I didn’t pay him much attention. But after about an hour, my jaw dropped. I suddenly recognized this guy, and felt guilty for not having done so sooner. He was my friend Ryan, and he had shaved.

This is a big deal. You see, when I first met Ryan, he was 18 years old and had one of the biggest, greatest beards I’d ever seen.

The kid was pretty hardcore to begin with. When we met, he regularly sported thrashed jeans, bullet belts and T-shirts with band names like “Toxic Holocaust” or “Cephalic Carnage.” The fact that he sported a thick, black Castro-esque beard only added to the metal mystique.

The kid became legendary for his beard. Even though he was one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet and played guitar better than most of us could ever dream to, most people remembered Ryan for his epic beard.

After my non-recognition guilt subsided, I told Ryan that I would write about him in this column sooner or later. I wanted to know what it was like to go from monstrous beard to smooth skin so quickly.

Ryan said his shave happened by accident after letting his girlfriend try to tame his beard.

“I got a really bad trim from my girlfriend, so I decided to just go full-on and shave it off,” Ryan said. “Then I found out she had trimmed it badly on purpose so I would shave.”

What he found under all those whiskers surprised him. After shaving, Ryan found that his face had changed a lot since he last saw it unadorned. His chin was a different shape, for example, and he hardly recognized himself. And he wasn’t the only one.

“People don’t even recognize me anymore,” Ryan said. “The people I’ve met who are more acquaintances than they are friends sort of feel like this person they knew has disappeared.”

Not that blending in to a crowd bothers him a bit. Ryan said that being so easily recognizable was not his style, and that the beard was becoming such a big part of his persona it was almost too much to handle. He said people felt like they had a right to his appearance.

“Any kind of trim was met with resistance,” Ryan said. “It was almost like ownership of the beard was not mine. It became a sort of social thing.”

While he’s happy with the decision to shave, Ryan said he only remembers his beard fondly.

“Having a beard is pretty sweet,” Ryan said. “It’s a way of expressing masculinity without being overbearing.”

President Barack Obama nominated Noel March to the post in December.

March was eating lunch in Bangor with two senior managers of the Marshals Service in Maine when his cell phone starting ringing off the hook, the chief said. Sen. Susan Collins and Rep. Mike Michaud both called March to congratulate him on his confirmation, which passed unanimously in the Senate Thursday afternoon.

The police chief said elation was his initial reaction, but he is also anxious to take on his new role with the federal government.

“Nervous? Of course. It’s a huge responsibility,” March said. “To say I wasn’t nervous would mean that I don’t care as much as I truly do.”

March’s last day as chief of police for UMaine will be April 30. He said overseeing the security of the 2010 commencement ceremony will be his last act with the university for which he has worked for more than eight years. Afterward, he plans to take some time off before flying to Washington, D.C., to be sworn in.

In April 2009, a representative for Michaud asked March to submit his résumé for consideration for U.S. Marshal. March was certain that, as a Republican, he would not be nominated. According to March, the representative assured him that Michaud was “more interested in what is in a person’s resume than who is in their Rolodex.”

“This entire process has been a lesson in civics and patience,” March said.

He has been through “a full year of background checking, interviewing, vetting and preparing” for the questions he has had to answer before his confirmation.

After leaving campus police, March’s second-in-command, Capt. Roland LaCroix, will temporarily take over the responsibilities of chief of police, March said. The university, which oversees the campus police department, will begin the process of officially hiring a new chief shortly thereafter. March said he hopes the university will choose LaCroix for the job.

“Roland LaCroix has proven to be a trusted and competent campus police leader over the last year and a half,” March said. “He has my full support.”

“This is a very important federal law enforcement position in Maine that requires experience and integrity,” wrote Michaud in a statement Thursday. “Noel March has both.  He is an expert in community policing and has a proven track record.  The combination of his professional experience, organizational leadership and temperament make me confident that he will serve the District of Maine extremely well.”

Before coming to UMaine in 2002, March was director of the Maine Community Policing Institute, chief deputy sheriff of Cumberland County, a member of the 2002 Olympic Police Force in Salt Lake City and assistant vice president for MBNA. He is a graduate of the University of New England and the FBI National Academy.

Established in 1789, the Marshals Service’s responsibilities include protecting federal judicial officials, investigating and apprehending federal fugitives, running the Witness Security Program, transporting convicts and seizing illegally acquired property.

