A Waking Is An Open Mind

“I didn’t want something that was obvious,” says Claudio Sanchez about Coheed And Cambria’s latest album, Vaxis II: A Window Of The Waking Mind. “I wanted to bring a new consciousness to the record.” The impetus behind Sanchez’s yearning for a fresh perspective was the simple fact that Coheed’s current release arrives as the group celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut album, The Second Stage Turbine Blade. Their new record marks two decades of storytelling inside the science fiction universe that Sanchez created with The Amory Wars concept, an epic adventure spanning nine albums and counting, alongside comic books and novels.

The current story arc is a pentalogy that began with 2018’s Vaxis I: Unheavenly Creatures and with Vaxis II Sanchez was aware that the sheer scale of The Amory Wars could intimidate newbies.

“I had a conversation with Johnny Minardi, our A&R on this record, and we got to talk about the band being 20 years old and what that looks like to a new listener,” says Sanchez. “How do we make something fresh to bring in new people? And what and realising there is this whole discography of music and with that comes this concept. What’s a way to bring new listeners in and to make the band feel fresh and exciting?”