Coma Cinema a sleeper

“Blue Suicide”, the third full-length from Coma Cinema, is an exercise in condemning your career to the endless list of mediocre lo-fi 60s wannabe bands.

South Carolina native Mat Cothran leads the band, and he writes quick — the album has 15 songs and clocks in at just under 36 minutes — and gloomy indie-pop songs in the vein of Elliot Smith. He also utilizes the fuzzy lo-fi sound similar to that of bands like Pedro the Lion and Neutral Milk Hotel to convey the songs to his listeners.

The effect, unfortunately for us, does little to make him as consistently compelling as any of the previous listed outfits.

There are definitely some good cuts on the album; including “Desolation’s Plan,” “Wrecked” and “Caroline, Please Kill Me.”

A few others are worth noting as well, but overall the songs feel too similar to each other and are not consistently catchy enough to justify a 15-song release: a problem constantly facing the recent lo-fi trend.

At the end of the day, Coma Cinema can be added to the long list of bands that probably still loves the Beatles a little too much and end up sounding like an apathetic 21st century version of that band’s early career.

By Jake Amrhein