Garrett Cheney, 22, of South Berwick, was charged with manslaughter, leaving the scene of a crime and aggravated operating under the influence when he turned himself in to state police in Orono on April 16. The Maine State Police Crime Laboratory said pieces of debris found at the scene of Bakley’s death on Middle Street matched Cheney’s 2003 Chevrolet Silverado.

According to court documents, several witnesses placed Cheney on Middle Street before the young woman died. He was also involved in an accident in Etna around 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 30, when he drove his truck off Interstate 95 and hit a tree.

While he has yet to see all the evidence the state will put forward, Biddeford-based OUI attorney William Bly — who will represent Cheney in court— said his client called the police when he crashed his truck in Etna.

“That is not consistent with someone that would run down a young woman and leave her at the side of the road and not call the police,” Bly said. According to an April 17 post, Bly told duiattorney.com that this is a case of mistaken identity.

Penobscot County District Attorney Chris Almy, the prosecutor in Cheney’s case, said he wasn’t sure if Cheney called the police, but that he knew someone else did make a call.

“The police were called by a motorist who had been following this guy and was concerned that he was all over the road,” Almy said. Court documents do not reveal who placed the call, but stated that when a state trooper responded to the accident, Cheney was not at the scene. He was picked up later that morning at a local Irving station and charged with OUI.

Bly also said he is concerned with the level of media coverage Bakley’s death and Cheney’s subsequent arrest have received.

“I have defended cases similar to this, but not with the same type of notoriety or press coverage,” Bly said. “I would certainly hope that people aren’t too quick to rush to judgment. These are just the accusations. The presumption of innocence has to remain.”

Cheney is currently free on a $50,000 surety until his first court appearance at Penobscot County Judicial Center on May 20.

Sunny Hughes left the country April 11 to speak at the Surveillance and Society Conference in London. She and her husband, Christopher Ross, were scheduled to leave Sunday. As of Wednesday night local time, Hughes and Ross were on a train from London to Paris, where they plan to rent a car, drive to Madrid and catch a flight to Bangor on April 26.

The April 14 ash explosion from the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajoküll has stranded airline passengers in more than 20 European countries, according to media reports. Flights within the European continent resumed as of Sunday, but Hughes said the reports about flights from London’s Heathrow Airport are exaggerated.

“Most of the flights going out of there are all special purpose, for people who are really vulnerable,” Hughes said in a telephone interview. She said staying in London on the assumption her flight would be cleared for takeoff would have been a gamble.

Hughes first heard of the Iceland volcanic eruption from a colleague at the conference. After she verified the cancellation for herself, she was worried.

“My first thought was the kids,” Hughes said. She has two sons, 11 and 8 years old, who were with a babysitter. She arranged for a friend to pick up the kids and watch them until she could return, saying it was hard “trying to explain to an 8-year-old that a volcano was keeping us in London. He thought we were joking.”

Hughes is teaching two upper-level journalism courses this semester, which colleagues at the university have taken over in her absence. She hopes students will use the volcanic explosion and its effect on world travel as a learning opportunity.

“In some ways, this may have been fun for them, to see the international response to this story,” Hughes said. “On this continent, it’s a national emergency. It’s a little strange to be from the U.S. — I don’t think people there see it as a big deal.”

The professor noted the use of social media in keeping up-to-date on the latest volcano and flight schedule news while attempting to find a way home.

“I used Twitter and Facebook a lot, and this is another one of those examples where in an emergency people are connectng through social media,” she said. “Beyond the people we met in real life, people have been incredibly helpful on social media sites.”

Hughes is quick to point out that other travelers have it far worse than she and her husband do. She said there are people who have been sleeping on cots in the airports for five days. But while she is keeping things in perspective, she said the delay has taken a toll on her emotionally and financially.

A high international phone bill racked up while trying to schedule a flight out of any airport that still had planes in the air and the extra cost of food, lodging and travel for her extended stay in Europe were all paid out of pocket.

Now that she has a plan and can see the light at the end of the tunnel, Hughes is trying to make the most of the time she has left in the Old World.

“I’m enjoying [my time in Europe] now that we have a plan to fly out of Madrid on Monday, but I can’t say I’ve been enjoying myself the whole time,” she said.

She said there were many moments where her husband had to comfort her when she worried about her classes, kids and dog. “We’ve been through a lot of hell for the last few days,” she said.

Student Government President Brian Harris appointed Giang Vo, a junior accounting student, for VPFA and Anthony Ortiz, a junior civil and environmental engineering student, for VPSO. The appointment of both candidates passed with no dissenting votes.

