Kaddisfly

Kaddisfly want desperately to be Coheed and Cambria. Vocalist Christopher James Ruff (what is it with emotionally-heavy bands and their members using three names? It’s very serial killer-esque) sounds nearly identical to C&C’s Claudio Sanchez and Set Sail the Prairie even comes with its own confounded theme album narrative. But really, there are some okay moments contained on this little piece of plastic. Track two, "Junio/Campfire,” is almost danceable at points, but loses much of its appeal during the failed attempts at epic-sounding choruses, which come off sounding like any other watered-down radio rock song. What it comes down to is that even the most interesting moments on Set Sail The Prairie are lost in the crowd due to the frustrating length of the album (over an hour long!). Some of the singer’s vocal rhythms can be entertaining; the harmonies, when they’re not being over-the-top and annoying, can be quite powerful; and at certain points, the use of dissonance is quite effective at providing emphasis to the lyrical themes. Kaddisfly would have benefited by shortening the record or breaking it into a series of EPs, which would have served to emphasise their stronger traits rather than losing all their power to the record’s hefty length.