For those who love their music to be as dynamic, vivid and textured as possible, Coheed and Cambria would be an easy suggestion. With each release, the band push their sound right to the edges of their soundscape, and just keep pushing. The Afterman is truly testament to this. Already with the first half of the double album The Afterman: Ascension safely in the hands of fans, we now wait with bated breath to learn the fate of their reoccurring protagonist Cyrus Amory with The Afterman: Descension. Music Feeds spoke with Guitarist Travis Stever to get the skinny on what we cane expect from The Amory universe.
“Part 2, The Afterman: Descension, story wise is literally a continuation of what’s been happening.” Stever begins to explain, “Amory is still out there in the unknown, surrounded by these entities – doing good for the bad they’ve done in the past using his body but they realize it’s not working so, you know, The All Mother – his ship, is telling him that he’s losing health, he’s passing out as time is passing so much quicker than it feels – things are moving on back home. Basically what happens is he arrives back home and has to deal with things that have moved on, and trying to be accepted for this amazing thing that he’s discovered out there and winning awards – but not being fulfilled. “
Don’t think that this is something just for Sci-Fi fans, the themes addressed in the double album apply to just about everyone. Stever tells us that The Afterman mainly deals with “Mankind’s consistent wanting to know the unknown, and will be really be able to deal with it if we did. Love, loss and all that – it deals with all those things. But that’s where I’ll leave it as the album is not out yet!”
The story of The Amory Wars has been thriving for a few albums time now, and is as intricate as it is enthralling, I put it to Travis – does the band ever worry that the detailed story line will ward off potential fans?
“No, I don’t. I think that uh, you know…everything that the bands been through and everything that we’ve done, you know, people are going to expect that from us. If you’re talking about people that have never even heard of the band, well, I mean – we just don’t worry about that. It’s just what we love to do. This is how our music translates the best. We don’t worry about that, we’re more concerned with making the fans we have happy – Don’t get me wrong, we love making new fans but we don’t worry about overwhelming them. It’s got every single angle someone could be looking for. I like to think we’re a band that’s pretty diverse, something for everybody.”
The Afterman saw the return of Josh Eppard on drums. Taking the torch from Chris Pennie, who left the band citing creative differences, it was clear the band made the right decision, according to Stever, “it was almost a return to form on the original groove that Coheed was built on. Some of the things that we did while he was gone, songs on the last two albums have influenced him in a way. The Afterman shows that. If you were to call Coheed a rolling ball that’s just gathered all these influences and styles, experimenting, these two albums are everything that’s been gathered by this ball. The Afterman is the perfect summary of this band when they put these two together.
Speaking volumes for just how intriguing The Armory Wars really is, Mark Wahlberg approached the band to begin early takes on producing The Armory Wars live action film. “That just came around due to the fact Mark Wahlberg’s interest in the story and the fact that it would be so easily adapted to a cinematic atmosphere. Travis explained, clearly keeping his cards close to his chest on this one, “There’s not too much other information on that, we have signed up to his production company. But now we have to focus on these two albums and the holidays, with touring and all that. There will be more news soon about this one.”
In the meantime, the band will turn their attention to a run of headlining dates Down Under with Circa Survive. According to Travis, the band are simply dying to get to Australia “I’ll tell you what, I can’t wait to get out there and play to some of the fans we have out there, on top of that – playing with Circa Survive is going to be so awesome too, we’ve become really good friends with those goes. I’m so excited to come out to Australia; we’ll almost a family atmosphere out there when we do it. “
Friday, 19th April
The Tivoli, Brisbane – 18+
Tix: http://www.ticketek.com.au
Saturday, 20th April
The Metro, Sydney – Lic A/A
tix: http://www.ticketek.com.au
Sunday, 21st April
The Palace, Melbourne 18+
Tix: http://www.oztix.com.au and http://www.ticketek.com.au
