Since forming in 2010, Texas instrumental outfit Polyphia have taken the world by storm, redefining the instrumental side of music by combining intricate guitar riffs with hip-hop rhythms, bass-heavy trap music, and progressive metal and rock influences. It is a blending of styles that has seen Polyphia release three studio albums to date, with a fourth, Remember That You Will Die, slated for release on October 28.
This time around Polyphia have recorded collaborations with $not, Chino Moreno (Deftones), Brasstracks, Steve Vai and more, adding another element to their sound and potentially reaching an even wider audience in the process.
Guitarists Tim Henson and Scott LePage joined HEAVY to chat about the album.
“It’s definitely our most ambitious release to date,” Henson said confidently. “Obviously, if you look at the track listing, you can see a tonne of collaborations spanning a tonne of different genres. Once you listen to the record hopefully you’ll be able to tell that we have put in a lot of work on levelling up, whether it’s our individual instruments, or the songwriting or the composition or the production or the mixing, everything was a learning process. It took us four years to make because we had to figure it out. It was very much like a giant puzzle piece, or like a marble sculpture where you have to chisel out every little detail; every little fine detail had to be just right. We’re very proud of this record.”
In the full interview, the boys run through Remember That You Will Die in greater detail, talk about the collaborations with Steve Vie and Chino and what they each brought to the tracks, the sngles released thus far and how they reflect the album as a whole, the bands label as a genre bending instrumental band and what they mean by that, the clending of styles and how it works, future plans and more.