Beginning next semester, Vo will be responsible for the roughly $750,000 budget of Student Government Inc. She is currently the VPFA for Residents on Campus, the organization with the second largest budget on campus, after Student Government. She has also served as the treasurer for the International Student Association.

Current VPFA Justin Labonte said Vo’s stint with ROC gave her experience in allocating money and that her experience with ISA gave her the perspective of organizations that will come to Student Government for money.

“She has a unique perspective from being on both sides of the table,” Labonte said. He also said what Vo learned from a class on governmental and nonprofit accounting would aid Vo in executing the duties of VPFA, which include not only reviewing applications for funding, but maintaining a balanced budget.

Anthony Ortiz, brother of long-standing Sen. Alex Ortiz, was praised with sparkling recommendations from both Harris and current VPSO Samantha Shulman. Aside from his work as president of Sigma Phi Epsilon and in Sophomore Owls, Anthony Ortiz has been President of the Latin American Student Organization and sat on the Council of the Class of 2012, according to a statement by Harris.

Shulman informed senate of Anthony Ortiz’s list of explicit goals for success in the position of VPSO. Anthony Ortiz said he would strive to increase student outreach; update the website to allow student organizations to fill out paperwork online; create and maintain relationships with representative boards and community organizations; increase policy understanding, including the creation of a “how-to” website with information on organize and run a student organization; reinforce the relationship between student organizations and Student Government; increase communication between Student Government and organizations; and increase membership and interest in student organizations.

• • •

In other GSS business:

• Janet Waldron, UMaine’s vice president for administration and finance, spoke to senate about current budget projections. She told senate that while fiscal year 2011 is projected to include a 5.3 percent tuition-fee increase for on-campus students and the elimination of 53 full-time equivalent positions, “We try to minimize the effect, as much as possible, on students.”

• President Harris appointed Sean Edwards as tech manager and Jamie Crawford as the director for external affairs. Jon Allen was sworn in as a new senator.

• Senate passed a resolution to allocate $1,400 to the Interfraternity Council for Maine Day events.

• Preliminary recognition was granted to the Cybersecurity Team.

• A resolution to “acknowledge the University of Maine administration’s effort to respond to student objections over the preliminary Academic Program Prioritizaion Working Group Report” was sent to the Administrative and Academic Policy Committee for review.

• Freshman political science student Ryan Gavin resigned from his seat on the General Student Senate.

“I have tried for months to give my expertise to this organization,” Gavin said during the meeting. “Some of it has been received well and some of it hasn’t. But there comes a point when something is a waste of one’s time, and I have reached that point.”

Until recently, Gavin was the parliamentarian for GSS. During his tenure, he tried to enforce parliamentary procedure as is written in Robert’s Rules of Order, the text that nominally governs the way GSS business is conducted. Gavin’s tendency to enforce the rules on a body that could be resistant to observing the letter of the law frustrated some senators.

“Robert’s Rules is put in there to make sure it’s not just chaos,” said President Brian Harris. “We’ve used them in the past, but not in all situations because we’ve adapted to our environment. We’ve seen this year that when people don’t know Robert’s Rules and some are trying to use them and some aren’t, it can be distracting for the meeting. That’s where some of the frustration is coming from.”

Ryan said he didn’t think an expectation to follow what he perceived to be the rules of the senate should frustrate senators. According to Gavin, senators were resistant to observing the rules because “change requires people to read, and to participate.”

“It was clear and evident to me last night that almost everybody who has an influential voice in that body has a fundamental misunderstanding of how the body is supposed to be structured,” Gavin said. “They don’t understand the rules.”

“I understand that he was frustrated with the process,” said Sen. Nate Wildes. “I think it reached a critical point for him, and I think there is a fundamental difference of perspective and opinion on what GSS is and what it should be.”

According to Wildes, Student Government is a “representative body” of undergraduates at UMaine. He said its role is to be a funnel through which students’ opinions are made known to the faculty, staff and administration at the university and system level. He also said its role is to continue to provide services to activity-fee paying students, such as legal services, student entertainment and more.

But Wildes said he thinks some senators have more political goals for the organization.

“Student Government does not, as an organization, effect policy across UMaine. We influence it by funneling student input, concerns and passions,” Wildes said. “Faculty Senate is a political organization. They have direct control over decisions being made at the university level. Student Government doesn’t have that control over decision-making. We are a focused, activist group on behalf of the student body.”

Gavin said it’s not enough only to inform decision makers of students’ opinions.

