The coda, in the lexicon of classical music, is the closing part of a composition. Wouldn't it be neat, In the Nursery must have asked themselves, if we created an entire album's worth of codas? Wouldn't it be neater if we used the German word for coda? And wouldn't it just be ultraneat if we threw an umlaut over the "o"--just 'cause it looks cool? Hence Köda, the Sheffield, England, band's fourth full-length album and its first to be released in the United States (on the industrial-music label Wax Trax!, no less). In the Nursery had already toyed with orchestral sounds on 1987's Stormhorse by the time Köda was originally released in 1988, but this disc was a big step forward in terms of production values and compositional quality. It opens dramatically with "Rites," a bombastic call to arms driven by keyboard, horns, snare, and timpani. It would be perfect behind the opening sequence of an epic sci-fi film. "Maidens" continues the soundtrack theme, this time taking things in a more schlock-horror direction, all creepy rumblings and jumpy strings. Most of the rest of the disc is given over to prettier string arrangements embellished by organ, oboe, flute, and heavenly choirs, all (or at least much) of it sampled. It's such strikingly beautiful stuff that by the time you're halfway through it, you won't care whether what you're listening to is a coda or not. This 1998 reissue features new artwork but retains the two bonus tracks of the original--the aggressive, spy-movie-like "Compulsion" and the grand "Libertaire," which repeats some of the string themes on the album. --Steve Landau
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