Photos: POLYPHIA to Release New Album BE NOT AFRAID with Rise Records
Guitarists Tim Henson and Scott LePage describe a more communal writing process behind the new record.
Polyphia has announced their fifth full-length studio album, BE NOT AFRAID, out October 23rd with Rise Records. Alongside the announcement, the band released a new single from the record, 'POWER IN THE BLOOD,' accompanied by a music video.
Photo Credit: Caleb Young
Filmed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the video finds the band playing against the ornate, gold-leaf Baroque backdrops from the São Francisco da Penitência Church. The visual lays the foundation for what's to come off the new record, directed by Caleb Young.
Throughout 2024 and 2025, Polyphia worked together in various locations in Miami, Los Angeles and Dallas alongside co-producer RJ Pasin and guitar phenom Spiro Dussias. Guitarist Tim Henson took a different approach to composition, initially singing lines aloud and then translating them onto guitar, creating a process that encouraged the entire band to build on each other's ideas in real time. More than anything, the sessions were defined by how much fun they were having creating music together. By the time the album was finished, they had reached a point where they could let go of any expectations about what would happen next and simply enjoy what they had created together.
'Instead of going wide on BE NOT AFRAID, we went as deep as we could,' Henson shares. 'There are so many layers to pull back. Every time you listen to it, you'll notice something new. Thematically, it's by far the most meaningful record we've ever made.'
'We physically can't make the same album twice,' adds guitarist Scott LePage. 'We have a yearning to evolve. It was so much fun to write this one together too – the writing sessions for past Polyphia records typically looked like us gathering our ideas separately first and bringing them to each other second, so we took a different approach with BE NOT AFRAID by treating the sessions like an opportunity to create with everybody in the room first before getting into the separate writing. It was a much more communal approach that led to us having so much fun making it that the fun itself was the magic being captured.'
The collective thread together a three-dimensional offering of otherworldly metal, future-facing prog, and pulsating house sealed tightly with carefully curated samples, inventive beat-craft, and the guitar eloquence that Tim and Scott remain renowned for. This time around, the instrumental push-and-pull invokes the polarity of the ultimate extremes: good and evil.
When speaking on the album Henson adds, 'The album takes you through the extremes of two different worlds / moods: one being very uplifting and triumphant, the other being spine-chilling and terrifying. There are moments on the record that legitimately scare me when I listen to them.'
Earlier this year, Polyphia teased their new chapter with the release of their first single in over four years, 'CAN YOU FEEL IT.' Pushing boundaries in ways the band never has before with a hybrid of metal and dance music, their music video showcased an electrifying performance by the band amidst a crowd of fans.
'During the making of this record, we went down some pretty dark rabbit holes. We kept coming across things that were so depraved they sounded insane when you said them out loud. Then some of the very things we had been talking about started appearing in documents released to the public. You can read that stuff and feel disgusted, demoralized, and completely powerless. BE NOT AFRAID is our response to that. Rather than allowing the ugliness of the world to paralyze us, we put everything we had into making something beautiful. We weren't afraid of whether something was too different or whether people were going to understand it. We just followed what excited us and made what I believe is our best record to date,' Henson explains.
Polyphia refused to compromise on BE NOT AFRAID. Getting the album exactly where they wanted it meant giving it more time and ultimately pushing the North American leg of the 2026 World Tour to early 2027. RJ Pasin will still support every date worldwide. North American shows will feature Ladrones, with select dates including Intervals. Perturbator will join all UK and European dates, which remain unchanged for Nov/Dec 2026. Tickets purchased for previous tour dates are valid for the newly announced show dates. For more information and to purchase tickets visit Polyphia.com.
Polyphia have always said what they need to say with their instruments. Since their emergence in 2010, the Texas-bred outfit—Tim Henson [guitar], Scott LePage [guitar], Clay Gober [bass], and Clay Aeschliman [drums]—have organically progressed across a series of acclaimed albums, including Muse [2014], Renaissance [2016], New Levels New Devils [2018], and Remember That You Will Die [2022]. The latter bowed at #1 on the Billboard Top Hard Rock Albums Chart and cracked the Top 40 of the Billboard 200. Tallying hundreds of millions of streams, it established the band as rare outliers equally suited to collaborations with either pop singer Sophia Black, multiplatinum rapper SNOT, guitar hero Steve Vai, or iconic Deftones frontman Chino Moreno (on the same body of work). It's no wonder Guitar World readers unanimously voted it 'The Best Guitar Album of 2022.' Beyond headlining sold-out tours, the group incited the applause of Wired, Revolver, and Rolling Stone who described Tim as 'reinventing the instrument for more than a decade.'
North America Tour Dates 2027 w/ Ladrones & RJ Pasin (* w/ Intervals, # No Ladrones)
February 5 - Phoenix, AZ - Arizona Financial Theatre
February 6 - Las Vegas, NV - House of Blues
February 9 - Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Palladium
February 10 - San Diego, CA – SOMA #
February 11 - Anaheim, CA - House of Blues
February 14 - San Francisco, CA - The Masonic
February 17 - Seattle, WA - Paramount Theatre
February 19 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Depot
February 20 - Denver, CO - The Fillmore Auditorium
February 23 - Minneapolis, MN - Uptown Theater
February 24 - Milwaukee, WI - Landmark Credit Union Live
February 25 - Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom
February 26 - Indianapolis, IN - Egyptian Room at Old National Centre
February 27 - Detroit, MI - The Fillmore Detroit
March 2 - Toronto, ON - Great Canadian Toronto *
March 3 - Montreal, QC – L'Olympia *
March 5 - Philadelphia, PA - The Fillmore Philadelphia
March 6 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Paramount
March 7 - Boston, MA - MGM Music Hall at Fenway
March 9 - Washington, DC - Echostage
March 10- Raleigh, NC - The Ritz
March 12 - Charlotte, NC - The Fillmore Charlotte
March 13- Orlando, FL - Hard Rock Live
March 14 - St. Petersburg, FL - Jannus Live
March 16 - Atlanta, GA - Coca-Cola Roxy
March 17- Birmingham, AL - Avondale Brewing Company
March 18 - Nashville, TN - The Truth
March 20 - Dallas, TX - South Side Ballroom
Europe/UK Tour Dates w/ Perturbator & RJ Pasin
Nov 18 – Zurich, CH – Halle 622
Nov 19 – Lyon, FR – Le Radiant
Nov 20 – Toulouse, FR – Interference
Nov 22 – Barcelona, ES – Razzmatazz
Nov 23 – Madrid, ES – Sala La Riviera
Nov 25 – Milan, IT – Alcatraz
Nov 27 – Munich, DE – Zenith
Nov 28 – Prague, CZ – SaSaZu
Nov 29 – Warsaw, PL – Progresja
Nov 30 – Leipzig, DE – Haus Auensee
Dec 2 – Hamburg, DE – Docks
Dec 4 – Copenhagen, DK – Amager Bio
Dec 5 – Berlin, DE – Tempodrom
Dec 6 – Oberhausen, DE – Turbinenhalle
Dec 7 – Brussels, BE – Ancienne Belgique
Dec 8 – Amsterdam, NL – AFAS Live
Dec 9 – Paris, FR – Zenith Paris
Dec 11 – Birmingham, UK – 02 Academy Birmingham
Dec 12 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy
Dec 15 – Leeds, UK – O2 Academy Leeds
Dec 16 – London, UK – O2 Academy Brixton
Photo Credit: Caleb Young
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