“I think Student Government should have two equal priorities,” Gavin said. “One is the responsible allocation of student money.” The other is “the accurate and responsible and professional representation of student opinion, and action on behalf of students,” he said.

Gavin said Student Government should work directly with decision makers to pass resolutions with the seal of approval from those in power. In this way, Gavin said Student Government can affect change.

The difference between these two views, one of Student Government as a mouthpiece for the student body and the other as its activist arm, is not a cause for concern for Harris, who heads the organization.

“I wouldn’t say there’s a division,” Harris said. “We all have the same vision of what we’d like to do, which is improving student life as best we can. Some people just differ on how we get there.”

Sarah Hinman and Josh O’Donald, hosts of The Maine Channel’s “Sex and Wine with S and J,” joke that they are sponsored by the Australian wine company. Today, Sarah tries to open the bottle, but can’t. She hands it off to Josh. They sit down on the couch in O’Donald’s Orono apartment and crack open the MacBook — their show’s camera, mic and editing center.

On the show, Hinman and O’Donald talk all things sex. They’ve tackled anal sex, cheating, friends with benefits and faking orgasms. On the heavier side, they’ve discussed consent, sexual assault and sexually transmitted diseases. They’ve also had a guest speaker from Rape Response Services of Bangor on the show.

Hinman, who met O’Donald while assisting Sandy Caron in teaching her human sexuality course, said the goal of the show is to inform people and make them more comfortable with sex, which she said is seen as taboo in most circles.

“I’ll talk about anything on the air,” O’Donald said.

“The first step to educating the community about sexuality is to talk about it openly,” Hinman said. “Maybe if we’re open about it, other people will be too.”

Open they are. A mix of Dr. Ruth, Dr. Drew and Perez Hilton, “Sex and Wine” is playful and sometimes uncomfortably candid.

They one-up each other in describing their own sex lives. This show is about getting it on in unusual locales. The two play off each other, throwing little verbal darts at one another as they record.

“I’ve had sex anywhere and everywhere you can imagine,” Hinman said at the beginning of the show.

“And she means anywhere, with anyone,” quipped O’Donald, which Hinman quickly denied.

Before long, the two were reading comments from the show’s viewers — a practice they say is common. Since the show isn’t recorded live, they have to plan who will “call in” to the show. Usually this means texting Hinman a comment or an answer to a question.

Over the course of the show’s recording, the following locations were given as “the wildest place you’ve ever gotten it on”: on a baseball mound, in the woods, on a beach, in a high school football locker room, in the library at Johns Hopkins University, in a room with other people and on the third floor of Fogler Library. Both hosts said doing the deed in an airplane is their number one destination for the no-pants dance.

O’Donald and Hinman have recorded about 20 episodes of the show since they began filming in October. They don’t remember exactly whose idea it was to host a show, but both said the show started in jest.

“It started out as a joke, but then we were like, ‘We should do this,’” Hinman said. “It started as this quirky little thing, but it’s so fun.”

Whether it’s because of audience interaction or the upbeat, fast-talking personalities of the hosts, Hinman and O’Donald have become minor celebrities since they started the show in October. The two both said they get recognized by strangers as S and J when they go out.

“Sometimes they don’t say it, but people look at you, and you know they recognized you,” O’Donald said.

“Or our friends will text us to say they spotted someone watching the show,” Hinman added. The show’s Facebook page has 460 fans, the only tangible indicator of the show’s popularity. But maybe a better sign of the show’s infamy is a souvenir Hinman left a bar with a few nights ago: “Sex and Wine” written in capital letters in black marker across her chest.

The two will be one of the features of this year’s Sex Carnival on April 25 at Stewart Quad. They’ll have a table and will film students answering a set of sex-related questions and compile the interviews into an episode of “Sex and Wine.”

The show’s 20-minute episodes air between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. on The Maine Channel every weeknight.

Garrett Cheney, 22, was arrested at 6 a.m. Friday morning, according to Penobscot County District Attorney Chris Almy. Cheney has been charged with manslaughter, aggravated criminal operating under the influence, leaving the scene of an accident that resulted in death to a person and criminal operating under the influence. Almy said Cheney turned himself in to Maine State Police in Orono after learning there was a warrant out for his arrest.

The manslaughter charge carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.

Cheney’s bail was set at $50,000 surety or $20,000 cash. Cheney posted the $50,000 surety around 4 p.m. Friday, according to the Penobscot County Jail.

