fellow dork/emo/post-hardcore heads circa 98-02: wtf happened to Coheed and Cambria?

that first album was so fucking dark and cool and weird and as i think ive mentioned before Dr. Know from Bad Brains does the solo on Time Consumer (fucking dope)

second album was also good, love seeing a band progress in a way that makes sense and stays true to themselves; third album was basically their breakout success (thanks guitar hero), and then every album got fucking weird and overproduced and just generally sucked. like i can kinda get into a couple one-off tracks from later albums, but man, its all pretty meh. does anyone like their newer shit?

not tryna hate, i just hadent listened to this band in like half a decade, came back to their debut and was just like "wow second stage turnbine blade is really, really good. what happened?"