COHEED & CAMBRIA – Vaxis Act III: The Father of Make Believe (Album Review)

You have to give Coheed and Cambria (and especially mastermind Claudio Sanchez) credit for their endless dedication to both the musical and narrative formulas they’ve established over the past 25 years. After all, they’ve almost always stuck to the same overarching storyline (concerning “The Amory Wars”) and prog/electronic rock and post-hardcore hybrids since they broke out with 2002’s The Second Stage Turbine Blade.

Now, they’re nearly a dozen studio albums into their career, so the question that becomes increasingly important to ask isn’t, “Are they keeping things fresh?” as much as it is: “Are they keeping things interesting?” With Vaxis – Act III: The Father of Make Believe, the answer is a resounding “Yes!”

True, it offers little stylistically that fans haven’t already heard, but like all great albums, it gets more and more impressive and addictive with subsequent listens. As such, it’s an extremely fitting and rewarding new chapter in the band’s ongoing sci-fi saga whose new compositions and callbacks to prior works (especially the underappreciated Afterman duology) will surely satisfy longtime followers.

Interestingly, Sanchez says that The Father of Make Believe is more overtly autobiographical than prior entries in the “Amory Wars” series (thereby also connecting it to the band’s only unrelated collection, 2015’s The Color Before the Sun). Specifically, he jokingly calls it “a midlife crisis,” adding:

“I realized, 20-some-odd years in, I was struggling with the brand I’ve given myself: Am I satisfied being the science fiction rock ’n’ roll guy when so much of my material comes from personal experiences? Throughout my career, I’ve navigated the insecurities of putting my truth out for the world to pick apart and scrutinize. I’ve chosen to keep the struggles of my life private out of respect and love to those people and events that inspired the art. When I can’t express myself in words, I express myself in worlds.”

To his point, one of the greatest aspects of The Father of Make Believe is its emotional resonance.

In particular – and in typical fashion – opener “Yesterday’s Lost” is a downtrodden and sparse piano/acoustic guitar prelude that recalls a main theme from the saga before Sanchez whispers moving promises. The combination of his falsetto contemplations, poetic lyricism, and backing ambiance is gorgeously heartbreaking, earning its place alongside some of the band’s other top-tier lamentations (“The Light and the Glass,” “Wake Up,” “The Hollow,” “Subtraction,” etc.).

Likewise, closer “The Continuum IV: So It Goes” is deceptively frisky and fun on top of its bittersweet undercurrent (kind of like a more carnivalistic take on “Old Flames” and the final section of “Window of the Waking Mind”). Just like the opening of “Yesterday’s Lost” – as well as several Coheed and Cambria album bookends – the closing orchestration of “The Continuum IV: So It Goes” will give diehard fans goosebumps, too.

In general, what’s left along the way is mostly business as usual. For instance, you have the requisite sing-along peppy rockers (“Meri of Merci,” “Someone Who Can,” “One Last Miracle,” “Goodbye, Sunshine”) next to more aggressive, hyperactive, and complex trademarks (“Searching for Tomorrow,” “The Father of Make Believe,” “Blind Side Sonny,” “Play the Poet”). There’s also another acoustic ode (“Corner My Confidence”) that works quite well.

Although there isn’t a bad track on the LP – frankly, just about everything Coheed and Cambria have done is at least good, if not exceptional – a lot of it is instantly familiar. Whether or not that’s a significant problem depends on how much you love what they do (in much the same way that eating your favorite meal for the 10^th time in a row can still be very enjoyable). Either way, it’s clear that Sanchez remains a superb songwriting and singer, just as the quartet as a whole remain masterful musicians.

The other major distinction (if not outright downside) of The Father of Make Believe is that it kind of lacks the heroic scope and bombastic instrumentation of most of its predecessors. In other words, it feels more like a mere collection of songs than it does a sprawling tale with varied pacing and distinctive movements.

The same was somewhat true for 2022’s Vaxis – Act II: A Window of the Waking Mind, yet its closing trio of tunes unfolded like a cumulative 20+ suite (which added to the overall grandness of the record). In contrast, and despite being quite good, The Father of Make Believe’s four-part “Continuum” finale lacks the engrossing connective tissue that made A Window of the Waking Mind’s final sections (as well as prior suites such as “The Willing Well” and “The End Complete”) so epic.

On that note, anyone looking for another larger-than-life prog rock belter (in the vein of “Welcome Home,” “No World for Tomorrow,” “Key Entity Extraction I: Domino the Destitute,” “The Dark Sentencer,” and “Window of the Waking Mind”) won’t really find it here. Of course, not every Coheed and Cambria album needs such a standout piece of raucous intricacy, but it would’ve been nice to have another one since the foursome proved that they could still knock them out of the park with the title track to their last LP.

Nitpicky criticisms aside, the notion that Vaxis – Act III: The Father of Make Believe is the weakest of the Vaxis trilogy should be seen more as a complement to its predecessors than as a detriment to the quartet’s latest work. On its own, it’s a terrific sequence that gets better with each listen, and as usual, its lyrical and musical allusions to the overarching “Amory Wars” chronicle is extremely gratifying. It doesn’t quite match Coheed and Cambria’s greatest achievements, but that’s an extremely high bar to reach, and for a group who’re roughly a quarter-century into their career, it shows that they’re still full of passion, skill, and ambition. 

Release Date: March 14th, 2025
Record Label: Virgin Music Group
Genre: Progressive Rock / Electronic Rock / Post-Hardcore

Musicians:

• Claudio Sanchez / Vocals, rhythm guitar
• Josh Eppard / Drums, keyboards
• Travis Stever / Lead guitar
• Zach Cooper / Bass

Vaxis – Act III: The Father of Make Believe Track-list:

1. Yesterday’s Lost
2. Goodbye, Sunshine
3. Searching for Tomorrow
4. The Father of Make Believe
5. Meri of Mercy
6. Blind Side Sonny
7. Play the Poet
8. One Last Miracle
9. Corner My Confidence
10. Someone Who Can
11. The Continuum I: Welcome to Forever, Mr. Nobody
12. The Continuum II: The Flood
13. The Continuum III: Tethered Together
14. The Continuum IV: So It Goes

Order Vaxis – Act III: The Father of Make Believe here