Coheed and Cambria Prequel for April

Year of the Black Rainbow purports to tie up all those loose ends of the first four albums.

By Blurt Staff

Columbia will be releasing the next Coheed and Cambria album Year of the Black Rainbow early next April. It's the prog/metal/jam band's fifth studio effort and will be made available in a a deluxe package including a 300+ page prose novel of the same name, co-written by Claudio Sanchez and New York Times bestselling author Peter David. The book promises to "tell the origins of Coheed and Cambria, and much more."

Wow. We are all about origins, having grown up on Marvel and DC comics! "The new album will be the 'Origin Story' or 'The Prequel,' and likely the final story of the ongoing concept story of 'The Amory Wars.'," says a recent post by the band at their official website.

Presale information on the deluxe edition will be announced toward the end of December.

Year of the Black Rainbow provides the "prequel"to the band's four previous interrelated concept albums -- The Second Stage Turbine Blade (2002); In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 (2003); Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness (2005) and Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow (2007) --  which comprise "The Amory Wars," the conceptual narrative driving the band's lyrics, penned by Coheed and Cambria frontman Claudio Sanchez.

Through the group's career, Coheed and Cambria have created consistently complex and challenging musical soundscapes to frame the psychological and narrative arcs of the band's futurist mythic visions.

Year of the Black Rainbow is produced by Atticus Ross (Nine Inch Nails, Jane's Addiction) and Joe Baressi (Queens of the Stone Age, Tool).  According to Coheed and Cambria, "They have helped us evolve our sound to be more powerful and dynamic than ever and we think it's definitely our best work to date."