Although Polyphia have already shared two singles and announced the name of their highly anticipated fourth studio album, details for the upcoming Remember That You Will Die have been fairly sparse.
Now, though, the prog rock titans have dropped the release date, shared the tracklist and shed some further light on the 12-song effort, for which they have recruited an A-list collection of guest musicians.
Chief among the list is fellow electric guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, who will be marking his first collaboration with the boundary-bending four-piece after naming Polyphia’s Tim Henson as one of five contemporary guitarists who are taking the instrument to the next level.
Joining Vai will be Deftones’ Chino Moreno, rappers Lil West and $not, and hip-hop artists Brasstracks and Killstation. Also on the guest list are keyboardist Anomalie and trilingual singer-songwriter Sophia Black, the latter of whom appears on the latest single to be lifted from Remember That You Will Die, ABC.
Unsurprisingly, the guitar work on display is on a whole other level, but it’s Black who almost steals the show completely with a tongue-twisting vocal flow that almost outdoes the technical and physical intricacies of Henson and LePage’s stop-start percussive riffing.
ABC joins the album’s first two singles, Playing God – which debuted Henson and Scott LePage’s T-type Ibanez nylon-strings – and the rage beat-inspired Neurotica. Henson later reimagined both Playing God and Neurotica as flawless unplugged performances.
Polyphia have also announced Remember That You Will Die was produced by guitarists Henson and LePage, and features guest production from the likes of Rodney Jerkins, Judge, Y2K and Johan Lenox.
It’s a credit list that certainly leans heavily into the hip-hop direction Polyphia are currently moving in, with the above producers’ resumes including the likes of Young Thug, Migos & Marshmello, Doja Cat, Kanye and Finneas.
What especially sticks out to us, though – and probably to all guitar fans – is that impending Vai/Polyphia link-up. We don’t even need to hype it: knowing what Henson and Vai are capable of, it could easily be one of the best guitar tracks of the year when it eventually arrives.
Vai has previously heaped praise on Henson, telling Guitar World, “Tim Henson is exploring new grounds. I’m seeing an evolution in a direction that I didn’t… that I couldn’t even see coming. And it’s magnificent. I just love hearing those ideas and watching the execution of them.
“He thinks totally outside the box,” he continued. “And if you listen to early stuff, you can hear when he was thinking conventionally, but something happened and he just surrendered to some kind of creative vision. And that’s what their music is. It’s fantastic.”
You can check out the entire Remember That You Will Die tracklist below.
- Genesis feat. Brasstracks
- Playing God
- The Audacity feat. Anomalie
- Reverie
- ABC feat. Sophia Black
- Memento Mori feat. Killstation
- Fuck Around and Find Out feat. $not
- All Falls Apart
- Neurotica
- Chimera feat. Lil West
- Bloodbath feat. Chino Moreno
- Ego Death feat. Steve Vai
