Coheed and Cambria

A mix of sic-fi, comic book fantasies, prog rock escapism and rumbling metal thunder, Coheed and Cambria were a remarkable force who rose from the US alternative scene in the early 2000s with complex fictional universes and a barrage of sprawling, face blasting riffs. Claudio Sanchez originally grew up in New York and was playing with school friends in a band called Shabutie when he went on a month-long trip to France and began writing stories about the interplanetary adventures of Coheed and Cambria Kilgannon. Initially based on himself and his girlfriend and inspired by local Parisian streets and shops, the characters grew to resemble his parents and became an outlet for expressing the childhood angst caused by his father's drug addiction and the inspiration of his mother's strength. Shabutie eventually took the name Coheed and Cambria and settled on a line-up of Sanchez, Travis Stever on guitar, Michael Todd on bass and drummer Nate Kelley in 1996, and started making music as a soundtrack to their front man's sci-fi adventures. Their weird collision of jazz noodling, hip-hop breaks, grizzly rock riffs and ambient meandering was always strikingly different from anything else on their local scene and the band started out playing to 20 people in Woodstock before touring dive bars packed with hardcore and emo crowds. Kelley was replaced by Josh Eppard on drums, but their musicianship and cult following grew with debut album 'The Second Stage Turbine Blade' and as follow-up 'In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3' became a surprise mainstream success reaching gold status, they were signed to a major label deal with Columbia Records. The increased resources allowed the band to fully transform Sanchez's narratives and the band's raw, explosive live shows into intense, chaotic, cinematic soundscapes on 'Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Vol One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness' in 2005 and 'Vol Two: No World for Tomorrow' in 2007, and both records crossed over and made the US top ten. Sanchez's stories and songs were also turned into the comic book series 'The Amory Wars' and following album 'Year of the Black Rainbow' was a prequel that told the origin story of his heroes and went on to reach number five in the US charts. They also toured with Iron Maiden and replaced Todd with bass player Zach Cooper before sister albums 'The Aftermath: Ascension' and 'The Aftermath: Descension' were based on the character of Sirius Amory drawing inspiration from Metallica and Pink Floyd. Ditching the sci-fi concepts, 'The Color Before the Sun' in 2015 was a more direct, sincere punk-pop thrash on which Sanchez discussed personal issues such as becoming a father and growing older, but the band went on to sign to Roadrunner Records and returned in 2018 with 'Vaxis - Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures', an epic, prog rock behemoth that reignited The Amory Wars narrative and took the story to a prison planet called The Dark Sentencer.

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