Coheed and Cambria's Claudio Sanchez Offers Update on Next Album
Work has already begun on Coheed and Cambria's Vaxis -- Act III.
The next Coheed and Cambria album, Vaxis – Act III, is on the way, says frontman Claudio Sanchez. That's not all that surprising. Sanchez has long said that the Vaxis, the sequel to The Amory Wars story, is a pentalogy. The saga began with Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures in 2018, introducing new lead characters Sister Spider and Nostrand. Vaxis – Act II: A Window of the Waking Mind followed in 2022, continuing their story and delving into the mind of their son, the story's title character, Vaxis. When ComicBook.com spoke to Sanchez about the crowdfunding campaign for The Amory Wars: No World for Tomorrow, adapting The Amory Wars' finale into comic book form, he also confirmed that work on Vaxis – Act III is coming along, but there's still a way to go.
"Vaxis III is very much percolating as well, and next year we'll probably do some preliminary touring that'll lead to a release," Sanchez said. "I'm not sure exactly when that release is because there still is a lot of work to do in terms of recording it and illustrating the novella. We've started down those paths, but they take some time, as well as writing the novella, of course. Things are going to happen hopefully in the next year or so."
Sanchez confirmed that he and his wife, co-writer Chonda Echert, have been splitting their time between scripting the No World for Tomorrow comic book and developing the story for Vaxis – Act III. While that can be tricky, Sanchez also said that it has allowed him to ensure that these stories resonate with one another.
"[W]hat makes No World so exciting to see now come out is its connection to subsequent stories like Vaxis III and the first story, Year of the Black Rainbow, as well as the connection to The Afterman because the last record has that Incredible Hulk #180 ending, where you have the Wolverine silhouette in the doorway, but this is the Afterman making an appearance at the end of Vaxis II in a very Wolverine fashion -- though not a silhouette, you see him but it feels like that to me," Sanchez explains. "All these stories are now going to make so much sense when they come out once No World starts and Vaxis III happens, and with the idea of adapting Year of the Black Rainbow, everything is going to connect so much more than it's ever before. That's thrilling to me because it's going to be a domino effect of 'this is all making so much sense to me' and I can't wait to see how it ends with Vaxis IV and V."
Coheed and Cambria playing When We Were Young 2024
In addition to preliminary plans for Vaxis – Act III, Sanchez and his bandmates in Coheed and Cambria (guitarist Travis Stever, drummer Josh Eppard, and bassist Zach Cooper) are headed to 2024's When Were Were Young festival, playing the celebration of early 2000s emo, pop-punk, and post-hardcore for the first time as it enters its third year as an annual event. Coheed and Cambria will play the entirety of their third studio album, Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness, at the event. The album has a 77-minute runtime and includes Coheed and Cambria's best-known single, "Welcome Home."
My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy are headlining 2024's When We Were Young festival. Tickets for the event go on sale on November 24th.
The Amory Wars: No World for Tomorrow's crowdfunding campaign is live now on BackerKit. Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures and Vaxis – Act II: A Window of the Waking Mind are available now.