Coheed and Cambria: In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth 3

Coheed and Cambria employ plenty of pomp and circumstance for both the title and the dramatically orchestrated intro to their second full-length album, reissued by Capitol Records after its initial 2003 release. And such artsy bombast is an apt introduction to the New Jersey-based quartet. The album takes up where 2002's "The Second Stage Turbine Blade" left off, detailing the continued adventures of Coheed and Cambria, a couple who inhabit an alternate, intergalactic world. The band fashions a spectacular landscape of shadowy menace and volatile drama that resembles the Mars Volta's luminous 2003 release, "De-Loused in the Comatorium," and both bands favor soaring, emotionally fraught vocals and decadent guitar outbursts. But Coheed and Cambria have a more straight-ahead, heavy-rock sound tinged with modern rock and prog-punk flavors. The opening title track builds slowly into a sonic call to arms, with Travis Stever's metallic guitar riffs slicing through Mic Todd's chugging bass line and Josh Eppard's staccato beat, as guitarist/vocalist Claudio Sanchez wails the line, "Man your battle stations." The mood lightens on "Blood Red Summer," as a cool, taut riff rears up around lighter pop vocals, while "The Light and the Glass" is a gentle rock ballad. With this album, Coheed and Cambria unleash another scourge of deftly arranged heavy-rock theatrics. Coheed and Cambria play the Vans Warped Tour in the Gillette Stadium parking lot Aug. 19.