If you heard “Blind Side Sonny,” the first single from Coheed and Cambria’s tenth album, The Father of Make Believe, then you probably noticed that something seemed different about the sci-fi-inspired New York prog legends. A two-minute, thrash-adjacent metal ripper whose chorus screams, “Blood! We want blood! We want blood!,” the track embodies an urgent, almost rabid desire to be heard clearly and felt intensely. “How many times have I heard the ‘underrated’ statement about us?” asks Claudio Sanchez. “It’s something that lives in all of our subconscious minds and has certainly played a role in making us who we are. This is a song of revenge.”
But The Father of Make Believe showcases some of the band’s strongest songwriting to date precisely because Sanchez foregrounds his perspective. “Meri of Mercy” is a touching ode to Sanchez’s late grandparents, who’ve made cameos as characters before — the interplanetary couple Sirius and Meri Amory. With this new chapter of a song, he’s comfortable admitting that these fictions were a way to bring back his dearly departed family members. The piano-infused ballad is patient and gut-wrenching, written from the perspective of his grandpa, recently passed and reuniting with the woman he lost 40 years prior. “I miss him very much. My memories of him are so persistent,” says Sanchez. “I hope he’s with her.” At least for these four minutes, he is.
One way to look at The Father of Make Believe is as Coheed and Cambria establishing a desire to move forward while honoring a remarkable history. Another: a series of questions, emotions, and thoughts at war with each other — “a war within myself,” as Sanchez puts it. “I’ve lost time defining ideas I want to see through. It’s beautiful to look back and enjoy it for what it was.” He pauses. “But there's no need to go back.” And why would he? Coheed are finding new ways to bring new listeners into their universe. The Amory Wars live on, but a new general is at the helm. Sanchez is ready to fight the battles he’s relegated to his imagination for all these years.
