Coheed and Cambria built an avid fan base by creating an epic new galaxy both through hard-charging guitar rock and a parallel series of comic books.

But after selling more than 1.5 million albums, events here on Earth -- most notably, fatherhood -- have led the band for the first time to take up real-life matters directly.

"The Color Before the Sun," the band's eighth album which comes out on Friday, is the first by Coheed and Cambria to break out of the fantasy concept and offers a more rugged, stripped-down feel compared with the band's trademark tightly woven, yet blaring, productions.

"When I started this idea in '98, I started it because I wasn't a secure frontman or lyricist. I created a concept to essentially hide my feelings behind," singer and guitarist Claudio Sanchez told AFP as the band prepared to take the stage Sunday night at The Stone Pony in the New Jersey beach town of Asbury Park, the first stop on a tour of the United States and Mexico.

In a novelty for the band, Sanchez and fellow guitarist Travis Stever were joined in the dressing room by their sons, each under two years old.

"I was -- and still am -- a shy, reclusive, insecure individual. And for me it was easy to create a piece of fiction, because that way that fiction would get judged and I as a person wouldn't," Sanchez said.

"At 37, I feel a little more secure. I feel like this is something I can do. I can allow the songs to speak for themselves."
The concept -- or lack thereof -- for "The Color Before the Sun" came as Sanchez and his wife, fellow comic writer Chondra Echert, decided to leave their home in upstate New York and briefly tried Paris, Los Angeles and Florida before moving to New York City.

Settled in Brooklyn's Park Slope, a tony neighborhood with omnipresent strollers, Sanchez felt a sudden, disconcerting "exposure" as he realized that he could no longer follow his long routine of writing, far out of neighbors' earshot, in the early morning.

Sanchez decided to go fully for a real-world album after learning that he would become a father.

The song "Ghost" is driven almost entirely by an anxious acoustic guitar as Sanchez wonders what type of father he will be to his son Atlas, singing in an uncharacteristically gentle voice, "How am I to keep from blemishing this masterpiece?"

Elsewhere on the album, "Here to Mars" is not a return to science fiction but instead a love song by Sanchez to his wife, with the guitars building to make a classic alternative rock chorus rather than one of Coheed and Cambria's sci-fi sagas.
"Normally, I would flip it and create a concept that would basically act as a curtain to the real things that inspired the album," Sanchez said.

"This time around, I just thought, you know, this is such a new phase in my life -- becoming a father -- so why not share that artistically?"

As Sanchez adapted to Brooklyn, his life came full circle as his house in upstate New York -- where Coheed and Cambria wrote four albums -- was partially destroyed after renters apparently turned it into a marijuana grow house.

The band mourned the house with a song, "Young Love."

Adding to the direct feel of the album, "The Color Before the Sun" marks the first time that Coheed and Cambria has recorded live in a studio, working with producer Jay Joyce whose past credits includes alternative rockers Cage The Elephant.

- No end to 'Amory Wars' -

Coheed and Cambria's previous albums take place in Heaven's Fence, a universe of 78 planets connected by a beam of light.

The concept albums track Sanchez's "The Amory Wars" comic series, in which messiah Claudio Kilgannon -- the son of Coheed and Cambria -- can save Heaven's Fence.

The conceptual albums take on the intricate structures of progressive rock -- a sense fueled by the similarities between the voices of Sanchez and Geddy Lee of Rush -- but with heavy guitar more reminiscent of hardcore or metal.

Stever, the guitarist, said that band now felt a flexibility either to return to concept albums or do more real-world rock, saying fans have been supportive.

Whatever the future of the music, Sanchez said he anticipated three more graphic novels based on "The Amory Wars."

"I do like that side of the creativity where the transformation of songs... allows them to walk and live in another space."