Polyphia’s latest recent album, Remember That You Will Die, was celebrated for two reasons. One, it featured yet more of Tim Henson and Scott LePage’s boundary-pushing progressive electric guitar playing, and two, it called upon a range of high-profile guest musicians.
Key among the crew’s collaborators were Chino Moreno and Steve Vai, with the latter joining forces with Henson and co for one the best guitar tracks of the year, Ego Death. In fact, it gained so much traction, it was voted by you as having the best guitar solo of 2022.
And though we had to wait four years for Remember That You Will Die to arrive after 2018’s New Levels New Devils, Henson has confirmed the wait for Polyphia’s next material will be much, much shorter.
Not only that, the Ibanez signature artist has also namechecked his next cohort of dream collaborators who might be featuring in the band’s forthcoming musical drop.
Speaking to Metal Hammer, Henson teased new music would be arriving this summer – that’s only six months away, people – and hinted at potential guest appearances for Swedish extreme metal quintet Meshuggah and bass guitar extraordinaire Thundercat.
“Hopefully we can get everything cleared legally,” Henson said of the prospective link-ups. “There are going to be a lot of features. The sky’s the limit.”
The prospect of Henson trading licks with Thundercat and throwing down riffs with the help of Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström certainly is an enticing one, and is yet further evidence of Polyphia’s seemingly endless sonic versatility.
Likewise, it’s indicative of the band’s desire to continuously evolve beyond their current state and push the boundaries of their respective genre, with Remember That You Will Die exploring rap shred with Lil West, R&B with Brasstracks and more contemporary pop with Sophia Black.
Therefore, if Polyphia can sort out and pull off these Meshuggah and Thundercat team-ups, you can be sure they will make for some unique listening experiences.
2022 was a busy year for Polyphia, and for Henson especially. Not only did they release a new album, Henson also released two new Ibanez signature guitars: the nylon-string TOD10N and Fishman-loaded TOD10. His bandmate LePage was also bestowed a new signature axe: the KRYS10.
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