Bakley’s body was found by a newspaper deliveryman in front of 15 Middle St. at 5:40 a.m. Jan. 30. The state medical examiner’s autopsy found the cause of death to be multiple blunt force trauma.

According to the court affidavit, police allege Cheney parked his blue 2003 Chevrolet Silverado at 38 Middle St. around 11 p.m. Jan. 29 before heading out with his cousin, who was celebrating his 21st birthday. The two visited a couple of bars and drank together, the cousin told police.

The affidavit states Cheney returned to 38 Middle St. at 2:30 a.m. Jan. 30, and appeared to be intoxicated, according to a witness, who also told detectives that Cheney left around 3 a.m.

Police allege that Cheney struck Bakley while driving north on Middle Street on the wrong side of the road.

“When the crash occurred, the vehicle involved got stuck in the snow bank,” Almy said. “Some of the vehicle’s parts were left at the scene, which the police collected.”

The affidavit states that around 3:30 a.m., Cheney drove his truck off the road in Etna while traveling south on Interstate 95. Cheney was charged with operating under the influence and was found at 5:05 a.m. to have a blood alcohol content of .15 — nearly twice the legal limit. His truck was towed to a garage in Newport and later impounded by police.

On Feb. 9, Orono and state police, accompanied by representatives from the state Medical Examiner’s Office and the Police Crime Laboratory, searched Cheney’s truck. According to the affidavit, a crime lab report stated the debris found at the scene of Bakley’s death had originated from Cheney’s vehicle.

Cheney is scheduled to have his first court appearance May 20.

William P. Davis contributed to this report.

The recommendations no longer include the elimination of French, Spanish, music or music performance majors. The group’s earlier report, released on March 24, controversially recommended the elimination of those programs, as well as women’s studies, German, Latin and theater. Students and faculty by the hundreds lobbied the group at an informational forum, at a public rally on the steps of Fogler Library and in e-mails, letters and phone calls to the committee, deans and provost.

“After the interim report and the open forums and all the feedback we got, we were really challenged to look at things in a different way,” Hunter said. “That’s resulted in some changes in the final document.”

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was the only college to drastically change its recommendations. Jeffrey Hecker, dean of the liberal arts college, said it made sense that LAS changed more than the university’s other four colleges.

“If you looked at the open forum, and if you followed the traffic on the FirstClass folder, the proposed changes in the liberal arts and sciences elicited a much stronger response than those in the other colleges,” Hecker said. “I did listen to that.”

Also gone are the proposals to combine specific LAS departments, such as anthropology and sociology. The report is also now devoid of specific numbers with regard to faculty cuts in each college, though the report still says 80 positions would have to be eliminated by the end of FY 2012 to fill the portion of the budget gap for which the group is responsible.

Of the other LAS majors still mentioned specifically in the new report, none are recommended for outright elimination. Instead, undergraduate majors in women’s studies, German, Latin and theater would be suspended, a decision more easily reversed than elimination.

“Suspension allows us to reactivate the program a lot more quickly than if a major were eliminated,” said Raymond Pelletier, chairman of the Modern Languages and Classics Department. “The wording is very important to us. It’s only a 25 percent negative versus a 100 percent negative.”

Pelletier said the changes in the report’s recommendations were partly thanks to the response from students, faculty, staff and alumni to the earlier proposal to eliminate all foreign language majors. He also said the department was able to convince the committee that it was an unsound fiscal decision.

“One of the strongest arguments the department was able to make is that we really doubted this would save money,” Pelletier said. “In addition, we showed specific instances where cutting these programs would cost the university money.” The chairman said more than $1 million in gifts to the university could have been lost had all the foreign language majors been cut.

It was this sort of faculty feedback that changed many of the recommendations, Hecker said.

“The faculties in the affected units went back and rethought what they could do,” Hecker said. For example, the music department came forward with a plan to preserve their undergraduate degrees by reducing the number of ensembles offered by the music department, the dean said.

“That kind of constructive response led to the changes,” Hecker said.

In addition to changes in the proposals to save money at UMaine, the final APPWG report also includes recommendations to increase revenue and enrollment, as well as an endorsement of restructuring and consolidating general education requirements.

Hunter said in many cases, too many teachers are teaching narrowly-tailored general education courses, which may be better served by more streamlined courses.

“General education is a rather expensive and, I would say, convoluted and complicated structure,” Hunter said. “We think there’s a way we can restructure it to be more efficient and to serve the students with a better product.”

