Thanks to Coheed and Cambria, however, what once seemed possible only in a ’70s-themed alternate universe is reality here and now. The Nyack, New York, quartet’s fourth album, Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV, Vol. Two: No World for Tomorrow [Columbia]—which brims with dramatic falsetto vocals, a bevy of classic-rock tones, dueling leads, ass-kicking grooves, and lovely acoustic interludes—debuted at number six on the Billboard Top 200 last fall. For vocalist/guitarist/mastermind Claudio Sanchez and co-guitarist Travis Stever, the achievement was even sweeter after enduring their own mini apocalypse with the temporary departure of bassist Michael Todd in 2006, and the fact that former Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie was contractually prevented from appearing on the album (Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins filled in).

If the description of the C&C story thus far is recalling things about rock that you feel were better left in the Nixon years—relax. Although No World For Tomorrow continues the plot known to fans as the “Armory Wars,” it doesn’t feature any tunes with laser beams, explosions, or cheesy robot voices. The grand visions are more in the vein of Pink Floyd—though with a hard-rock edge and a hint of radio-friendliness.

How would you describe the difference between your playing styles?
Stever: Claudio’s hand is more stable and in control. His playing is like clockwork. I’m a little bit sloppier. But neither of us wants to be a speed demon. We just want to hit those notes that make you go, “Ooooh!” Also, we’ve been playing in bands with each other since we were 12, and after playing together that long you develop similar styles—which can be an advantage, because it can result in a more cohesive sound.

Sanchez: Travis and I have been playing together so long that we know each other’s sound and style really well. When we’re writing new material, there are times when I’m going up and he’s going down, but I think that’s what makes us Coheed and Cambria.

How do you divide guitar duties?
Stever: We trade off on leads. On a song like “Gravemakers & Gunslingers,” I play the intro lead, and the next lead in the verse, and Claudio does the main solo. In “Radio Bye Bye,” I do the first lead, and he does the second. I like to think that our guitars are talking to each other.

Do you worry about trying to differentiate your parts with contrasting tones?
Stever: Yeah. Claudio goes for a thicker, crunchier rhythm sound using the neck pickup, whereas I go for more of a classic-rock tone using the bridge pickup. We both use Bogner Uberschall amps through Mesa/Boogie 4x12 cabinets, but what I get out of that rig is what I like to think of as an improvement on the Marshall JCM800 distortion, but with the advantage of being able to switch over to a nice clean sound. I also use a Boss AW-3 envelope filter, a PS-5 Pitch Shifter, a DD-3 Digital Delay, and an RV-5 Digital Reverb, as well as a Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler, a DigiTech EX-7 Expression Factory for a Leslie sound, a Heil Talk Box, and an Ernie Ball volume pedal.

Sanchez: I also switch to a Vox AC30 for clean sounds, and, on the album, we split my sound to play through the Uberschall and a ’70s Orange head that was probably modded. I use a Morley Bad Horsie 2 wah, Line 6 DL4 Delay and FM4 Filter modelers, and a Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive. We both use Everly B-52 Rockers strings in sets that are hybrids between a .010 and .011 set.

How about guitars?
Stever: I play Gibson Les Pauls for most of the set, but I also have an Angus Young SG that I’m using for a few songs. On the album, I used a Gibson hollowbody—I’m not sure which model—on “Radio Bye Bye,” “Mother Superior,” and the rhythm part on “Justice in Murder.” For everything else, I used a Les Paul Standard. For acoustic stuff I used my Taylor 814ce.

Sanchez: I’m using Gibson Explorers from around 1976. They used to have EMG pickups, but I’ve switched back to the stock pickups. I also have a Minarik Medusa and a Gibson EDS-1275 doubleneck.

Are your prog-rock tendencies dictated by the Armory Wars storyline, or would you write music this epic regardless?
Sanchez: A lot of this stuff comes from a very personal place. In a weird way, the story is autobiographical, so I think we’d be writing this no matter what.

Stever: Everybody in the band likes progressive stuff, so, either way, we’re going to be into it. But if you listen to the album, there’s some real straightforward stuff, too. We love music that’s all over the map. We love a good pop song. We love a good rock song. We love metal. So we try to put all of that into our music. We do have a lot of songs that have five or six parts and are eight or nine minutes long, but that’s just our way of letting ourselves go, and getting everything we want into a song.

Do you ever wish you could write a three-and-a-half-minute song, but feel like you can’t because it doesn’t fit the plot?
Stever: No. The lyrics are what tell the story, but Claudio fits the words to whatever song we write. There have been times when we thought, “This part would be awesome for this part of the story,” because of how dramatic it is—like the acoustic intro in “The End Complete I: The Fall of House Atlantic.” That’s a big deal in the story, and it’s a really dramatic musical part. This album is the end of the Armory Wars story, and what better time to write the end than when we were going through all this bull, and not knowing if it was the end of the band. So it all worked perfectly—but in a really crappy way.