Review - Comatose

Artist: Skillet
Album: Comatose
Record Label: Lava, Ardent, Atlantic
Producer(s): Brian Howes, John L. Cooper
Release Date: October 3rd, 2006
Genre: Rock
Strong Points: Great sound in its own right; great lyrics after interpretation; memorable melodies
Weak Points: Sounds similar to mainstream releases prior to its release
Technical Score: A-
Artistic Score: C+
Final Score (not an average): B+
Moral Warnings: Read without interpretation, many lyrics come off as dark for what is expected of a Christian band, dealing with drugs, pain, potentially suggestive imagery, and even suicide


For the unaware, Skillet is one of Christian music's most predominant hard rock bands. Fans of the band have come to expect the unexpected from Skillet as their sound evolves from release to release. Comatose is no exception to this precedent; the album moves away from most of the metal inspiration of Collide into a more refined, polished, and dynamic, sound fitting a contemporary rock band.

Though heavy guitars and driving drums have by no means escaped Skillet in the latest release, much more emphasis has been given to pianos, synthesizers, string sections, and vocal work that plays back and forth between frontman John Cooper and his wife, Korey Cooper, in Comatose. The immediate result is that no song feels raw; every track shows itself to have gone through considerable refinement by skilled producers.

Cooper's skill in songwriting is easily the album's strongest point. If there's one thing that has remained consistent from album to album, it is melody composition that has a way of getting stuck in listeners' heads. The songs of Comatose are no exception to this rule; in fact, these songs may be some of Cooper's catchiest yet. While few melodies stand out as being truly exceptional, fewer yet are less than solid.

The melodies, when combined with the lyrics, really display the overall quality of Cooper's songwriting. The lyrical composition hits what could be considered a sweet spot for Christian artists: the lyrics require listeners to use a little interpretation to get their significance, but they are very significant when given a little thought. Take the album's title track for example: "I don’t wanna sleep/I don’t wanna dream/‘cause my dreams don’t comfort me/The way you make me feel/Waking up to you never felt so real" The meaning isn't buried deep beneath the surface, but it takes a little thought to understand. In this case, the lyric refers to getting lost in the distractions of life at the cost of missing out on God and living life more fully.

The instrumental direction of the album is also solid. As mentioned before hand, the production quality is very high on Comatose. This translates to a bit of orchestra-like sounds (as well as piano and synthesizer parts) filling in the sonic space on many tracks. Piano parts play a big role on the albums many ballad-esque songs. On some songs, the orchestrated parts play a prominent role, and the result is a good one on the whole.

Unfortunately, Comatose is far from being a perfect album. In the lyricism, songs like "Better than Drugs," though true enough, come off less as inspired than as cheesy. Make no mistake, Skillet is a Christian band. However, without this knowledge, it wouldn't be hard to assume that many of the lyrics simply refer to another person instead of the Divine. Though this isn't necessarily a problem in itself, it does land the band in a place of lyrical ambiguity.

That lyrical ambiguity may be a turn off to some listeners and parents. The lyrics of "Better than Drugs" refer to drug addiction and usage as an analogy for relationship with Christ. Many lyrics, if only heard in part or misunderstood, come across as hopeless. "The Last Night" deals with a suicidal individual. Taken out of context, "Whispers" is rather suggestive.

Returning to the musical aspects of the album, though no individual instrumental parts are really problematic, some songs come off as being overly-produced. More troublesome is that Comatose has songs that go in all sorts of musical directions. Tracks range from hard rock to ballads to punk and so on. The individual tracks are great, but Comatose, as a whole, lacks consistency in musical direction. Beyond this, there is a bit of similarity to releases from mainstream artists that came out before Comatose. On the harder tracks, there is considerable influence from nu-metal acts including Linkin Park and Disturbed. Tonality of the band (and even the vocal work of Cooper) is similar to what was heard on Papa Roach's Getting Away With Murder album. To be fair, the harder tracks show some of Collide's (Skillet's precious album) influence on Comatose.

All the same, Skillet does manage to veer enough from the mainstream acts to have a sound that can be called its own (in no small part due to Korey Cooper's presence); it would just be nice if the band could make up its mind as to what sound it wanted to pursue. In spite of these complaints, Comatose really is one of the better albums released in the realm of Christian rock in the last couple of years.

Album highlights:
"The Last Night"
"Comatose"
"Falling Inside the Black"

-Kenny Yeager (kenny@revolve21.com)