Coheed and Cambria - Vaxis - Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures (October 5, 2018) Album • Page 58

holy hell, a month already? I still listen to this like twice a day haha

 

I love that little part during the guitar solo in Toys where the rhythm section goes bananas for like that one bar

 

I don't know if anyone has seen this, but here's a gallery of the Vaxis book so you can read the story.

Vaxis Act 1 (First Half)

And the second half:

Vaxis Act 1 (Second Half)

 

If anyone is able to condense it for me I would appreciate it

 

Coheed And Cambria Isn't Here To Ostracize You: A Look Inside 'The Unheavenly Creatures'

 

This is a fucking Forbes article. Just let that sink it.

 

All Get Out also got a Forbes article recently. Truly bizarre.

 

I'm fully conscious this will do little justice to the story and also sound completely ridiculous as written by me but I'll give it a shot

 

We were talking about Claudio’s comics earlier. This isn’t part of the Amory Wars, but it’s a limited series he wrote. I just read it and enjoyed it.

 

Don’t really have much to add but this album rules

 

Two of the tracks I originally didn't like much, Night Time Walkers and All on Fire, have grown on me quite a bit lately. This is getting closer to being able to stand with the first 3 LPs for me... reminds me more and more of GA1 in a lot of ways. Eclectic but not too much so (ala Afterman), and even the more understated songs have all sorts of nuances and creative harmonies (i.e., NTW bridge/ending) that draw you in after enough listens.

 

aight so long post ahead

Prologue/Dark Sentencer - essentially just introduces us to the new setting. the Five Houses of the Star Supremacy/HOSS take control of the surviving planets after almost everything gets destroyed at the end of NWFT, build a bunch of prison planets out of the wrecks including the worst one, The Dark Sentencer. you have two characters, Nostrand/Creature and Otto/Colossus/Judge (album's big on nicknames) who are floating above the Sentencer about to be dropped, where they basically get to join a force who mine the core of the dying planet till they drop.

Unheavenly Creatures - Nos flashes back to why they're there, when he used to do robberies with long-time partner Otto (huge tank of a dude with half a face missing) and Nia/Sister Spider, who was Nos's girlfriend. The trio are the Unheavenly Creatures and Nos's mask has CALL YOUR MOTHER scratched into it to scare the hostages. One time they pull a robbery and while Nos is watching the hostages Nia gets shot by a "security guard", Otto tells Nos to run or he'll start randomly killing. (This is the "alley in the back/Judge told me Creature don't you dare look back" stuff). Back in the present Otto confesses, big surprise, he killed Nia cos he was jealous of their relationship and they get dropped onto the planet, separating in the fall.

Toys - uh this song in the story is like way further along, dunno if they just bumped it up in the album for musical flow but yeah I'll circle back

Black Friday - both prisoners land on The Sentencer. Otto does what the system asks by reporting to an officer and getting a Gutter installed in his chest, which is basically a tracker that HOSS can activate any moment to rip out all your internal organs if they want. Nos doesn't get his but slips off and runs into someone he knows, they tell him to find the planet's requisite creepy psychic Mr. Wish. Nos finds him and gets a vision that he will have a son in the future - that's Vaxis - but also gets captured and dragged into the sublevels of the planet to meet someone called the Glass Widow. Bummer.

Queen of the Dark/True Ugly - surprise, Nia didn't die back in the robbery, but woke up after a long coma and, thinking Nos had betrayed and abandoned her back then, gave both him and Otto up to be arrested. She also strikes a deal with the Warden of the planet where she basically runs a mining force right near the planet's core who die pretty frequently from the heat in exchange for her own freedom. She recognises Nos when he gets dragged in but puts him to work anyway. (No idea specifically what True Ugly's lyrics are about, but best guess it's the moment they see each other for the first time, because Nia has a crazy glass spider suit that protects her from the heat)

Toys (properly) - Eventually Nia finds out that the planet is on the verge of completely dying and that HOSS is just gonna leave her to die rather than honouring their deal to give her freedom when the mining was done. She decides to dip and asks Nos to free all the slaves doing the sublevel mining, Nos convinces her to escape together instead because assassins are starting to come for them. Lyrics to this song are essentially verbatim dialogue, like the "I know I'm hard to stomach but we need to move and get out of here" etc

(Time for a halfway intermission because I'm typing this on my phone and it's killing me)

 

Love Protocol/Pavilion - Nia and Nos start escaping upwards through the planet towards the Pavilion, which is basically a dome at the very top where ships come and go and the only chance of actual escape. When they stop for some sleep above ground they make up, Nos says he never abandoned her and was always looking etc. They sleep and Mr. Wish the psychic gives Nia her vision of their son Vaxis, who apparently is a superbeing capable of communicating from the future

Night-time Walkers - legitimately no fucking clue what the first half of this is about, anyone's guess is good as mine. Second half to me is basically a follow on from the previous songs with a slightly creepier "playing dead" vibe. Somewhere around here a friend Nos made back in the mines, who's a teenage hacker genius, does some hacker stuff and frees all the miners who start rioting up the planet.

The Gutter/All on Fire/Walks Among Us - these are basically one big fight scene at the Pavilion. Nos and Nia get a ship but it immediately gets blown up by Otto, who's been given essentially free reign by HOSS as long as he hunts down the two escapees. (The explosion apparently takes up all five minutes of All on Fire which I find weirdly funny). Otto starts choking Nos to death while Nia recovers from the explosion and remembers Otto shooting her during the bank robbery - the "if you want it all my dear, go out and get it" is another direct dialogue lift from what he said right before he shot her. Nia grabs an activator and uses it to start up Otto's Gutter, which basically rips up all his insides and kills him real good

Old Flames/Lucky Stars - Big cliffhanger finish. People rioting and shooting stuff, alarms going off everywhere and ships taking off. Nia and Nos have that "you're adorable" exchange from Old Flames then kiss, which gives us the album cover, and that's basically where it ends. Not actually sure how Lucky Stars fits, whether it's just a credits roll song for this album or if it's gonna work as the first part of Act 2's story, wait and see I guess.


This has been your overly simplified and poorly written summary of Vaxis Act 1 by Rowan

 

Coheed and Cambria's Claudio Sanchez and Travis Stever Talk New Album, 'Vaxis - Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures'

 

Dis the shit I wanna hear

 

Coheed and Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez cuts off his signature hair

My world has been rocked.

 

Omg

 

We've been investigating in the band thread, I'm pretty sure he still has his hair. Go check out our convo in there haha

 

Nope. Fucker got us good.

 

We’ve been bamboozled

 

I was not bamboozled. Fact.

 

I was undecided.

 

That’s too funny.

 

Hahaha I knew it

 

I love it! The amount of effort he put into the whole prank is wonderful.