Coheed And Cambria return with epic new track The Dark Sentencer

Coheed And Cambria have announced their return by releasing an epic new track

Weighing in at 10-minutes long, The Dark Sentencer will appear on the follow-up to 2015 album The Color Before the Sun, which is expected to be released later this year.

Explaining the story behind the new song, vocalist and guitarist Claudio Sanchez says: “Years ago, chaos cut through this atmosphere. The fractured worlds that inhabit this space were once locked in a force of uncontrollable destruction. Gravity was lost. 

“Their planetary trajectories conjoined in one catastrophic collision, choking to remain viable even as the dying glow of their cores peek through the cracks and scars of those impactful moments. 

“Yet a gasp is a sign of life and the planets that many might have cast off as annihilated space continued to show a pulse across the hopelessness. This discarded earth is still very much alive… and made profitable by the five Houses of the Star Supremacy – an elite society who looked to the sky and saw potential in the wasted planets.

“The opportunistic approach could hardly be considered an act of empathy for the human condition, as the decision to convert the dying planets into private prisons meant another type of life sentence awaited those shipped off to their remote reaches."

Sanchez continues: “Here, the desolate and derelict would burn away slowly, trapped in a race to death with the very ground they stand on. In this space, between the Well and unknowing.”

“Our story starts there. Into our future, yet far beyond our past. In a romance between a pair of Unheavenly Creatures.

“Weaving through the blacked-out space toward the freckling of cracked planets, The Gavel moved like a funeral procession. In many ways, it was the end of life for the two prisoners being transported within its unmitigable walls, to the most deplorable and prized of the doomed prisons, known simply as The Dark Sentencer.”

This weekend, Coheed And Cambria will be one of several guests celebrating the 60th anniversary of NASA with the National Symphony Orchestra at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Sanchez, guitarist Travis Stever, drummer Josh Eppard and bassist Zach Cooper will then head out on tour with Taking Back Sunday and The Story So Far, while further details on their as-yet-untitled ninth studio album will be revealed in due course.

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.