Year of the Black Rainbow by Coheed and Cambria

Year of the Black Rainbow, Coheed and Cambria's fifth studio album, arrived on Columbia on April 13, 2010, and for once Claudio Sanchez ran his sprawling Amory Wars saga in reverse: this is the prequel, the story that sets up the four concept albums before it. The band started recording in 2009 with Atticus Ross producing, and the result plays heavier and darker than the band's old prog sprawl, all grinding riffs and clenched atmosphere.

It's a lineup snapshot, too: the only studio album with Chris Pennie behind the kit, and the last with Michael Todd on bass, while Sanchez and Travis Stever handle the guitars. "The Broken" and "Here We Are Juggernaut" went out as singles ahead of it, the reviews were mostly kind, and it climbed to number 5 on the Billboard 200. The deluxe edition came with a novel Sanchez wrote with Peter David, just in case the story needed more room.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.