Other proposals to enhance revenue or create savings include examining a flat tuition rate, as is employed by many private universities; involving faculty in discussions about interdisciplinary collaboration with an eye toward shrinking budgets; re-examining health care and student loan costs in the light of recent federal legislation; increasing five-year bachelor’s-master’s programs and offering non-credit online courses to the general public.

Though the report may no longer include proposals to combine specific programs, Hecker said the possibility of department combination is not out of the question. The intention of the report, he said, is not to put forward exactly what should happen, but to identify what areas to examine further when the time comes to make cuts.

“What I’m trying to do is put in more flexible language. I don’t have a very specific plan; that would be inappropriate,” Hecker said, adding that it was better let the departments come up with a ways to save money and absorb faculty losses while still providing a quality degree-granting program.

“There may in fact be other reorganizations,” Hecker said. “But I thought it was better to put in broad language. To be honest, it might include those ideas, or some form of them, but it’s better not to say exclusively ‘this is what we are going to do.’”

APPWG was created by President Robert Kennedy in the summer of 2009 to find a plan to ensure “strong support of our highest priority degree programs funded by a reduction in those ranked as our lowest priorities,” as written in Kennedy’s charge to the group.

There are still many more steps before any final decisions on program changes are made. Kennedy will take this report under consideration in forming a list of actions to address the budget gap, which will go through a process involving faculty senate and the board of trustees, as well as checks to ensure that changes don’t violate University of Maine System policies, labor contract requirements or state and federal statutes and regulations. APPWG expects the entire process to be complete early in the fall 2010 semester.

Eight years after the band kicked off its “Amory Wars” series of concept albums and accompanying comic series with “Second Stage Turbine Blade,” the band’s sonic storyline is finally complete after Tuesday’s release of its prequel album, “Year of the Black Rainbow.”

If that last paragraph meant absolutely nothing to you, don’t worry. One of the perks with a band like Coheed and Cambria — and there are few bands like them — is that you don’t need to understand the sci-fi epic that is the Amory Wars to know they rock in a way few other bands do. 

The unfortunate thing about Coheed’s je ne sais quoi is it doesn’t grab you right away. The first time I listened to “Year of the Black Rainbow,” I told my friends the album was a solid mix of mediocre and awesome. Both “The Broken” and “Here We Are Juggernaut,” the album’s singles, perfectly demonstrated everything great about Coheed and Cambria: the frolicking basslines, the prog-a-riffic guitar tracks and Claudio Sanchez’s ethereal vocal melodies. The rest sort of fell flat.

But, being the super-fan I am and remembering similar experiences with the great departure that was “Good Apollo I,” I gave the album a couple more shots. After about three full play-throughs, I couldn’t stop hitting “repeat all” on iTunes.

In many respects, “Year of the Black Rainbow” is a sort of homecoming for Coheed and Cambria. The band’s release of “Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness” in 2005 marked a departure from the pop-punk roots that made the band a favorite on Warped Tour and propelled them to fame on the backs of their first two albums. That heavier, weirder side carried them through their last two albums.

But “Year of the Black Rainbow” has very little of the progressive rock feel of the “Good Apollo” albums; if anything, it is a push back to the glory that was “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth,” the album that popelled Coheed over the edge into mainstream success.

Aside from the two singles, for which much ink has already been spilled, the best track on the album has got to be “World of Lines.” The track’s chorus is so catchy I found myself singing along before I even knew the words. It didn’t matter that I was faking it; the song just demanded audience participation.

The track getting a whole lot of attention in the fanverse is “Far.” All of Coheed’s albums have at least one ballad-esque track, and this is it for “Year of the Black Rainbow.” The song is melancholy without being too over-the-top. According to the DVD that came with the album, drummer Chris Pennie experimented with a drumkit made of trashcans, and this song sounds like it features the garbage-kit. It’s interesting, but not particularly compelling, and may be the weakest track on the otherwise stellar album.

It bears mention the album was co-produced by Joe Baressi and Atticus Ross. Normally I wouldn’t mention production in a review, but Ross also produced Nine Inch Nails’ “With Teeth” and “Year Zero,” and his contribution to the album’s overall soundscape is evident in the gritty, grimy feel of a good chunk of the album’s tracks. The distortion level leaves the music sounding outright sludgy at times — new territory for Coheed and Cambria —and I can’t help but think it’s all thanks to Ross.

Regardless of who deserves ultimate praise for the album, “Year of the Black Rainbow” is a solid release from a band that doesn’t know how to put out anything but good music.

Grade: B+