Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind
by Coheed and Cambria
User Score
8.3

Universal acclaim- based on 35 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 30 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 35
  3. Negative: 3 out of 35
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  1. Yourmumsbills
    Jun 25, 2022
    0
    Another band that seems to have lost almost everything that made them great. There's very little originality here at all, many of the songs just sound too similar to each other and to so many of their previous songs. They have also gone down the route of trying to appeal to the type of brain dead teenagers that listen to robot voiced rappers, by adding those awful wishy washy pitch shiftedAnother band that seems to have lost almost everything that made them great. There's very little originality here at all, many of the songs just sound too similar to each other and to so many of their previous songs. They have also gone down the route of trying to appeal to the type of brain dead teenagers that listen to robot voiced rappers, by adding those awful wishy washy pitch shifted vocal effects...F*ucking awful!! There are maybe two songs on this album i will actually listen to again, but all in all it's just rather mediocre pop record...oh and there are two songs that have a guitar part that sounds exactly like the intro to the ducktales theme music haha very off putting once you've heard it.… Expand
  2. maupton
    Jun 25, 2022
    0
    This album has had four years to deliver after the great Vaxuis Act I was released back in 2018. October 5th, 2018, that was my 30th birthday and was overjoyed to hear the full album for the first time. Fast forward to Friday, June 24th. Instant disappointment after going through the entire album 5 times in a row. It sucks, I mean bad. Gone were the days where Claudio and crew cared aboutThis album has had four years to deliver after the great Vaxuis Act I was released back in 2018. October 5th, 2018, that was my 30th birthday and was overjoyed to hear the full album for the first time. Fast forward to Friday, June 24th. Instant disappointment after going through the entire album 5 times in a row. It sucks, I mean bad. Gone were the days where Claudio and crew cared about the songs they write. Here we are with this catchy garbage of loopbacks, dreadful lyrics and terrible riffs. 010. I was hoping this was another 12 punch like Afterman ascension and descension. But here I am wishful thinking. Nothing is sacred anymore.… Expand
  3. WYKYDTRON
    Jun 28, 2022
    2
    Coheed have always been a band adept at finding that middle ground between radio-friendly catchiness and prog-rock legitimacy. Their landmark album "IV" (I know that's not the full title) has singalong classics and prog epics galore, appealing to all sorts which speaks to why it was their breakout effort.

    Vaxis II however, seems to have sacrificed all of that. It's not pop-rock catchy    Coheed have always been a band adept at finding that middle ground between radio-friendly catchiness and prog-rock legitimacy. Their landmark album "IV" (I know that's not the full title) has singalong classics and prog epics galore, appealing to all sorts which speaks to why it was their breakout effort.

    Vaxis II however, seems to have sacrificed all of that. It's not pop-rock catchy nor is it prog-rock complicated, it's just dull and uninspired from top to bottom. The first 10 songs on this 13-song album run no longer than 4 minutes and they all sound very similar and have a very similar tempo. Production on the album is bland and flat, drowning out instruments, burying the vocals and removing any rise and fall from the songs. Vocals are crowded and rushed, with frontman Claudio developing a severe case of verbal diarrhoea, resulting in vocal lines being long, run on sentences. Almost as though there is too much story to tell and not enough time to tell it.

    However, the runtime of this album is a relatively svelte 53 minutes. Compared to Vaxis I's runtime of 79 minutes, you have to wonder why they went with this approach. Perhaps, as with most underwhelming things, we can blame it on the Pandemic and lockdowns, but plenty of other bands produced great albums between 2020 and 2022, so I doubt it's that.

    Story-wise, the album is much like it's production - bland and one-note. It's about a boy named Vaxis, the child of our protagonists from Unheavenly Creatures. He's born, but he's in a coma. Then there are 11 songs of his parents asking him to wake up and one where a "Bad Man" comes along and tells us he's a bad man and it's bad.

    I love Coheed and Cambria, I've loved them for 15 years. They are the soundtrack to some of the best days of my life and I was very excited for this album. I wanted to love it, I have listened to it several times trying to fall in love with it, but there is nothing there to fall in love with. It's 53 minutes of half-baked ideas performed by a band who seem to have forgotten what their instruments can do.

    It sounds like Claudio locked himself in a room for a month, listening only to The Weeknd, Imagine Dragons and early 2000's pop-punk. Then he convinced himself everyone wants to hear more songs about his son and made the entire album alone while half asleep.    … Expand

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
81

Universal acclaim - based on 5 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 5
  3. Negative: 0 out of 5
  1. The Guardian
    Jan 3, 2023
    80
    Coheed have been heavier and more forward-thinking than on Vaxis I, but they’ve never released an album with so many tracks primed to become hits. Rarely has almost an hour of sci-fi mumbo jumbo been easier on the ear.
    Read full review
  2. Classic Rock Magazine
    Jun 24, 2022
    70
    The good news for casual listeners, though, is that the music works as a standalone experience. [Jun 2022, p.82]
  3. AllMusic
    Jun 24, 2022
    90
    Ultimately, Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind is stellar; it offers fresh, wildly creative terrain for the Amory Wars saga to mine going forward.
    Read full review
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