The Comas Spells by: Joseph Coscarelli Mon:02-Jul-07 Label: Vagrant Year: 2007 WB rating 61 out of 100

Vagrant Records may pack the punch of a heavyweight as far as independent record labels are concerned, but that's not to say they've nurtured a very lovable pedigree. In fact, while riding the crest of the mall-punk/emo wave, the label unrelentingly unleashed upon the world such loathsome acts as Senses Fail, Alexisonfire, and From Autumn to Ashes, with no regard for originality, serving instead as a factory, churning out screamo clones as if on an assembly line. Perhaps noticing the error of their ways (or sensing the death of a genre) the label has expanded to reflect a much diversified base, most notably releasing the nearly universally lauded Boys and Girls In America from the Hold Steady, its neo-Springsteen barroom riffs a far cry from Vagrant's adolescent angst of yore. In the spirit of sustained diversification comes the fourth album from the New York City-by-way-of-North Carolina group, The Comas. Spells finds the quintet on familiar ground, turning up the amps until the sound breaks and draping this galactic fuzz over tight, neat power-pop morsels. But a gleam and glimmer in ambitious eyes gives away the dirty little secret that these hook masters may have their eyes on more distant stars less often tread.  

Opener 'Red Microphones' proves this band has straightforward down pat – the synth buzzes like a jolly fruit fly instead of an ornery bee, and acoustic strums prop up enunciated, sweetly sung vocals made for whistling along. But the pitfalls of stylistic formulas are deep and unforgiving, and what The Comas made up for with bared sentimentality on 2004's Conductor, isn't afforded the same saving grace on Spells. Thankfully, they take notice, ruefully, they fall short. The band comes to the fork in the road generated by this conundrum and they end up taking both routes. They turn up the spacey, epic shoegaze flourishes that they trifled with, but attempt to keep the Fountains of Wayne, good natured spirit, not all that far from a band like Motion City Soundtrack, save the kitschy pop culture lyrics. Serious pop, a la The Pixies, is in reach, but is made bland with overly pristine production and tempered fits of experimentation that refuse to gel. 

As if a band on a leash, The Comas appear unable to roam far from the new-wave pop sound that no doubt sounded like "cha-ching" to a record exec or two without disrupting the album’s flow. As a result, they find themselves caught between marketability and a hard place, the airy synths of 'Come My Sunshine' revealing Nicole Gehweiler's vocals as angelic and arena filling, with ambition the only thing blocking the band from the mainstream. What they need is a hit video and 'Stoneded' is a perfect candidate verging on ripe '80s revival. A commercial explosion would be inevitable, but instead they hone their less profitable craft with thick overdubs on male/female vocals, pushing them back in the mix and lathering with reverb on the epic 'Now I'm A Spider' and 'Sarah T.'. Both are choice tunes when removed from context but attribute to the album's lacking in that "take it to the bank" quality, favoring meandering experimentalism. The shifts in mood and structure appear too stark of a contrast to the directness present on spastic numbers like 'Hannah T.' with its larynx-shredding Iggy Pop yelps of "search and destroy!" beneath synths that sound like the takeoff of a commercial airliner.  

When they tone down the spazz on 'Thistledown' the result is actually quiet disarming, as the 'Lucy in the Sky...' key tones and Beulah psych-pop melody find harmony. "Our systems have failed," sings Andy Herod, yet actually the dreamy ballad is where they system succeeds -- lush and echoed, Spells reaches its pinnacle. After the forgettable electro-pop punk of 'New Wolf', the band tries the epic space ballad again, even conjuring images of Major Tom and Bowie's '70s glam on 'After The Afterglow'. A harmonious display of falling action, the organic strums counter nicely with the space-sound synthetics and the delicate choral hymn that draws the song to a close is truly haunting.  

Notwithstanding a few impressive individual moments, it all just lacks cohesive bite. Too often, The Comas are playing in the party sequence of your run-of-the-mill teenage drama, providing an ample soundtrack but careful not to take any attention away from the primary action. This may prove to be ironic if you know the band's history; The Comas' last record Conductor was based around Herod's breakup with WB teen queen and Dawson's Creek star Michelle Williams. Yet if you find yourself lacking the plights of Dawson, Joey, Pacey and Jen, with plans, instead, to be engulfed by a record, Spells is not your surest bet. The album too quickly slides into the background as a pleasant but unwavering force -- a melodic white noise. But instead of capturing finer sides of the droning ambiance and atmosphere of the shoegaze fuzz Spells flirts with, or conversely committing to in-your-face pop bursts, The Comas teeter in limbo and become too easy to cast aside.  For instance, the spacey guitar solo on 'Light the Pad' is a nice fit of experimentation, but it detracts from the song's otherwise electric succinctness. The capacity to perform the flip-flop at all does speak to the talent of the group members and puts them light years beyond their Vagrant emo peers, but mastering a more seamless transition of styles would conquer the waffling indecisiveness in favor of a deft incorporation too rarely found on Spells.