Coma Cinema is the brainchild of South Carolina musician Mat Cothran who has self-recorded two albums since he began writing and performing under the moniker in 2005, and Blue Suicide is his third album set for release in early 2011.The sound of Coma Cinema is a little difficult to solidly categorize, it's easiest perhaps to just label it as North American indie but just like similar genre-busting acts like Beulah or Wilco have done for themselves, Cothran manages to squeeze quite a wide variety of influences and different elements into the fifteen tracks that make up Blue Suicide, from chamber pop to slowcore. The fact that all of these tracks in total only just break the half an hour mark is surprising; Cothran condenses so many ideas into concise songs where every lyric and every note serves an immediate purpose and no track overstays its welcome or even lingers for a second too long. The lyrics themselves are mostly quite melancholy, bleak or downright morbid, delivered in Cothran's high-pitched, stark voice atop upbeat compositions with strong melodies and simple rhyme-schemes, making them sound like nursery rhymes about manic depression. The lyrics themselves are at times dream-like in their bizarre nature, such as on 'Lindsey' which launches immediately into the first verse as Cothran wails "Frozen dog/Hanging by a chain over the fire in the yard/Oh my god/Little bones that break and free me from my haunted hell/Sing your simple shyness pretty heart." Things slow down a little when Cothran adopts a more dour tone to match the subject matter, such as on 'Greater Vultures' and 'Her Sinking Sun,' and on these tracks he even sounds a little like Sparklehorse.
Blue Suicide is an easy album to recommend; it's brimming full of creativity and talent, showcasing Cothran's strong, offbeat song-craft, and just like his previous two albums it will be released for free on his official website. Check out 'Her Sinking Sun' below and the link to the Coma Cinema website:
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