Coheed and Cambria: Descension

Coheed and Cambria are a unique beast: throughout their seven studio albums and over ten years of existence they’ve conjured a musical meeting place somewhere between progressive rock, punk, metal and post-hardcore, with a healthy dose of pop-rock thrown in. If you’ve never heard the band this description may overwhelm you, but listening to them is much easier than trying to put words to what they do – their songs and albums comes across as effortless, each hat they try on seeming to fit just as well as the last.

When TMN speak to Coheed’s lead guitarist and backing vocalist, Travis Stever, he’s sandwiched between having just appeared onConan the night before, and starting rehearsals for their tour the night after. Not to mention the preparations for filming a new videoclip, as well as the errands he’s running during our phone conversation. It’s a busy time for himself and for the band, but he’s understandably energetic.

“Conan was, obviously, an incredible experience. Conan andLetterman are the dreams for me, so it’s amazing to have done that”

The song they chose to play was Dark Side of Me, an slow-burning ballad from their new album The Afterman: Descension – a sequel to their previous album, The Afterman: Ascension, released just last October. The proximity these albums had to each other is a testament to the dedication the band has to their singular vision – put as simply as possible, these two albums tell a story, as a prequel to the saga of the bands first five records. But why release them seperately at all?

“Ascension was conceptually made to be a ’to be continued’ – we wanted the audience to be able to digest the first half before revealing the conclusion, but they are definitely intended to work together as two parts of a whole.” Travis explains. “But that’s not to say that we used every song we wrote. We put a lot of thought into the sequencing, and which songs belonged on which album. There were a lot of songs completely thrown out even after recording parts of them.”

Whilst the songwriting is carried by guitarist and vocalist Claudio Sanchez, who conceived the band and the universe his lyrics envision (Co&Ca’s albums, to put as simply as possible, tell the story of a science-fictional universe and the large cast of characters within – honestly, even beginning to delve into the saga would take pages to do justice), the current line-up of musicians are just as vital to maintaining the band’s sound. Importantly for these two albums, ex-drummer Joshua Eppard rejoined the band for the recording process, and Travis can’t stress enough how important his presence on the record is, despite him not being involved during much of the initial writing.

“Coheed and Cambria was built on the groove Josh created. Playing the way he does makes him part of any songwriting we do, and it’s inevitable that with him on the drums the songs are going to change no matter what. For instance, Claudio wrote [Descension song]Gravity’s Union years ago, when Josh wasn’t in the band, and the song never clicked when we would jam it out on tour, before shows. As soon as Josh came back in and we tried the song again with him, it all just changed and began to work.”

But, Travis continues, this goes for every instrument.

“Claudio will come to us with the skeleton of something, but he loves to explore the melodic possibilities of every song, and considers them canvases that are just open for throwing different things at. The bells and whistles we all bring are just as important to us as the main guitar riffs and vocal melodies.”

Considering the territory the band have explored in the past (especially on 2010’s darker, and more experimental Black Rainbow) Travis says the band now think of themselves as a “rolling ball” of influences, picking up bits and pieces of the different sounds they’ve used in the past, explaining that “during the writing of Black Rainbow, Claudio was heavily interested in using samplers and we all experimented with edgier sounds, but you can hear elements of that in the new records just as much as you can hear the elements of our older records.”

Coheed and Cambria’s next tour will bring them down to Australia once again, and we’re told they’ve done their best to cherry-pick a combination of singles and album tracks from their entire catalogue. Travis is hesitant to give away too much of the setlist before the tour begins, but assures us that both old and new fans will walk away satisfied with their choices.

“There are some songs on the setlist from the first few albums that we haven’t played since Neverender [a series of concerts the band in 2009 in which they played all their albums in full], and just as many songs from the newer albums that Josh didn’t appear in. Here We Are Juggernaut from Black Rainbow sounds especially cool with Josh on drums.” he reveals. “But I’m most proud of how the Ascension andDescension songs sound.”