The Comas - Spells

THE COMAS
Spells

Spells is the fourth long-player from North Carolina’s The Comas and follows the much talked-of album, Conductor, which documented frontman Andy Herod's painful split from Dawson's Creek star Michelle Williams.

Since the heartbreak of Conductor, the quintet have upped-sticks and headed to New York and, in the process, seem to have rediscovered a spring in their step, demonstrated by this album of optimistic American indie pop. Opener Red Microphones is a pleasant, fuzzy guitar track buoyed by some dreamy synth, whereas certain parts of Hannah T sound like Wayne Coyne doing an adaptation of Alice Cooper’s Poison while being backed by The Shins. Obviously this makes it the best track on the album by a mile.

Okay, so Spells is an atmospheric collection of songs with a few pleasing moments; yet there is nothing here that is particularly memorable. If Conductor was highly praised yet not big-selling, then there is little to suggest that this latest offering will put The Comas on the map either, especially as it doesn’t have the subject-matter that made its predecessor so darkly intriguing. Their sound lands somewhere between fellow US indie bands The Shins, Weezer and Flaming Lips, yet at no stage do they come anywhere near scaling the heights that these bands reach, nor do they even seem to have the ambition to do so. Put bluntly, Spells is decent enough, but there are many other bands doing this kind of thing much, much better.