Modern prog rock stars Polyphia have set “BE NOT AFRAID” as the title to their fifth studio album. The virtuosic instrumental outfit have just released a video for the song “POWER IN THE BLOOD” from that opus, which they filmed at the São Francisco da Penitência Church in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Recording sessions in Miami, FL, Los Angeles, CA and Dallas, TX led to the creation of this album, with their soon-to-be tourmate RJ Pasin and Spiro Dussias co-producing alongside the band’s Tim Henson and Scott LePage. Henson himself had the following to say about the creative process on this new outing, which Rise Records will release on October 23rd:
“Instead of going wide on ‘BE NOT AFRAID‘, we went as deep as we could. There are so many layers to pull back. Every time you listen to it, you’ll notice something new. Thematically, it’s by far the most meaningful record we’ve ever made.”
He added:
“The album takes you through the extremes of two different worlds / moods: one being very uplifting and triumphant, the other being spine-chilling and terrifying. There are moments on the record that legitimately scare me when I listen to them.”
LePage said of it:
“We physically can’t make the same album twice. We have a yearning to evolve. It was so much fun to write this one together too – the writing sessions for past Polyphia records typically looked like us gathering our ideas separately first and bringing them to each other second, so we took a different approach with BE NOT AFRAID by treating the sessions like an opportunity to create with everybody in the room first before getting into the separate writing. It was a much more communal approach that led to us having so much fun making it that the fun itself was the magic being captured.”
Henson went on to offer:
“During the making of this record, we went down some pretty dark rabbit holes. We kept coming across things that were so depraved they sounded insane when you said them out loud. Then some of the very things we had been talking about started appearing in documents released to the public. You can read that stuff and feel disgusted, demoralized, and completely powerless.
‘BE NOT AFRAID‘ is our response to that. Rather than allowing the ugliness of the world to paralyze us, we put everything we had into making something beautiful. We weren’t afraid of whether something was too different or whether people were going to understand it. We just followed what excited us and made what I believe is our best record to date.”
“BE NOT AFRAID” track listing:
01 – “LET THERE BE LIGHT“
02 – “WITH EYES TO SEE“
03 – “SCREWTAPE“
04 – “POWER IN THE BLOOD“
05 – “THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO“
06 – “MARK OF THE BEAST“
07 – “CAN YOU FEEL IT“
08 – “NEAR DEATH“
09 – “J-BOMB“
10 – “DENY THE FLESH“
11 – “DEVIL GET BEHIND ME“
12 – “FEAR GOD“
Pre-orders can be found via polyphia.lnk.to/BENOTAFRAID. As previously announced, the band have the following touring lined up.
With Ladrones & RJ Pasin:
09/05 Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom
09/08 Albuquerque, NM – Revel Entertainment Center
09/10 Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
09/12 Anaheim, CA – House of Blues
09/13 San Francisco, CA – The Masonic
09/16 Salt Lake City – The Union Event Center
09/18 Denver, CO – JUNKYARD
09/20 Waukee, IA – Vibrant Music Hall
09/21 Milwaukee, WI – Landmark Credit Union Live
09/22 Minneapolis, MN – The Armory
09/24 Chesterfield, MO – The Factory
09/25 Chicago, IL – Aragon Ballroom
09/26 Detroit, MI – The Fillmore
09/28 Grand Rapids, MI – GLC Live at 20 Monroe
09/29 Toronto, ON – Great Canadian Casino (feat. Intervals)
10/01 Montreal, QC – L’Olympia (feat. Intervals)
10/03 Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway
10/05 Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount
10/07 Wallingford, CT – Toyota Oakdale Theatre
10/08 Washington DC – Echostage
10/10 Philadelphia, PA – The Fillmore
10/11 Virginia Beach, VA – The Dome by Rutter Mills
10/13 Raleigh, NC – Red Hat Amphitheater (feat. Plini)
10/15 Fort Lauderdale, FL – War Memorial Auditorium
10/16 Orlando, FL – Hard Rock Live
10/17 Atlanta, GA – Coca-Cola Roxy
10/18 Nashville, TN – The Truth
With Perturbator & RJ Pasin:
11/18 Zurich, SWI- Halle 622
11/19 Lyon, FRA – Le Radiant
11/20 Toulouse, FRA – Interference
11/22 Barcelona, SPA- Razzmatazz
11/23 Madrid, SPA – Sala La Riviera
11/25 Milan, ITA – Alcatraz
11/27 Munich, GER- Zenith
11/28 Prague, CZE – SaSaZu
11/29 Warsaw, POL – Progresja
11/30 Leipzig, GER- Haus Auensee
12/02 Hamburg, GER- Docks
12/04 Copenhagen, DEN- Amager Bio
12/05 Berlin, GER- Tempodrom
12/06 Oberhausen, GER- Turbinenhalle
12/07 Brussels, BEL – Ancienne Belgique
12/08 Amsterdam, NET – AFAS Live
12/09 Paris, FRA – Zenith Paris
12/11 Birmingham, UK – 02 Academy Birmingham
12/12 Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy
12/15 Leeds, UK – O2 Academy Leeds
12/16 London, UK – O2 Academy Brixton
