13 Things Only Coheed & Cambria Fans Will Understand

11. They Can Make A Good Song Great

Claudio Sanchez and his gang of merry prog-rockers have this weird habit of covering songs...and actually making them sound unique. Crazy, right? Isn't the point of a redoing a song to strip it down using an acoustic guitar and some quirky vocal affectations? If you listen to most recent covers, that would seem to be the case. But that's just not the formula that Coheed & Cambria likes to use. Instead, they approach each cover differently, crafting different vibes depending on the song's background and lyrics. Take, for instance, this cover of Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vJym7Y2msk They took an eccentric and mildly upbeat tune and turned it into a slow-burning, goosebumps-inducing ballad of creepiness. The lead guitar work is restrained, but still classic Coheed. And that "little kid voice" is used to great effect in the second verse. Contrast that to what they did with this cover of Jimmy Eat World's "A Praise Chorus." Here, rather than turning it into a Coheed & Cambria song, they opted to transport the song a decade into the future. Because this is exactly what the 2001 song would have sounded like if Jimmy Eat World had recorded it in 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8TldkV77ew They adapted the style seamlessly, without compromising their own sound or the integrity of the song. If you're still not sold on their ability to nail cover songs, then you clearly haven't heard their flawless rendition of Iron Maiden's "The Trooper."