a triumphant return to Chapel Hill with their belated album-release party. On Conductor, lead singers Andy Herod and Sarah Trogdom share the vocal burden, alternately articulating strength, hope and vulnerability through the album’s brilliantly mournful tracks. Despite its moments of distortion-laden rock, Conductor is a gentle album the sound of which is reminiscent of that of The Stills. On several tracks, however, the instrumentation serves only as a landscape for the band’s emotive lyrics.

“The Science of Your Mind” opens the album with a smooth guitar line and a plea. “Help me make this go away like you burned up all my faith,” Herod begs. On “Oh God,” The Comas desperately seek to regain this burned faith. They forge a sonic image of a nearly faithless man who prays as a last resort because all else failed to cure his sorrow. “Oh God where is the feeling? / Oh God where is my mind?” Herod cries. In response, Herod receives the loudest moments of Conductor: a roaring, sustained and resolute guitar solo. He does not find panacea in God, but music might see him through. He may have lost love, but he has not lost hope. On the light and hum-able “Moonrainbow,” he hopefully claims, “I’ve been dancing on a burning path... but you can’t be scared of that.” In addition to the powerful conceit of faith, The Comas also repeatedly use science fiction to illustrate distance and desperation. On “Hologram”, Herod sings “I’m living on a space station without you / you want dimensions I got two / I am a hologram.”  

Despite the album’s excellence, the translation to a concert could have been difficult. Music like The Comas’ is inspired by loneliness. In the herd-like setting of a concert, the emotional content is too often dulled or ill-received by an audience’s wavering attention. Simply put, the majority of Conductor does not rock, and this was a rock concert. A translation was necessary. And The Comas’ conversion was seamless.

Herod is the obvious leader of the band, and his jovial demeanor serves as a contrast to the album’s often depressing themes. On “Tonight on the WB,” Herod began the song by playing a kazoo in place of the electronic noise on the album. When the crowd yelled song requests, he politely replied “Shut up! We’re gonna play whatever the f*** we want.” Halfway through the show he announced, “This is our last song,” and the band left the stage, allowing him to return to play a solo rendition of “Falling,” which ended with the band silently walking on stage, picking up their instruments and supporting his achingly melancholic verses.

Not content with the quiet of the album, the band truly rocks on-stage. They manage to conjure the power that the first opening act, Fashion Brigade, wildly strove for, and matched it with the intensity of feeling that the second opening act, Hotel Lights, projected. The muffled distortion on Conductor sounds even more powerful live. In other words, The Comas rock, and they do it without sacrificing the tenderness of their album’s airy ambience.