Epic concept music that arcs over five studio albums not enough? Why not throw in a 300 page novel with your next release? After all, the “kids” are all about reading these days.

Coheed And Cambria has announced their next album, Year Of The Black Rainbow, will come packaged with a novelization of the release authored by frontman Claudio Sanchez and bestselling author Peter David.

Normally I’d make fun of a band for doing this, but I actually like the songs on Coheed’s most recent albums, and we all knew this was inevitable – the band’s concept has been adapted for graphic novels before. While I don’t expect Shakespearian level writing, I’ll take a curious peak at the Year Of The Black Rainbow novel and album when it’s released in April 2010.

Also, I hadn’t realized “tetralogy” was a word until today. Full press release after the jump.

COHEED AND CAMBRIA READY THE RELEASE OF
FIFTH STUDIO ALBUM, YEAR OF THE BLACK RAINBOW

Eagerly Awaited Prequel To “The Amory Wars” Tetralogy
Slated For Release in April 2010 on Columbia Records

Deluxe Edition To Include 300+ page “Year of the Black Rainbow” Novel,
Penned by Claudio Sanchez and New York Times Bestselling Author Peter David

Columbia Records is proud to announce the upcoming release of Year of the Black Rainbow, the heavily anticipated fifth studio album from Coheed and Cambria, the 21st century’s premier progressive rock band. Year of the Black Rainbow is slated for release in April 2010.

Year of the Black Rainbow will be made available in a a deluxe package including a 300+ page prose novel of the same name, co-written by Claudio Sanchez and New York Times bestselling author Peter David, which promises to “tell the origins of Coheed and Cambria, and much more.” Presale information on the deluxe edition of Year of the Black Rainbow will be announced toward the end of December.

Year of the Black Rainbow provides the eagerly awaited prequel to the band’s four previous inter-related concept albums — The Second Stage Turbine Blade (2002); In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 (2003); Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness (2005) and Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow (2007) — which comprise “The Amory Wars,” the conceptual narrative driving the band’s lyrics, penned by Coheed and Cambria frontman Claudio Sanchez.

Through the group’s career, Coheed and Cambria have created consistently complex and challenging musical soundscapes to frame the psychological and narrative arcs of the band’s futurist mythic visions.

Year of the Black Rainbow is produced by Atticus Ross (Nine Inch Nails, Jane’s Addiction) and Joe Baressi (Queens of the Stone Age, Tool). According to the Coheed and Cambria, “They have helped us evolve our sound to be more powerful and dynamic than ever and we think it’s definitely our best work to date.”

Songs on Year of the Black Rainbow include “Here We Are Juggernaut,” “The Broken,” “Pearl of the Stars” and “Guns of Summer.”

In a post this week on the band’s website (www.coheedandcambria.com), Coheed and Cambria confirmed that “….the new album will be the ‘Origin Story’ or ‘The Prequel,’ and likely the final story of the ongoing concept story of ‘The Amory Wars.'”