For Coheed and Cambria’s eleventh album, the prog-rock veterans return to the Amory Wars saga while adding a new introspective flavor. All but one of the band’s albums are concept albums set during the fictional Amory Wars. This epic sci-fi storyline branches out into a series of novels and comic books by frontman Claudio Sanchez and Chondra Echert. No knowledge of that canon is needed to enjoy this or any other Coheed and Cambria album, though piecing the narratives together adds layers to the art.
Though the characters and interplanetary struggle return in Father of Make Believe, Sanchez also appears as the titular father, the man telling the stories. In doing so, he can look within and write more personal tales. That introspection has little impact on the album’s overall sound, though. Coheed and Cambria’s trademarks are all accounted for, from the complex structures to the maniacal riffing and the anthemic sing-along choruses.
As is expected with Coheed and Cambria, Father of Make Believe has moments of raw power and moments of beauty, balancing metal and punk aggression with intricate melodies. Piano ballads “Yesterday’s Lost” and “Meri of Merci” have emotional heft. In the latter, Sanchez sings from his late grandfather’s perspective as he laments his wife’s loss. “Tell me why it’s so hard to escape; I look tired and out of place,” Sanchez sings. In the power ballad chorus, he wails over a wall of guitars, “Mary, I’m not gonna quit until I can see the end of this life with you there beside me.”
Similarly, “Corner my Confidence” is a love letter to Sanchez’s wife told over serene acoustic fingerpicking. “You stole the sun,” Sanchez croons. “Caught in the flare, we were amateurs, scared to get burned as time slowly turned to the unknown.”
The ballads work, but Coheed and Cambria are best when rocking out, as in “Searching for Tomorrow.” The thumping rhythm from drummer Josh Eppard and bassist Zach Cooper backs the riffing from guitarists Sanchez and Travis Stever. Sanchez’s chugging chords pack a punch while Stever plays licks that fly up and down the fretboard like a warm-up scale. “The future becomes so clear, but it doesn’t matter ‘cause you find out you were never here. You were never wanted,” Sanchez sings.
The album’s heaviest songs are in the middle section, the thrash metal “Blind Side Sonny” and the high-octane, screamo punk “Play the Poet.” In “The Father of Make Believe,” Sanchez and Stever’s dueling staccato riffs create a jerky rhythm that lurches and careens around corners like an old wooden rollercoaster. “When all the lights burn between all that’s wrong and right, just take my hand when the monsters turn out the lights,” Sanchez sings over powerful, spasmodic riffs.
The album’s finest track is “The Continuum I: Welcome to Forever, Mr. Nobody,” thanks to Cooper’s menacing bassline and nasty riffing from Sanchez and Stever. It bounces like a fiery Rage Against the Machine song ignited by the short, jarring riffs. “The life that I’ve lived through in this state of redo, I reject both old and new you. This is forever now,” Sanchez sings.
Throughout The Father of Make Believe, Coheed and Cambria crafts unique stories that meld reality and fiction while balancing ferocious attacks with dulcet melodies. Whether taken as the next part of the Amory Wars saga, a fourth-wall-breaking commentary on it, or as its own thing, it’s masterful art that lives up to its ambitions.
