When I first listened to this album I wasn’t completely sold on the weird, disjointed feeling the music gave me. Fortunately, it’s a CD/DVD release and, still confounded by the music, I watched the DVD portion. That’s when it all made sense. The Comas’ newest release, Conductor, comes with a copy of Conductor: The Movie. Let me tell you, this thing blew me away.

The movie, which couples every song on the album with such beautiful imagery and outer-spacey visuals as to completely bewilder your senses, is not your typical film. It’s more like a string of music videos – or mini-movies – for each song, each with a story.

There is an apocalyptic theme overarching all of the images, and each story demonstrates the little triumphs and tragedies of the characters. These images, amazingly rich, yet jittery, are laden with special effects that inextricably tie the visuals to the music.

After watching the movie, the music itself becomes more intelligible than a first impression allows. The profundity of the lyrics and the music’s soothing, dream-like quality become comfortable. The spacey quality in no way makes the band’s music inaccessible, and the album is well-produced and mainstream-ready, simply waiting for its time in the limelight.

Grade: A-