The Prize Fighter Inferno

I have noticed a change in the way I approach new music that has begun to take place over the past two or three years. In the past, when a band I loved came out with a new cd, I didn't need any time to be able to profess my love for the new album and be excited to listen to it non-stop for days at a time. This has been changing for me. Now, I can't even begin to count all of the albums that will come out and I won't get into (at least not immediately). Saves The Day's last TWO albums have been that way for me, Coheed's newest, Ben Kweller's new cd, Ben Folds' last two cds, and so on. It even works retroactively at times too. I love Iron and Wine, but when I went out and bought two of their cds (a new and old one) I didn't even get around to listening to them for months.
What happens is that I'll get the new album, get about halfway through it and then just sort of lose interest. half of the time there is another album that I am way into at the moment, so I'll sort of just push the new music aside and get back into whatever I was into. Months later, I'll get in a conversation about that new album that came out and then get excited about it again. It isn't until months later when I am finally ready to take it on and enjoy it. This is very strange to me. I don't really have any sort of explanation, but my guess is that I just feel like there is too much music out there for me to feel like I can take it all in, so I just go with whatever I'm in the mood for most.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that yesterday I finally listened to The Prize Fighter Inferno agian. I had heard it a few times when it first came out, but to be honest, I just wasn't in the mood for it. So I put it on the shelf and moved on. I gotta say that I think it is an excellent album. When I first heard it, it felt like the ugly red-headed step-child of Coheed and Cambria, and I just wasn't that into it (although I probably tried to convince myself I was by saying it was great--so if I told anyone how great it was back then, I'm sorry; I wasn't trying to lie to you, I think I was trying to lie to me). Yesterday I listened and was really pleased. Some of the acoustic guitar work in it is really cool, and I do like the techo-fun that Claudio throws in. I think I was better able to jsut take it as its own thing, and not compare it to Coheed so much. it is still really weird, but I have always kind of been into weird music I guess.

So, after saying that one shouldn't compare it to Coheed, I will go ahead and do so for the fun of it. Here are some observations:
1. Each song on the album feels like it could be the bonus track at the end of Second Stage or In Keeping Secrets. They each have that kind of "off-Coheed-ish" quality to them, where it is similar to what Coheed is doing, but comes from a very different place.
2. This album feels like acoustic Coheed (of course with some electronic attributes). What does that mean though? Think of it in this light: George Lucas makes Star Wars and it is a space opera/sci-fi adventure. Then, George Lucas makes Indiana Jones which is nothing like Star Wars, but let's be honest... there are some similarities in the feel of the two series. I liken Coheed and Prize Fighter to this. Coheed is the sci-fi space opera that Claudio has written, and Prize Fighter is his Indiana Jones (it is more earthy and has a rustic/acoutsic feel to it).
3. I still have not clue what it is about. Coheed's story made no sense to me until a comic book series was released. That helped, but I still don't fully grasp it. I can see that I would definitely need some visual imagery to accompany Prize Fighter for me to clue in to what story Claudio is trying to get across.

Anyway, there is my review of sorts of the album. I really enjoyed it yesterday and will give it another go today. And... I leave you with a music video from the album's single "Who Watches the Watchmen?"