I'm rather disappointed in myself. I had planned to start reviewing these songs much earlier than this but I had almost little to no drive in doing it. My laptop also picked a really bad time to no longer be able to charge and I had to send it out to the other side of the country to get it fixed. So it became difficult to even begin to work on any review.

Thankfully, my brother has been kind enough to let me use his laptop at times until my own gets back. I'm in a better mood than I have been in a while, and it's long overdue (for my personal satisfaction, anyway) for this thing to get underway. With that, I begin with the first two songs from Coheed and Cambria's The Second Stage Turbine Blade.

Since the first song is really short, I'm coupling it with the second song in this review. The first track is entitled "Second Stage Turbine Blade," a short instrumental that perfectly captures the essence of what Coheed and Cambria would become. The piano interlude is, at the same time, eerie and beautiful. Later albums will show that this tune is actually half of what would eventually be considered a sort of theme song to the story behind Coheed's music -- the story of The Amory Wars.

There's not much else that can be said for the opening title track except that it leads smoothly into the next song, "Time Consumer." This song is a fan favorite for good reasons. One, it's catchy from beginning to end. The opening riff of the song just seems to reflect a fantasy-like atmosphere, further enhancing the story qualities of the concept of the music while at the same time just being so upbeat that many fans including myself love to bob their heads around in time to the beat when listening to this track. Second, it works so well as an opener on live shows. Search for any live video of this song; the energy given off by both the band and the crowd is fantastic.

Lyric wise, the song is pretty complex. In fact, many songs off this record have some dynamic, somewhat unusual style of lyrics. However, that can probably be expected when a record has a science-fiction tone to it. It reeks of the story, with many lines directly alluding to characters and relevant themes. It's without a doubt part of the reason I enjoy Coheed so much. Many times, their songs are strictly related to the story and at other times the concept isn't as noticeable. This is one of those moments where the song is just pure story all the way through and the result is amazing.

Unfortunately, this is not the best I believe I can do. I know I could do better in writing a song review, but I'm still slightly having a case of writer's block and I really wanted to write this tonight. The most I can say is that this is just such a great track it's hard to find too many bad qualities about it. I suppose the only issue would be that Claudio's voice is certainly quite high-pitched and cracks at times -- factors which may lead some to be completely turned off by his voice. I can say with certainty, however, that he has much more control over his voice now than he ever did back in 2002. This is one of his best performances singing wise.

Overall, when one progresses through Coheed's music catalog in the order of album releases, this song showcases the band's talent as musicians even from an early start. The song structure is varied, the rhythms are there, the instruments can be heard clearly and thus show each member's skills. Great track, great opener.