The Afterman: Ascension

The Afterman: Ascension is the sixth studio album by Coheed and Cambria. It is the first part of a double album, the second part of which is The Afterman: Descension. It is the first Coheed and Cambria album since 2005's Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV - Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness to feature Josh Eppard on drums, and the first to feature Zach Cooper on bass. Chondra Echert is also the voice of All Mother throughout the album.

It's earliest release was the Special "Amory Award" Edition on September 10, 2012, with the official release on October 9, 2012.

Story
"" The two albums act as a prequel to even Year of the Black Rainbow, and concentrates on the character Sirius Amory, whom the series is named after. It is considered the earliest story in The Amory Wars. Sirius is a bold scientist an astronaut often called a kook, trying to uncover the secrets of the Keywork.

Editions
The "Amory Award" Edition
 * Four CDs with bonus tracks
 * The Regular CD
 * The Afterman: Ascension (Big Beige Demos)
 * The Afterman: Descension CDR (blank CD)
 * The Afterman: Descension (Big Beige Demos) CDR (blank CD)
 * Documentary DVD
 * A 78-page coffee-table book written by Claudio Sanchez and edited by Evil Ink Comics' Chondra Echert and Blaze James, intended to give a song-by-song experience of the concept album.
 * Sirius Amory’s “Amory Award” with Metal Medallion and Certificate in a display book

The Limited Deluxe Edition
 * Three CDs
 * The Regular CD
 * The Afterman: Descension
 * The Afterman: Live
 * A 83-page book with the same content as the Amory Edition, including photos from the Live Tour.

Vinyl Editions
 * One gold and silver
 * (Ascension on one and Descension on the other)
 * Limited edition; includes the book
 * Orange disk
 * Europe release
 * Blue disk
 * Europe release
 * Regular vinyl disk

Critical Reception
The album has received mainly positive reviews, gaining 74/100 on Metacritic from twelve reviews. Artist Direct singled out the album as the band's "best album to date". Allmusic criticized the album for being "a bit of a mess" due to the scale of its ambition, though it acknowledged that this could be forgiven as there is "so much here that works". Both The A.V. Club and Sputnikmusic rated the album as a step forward for the band.

Charts
The Afterman: Ascension debuted at number 5 on the Billboard 200 on October 17, 2012. It also reached number 11 on the Canadian Albums Chart and number 5 on the UK Rock Albums Chart.

Additional Information

 * The guitar techs who worked on the album were Rob Gill and Jeff Champtone of Eldorado Studios in Burbank, CA.
 * Tracks 2 & 4 were mixed by Rich Costey, assisted by Chris Kasych. Tracks 3 and 5 through 9 were mixed by Ryan Williams of Pulse Recording in Silver Lake, CA.
 * The album was mastered by Howie Weinberg and Dan Gerbarg at Howie Weinberg Mastering.
 * John Medeski provided the piano, clavinet, and synthesizers.
 * Additional percussion was provided by Daniel Sadownick.
 * Sanchez wrote the string parts but they were orchestrated by Karl Berger.
 * Julianne Kloptic and Chern Hwei Fung played violin, Nicole Federici played viola, and Thomas Ulrich played cello.
 * Sanchez voiced the Sirius Amory parts while his wife, Chondra, was the primary voice of All Mother, assisted by Madeline Birnbaum.
 * Birnbaum probably has some relation to Michael Birnbaum, who produced the album and is a co-owner of Applehead Studios, where the album was recorded.
 * The segues were co-written by Sanchez and Eppard.
 * The cover of the album was created by Heidi Taillefer, the interior art was created by Nathan Spoor, and the overall design and graphics were made by Bill Scoville.
 * The band used Gibson, Taylor, Fender, Orange, Bogner, Vox, Moog, Korg, Ableton, Propellorhead, Death by Audio, Electro-Harmonix, DR Strings, Sennheiser, Mesa Boogie, C&C Drums, Sabian Cymbals, Mission Engineering, Dunlop, Audio Technica, Ultimate Ears, and Line 6 instruments and equipment to record the album.