"We play rap music with guitars."note
Polyphia is a Dallas-based Progressive Rock band started in 2010. Initially started as a pure djent band that got big through a viral video on YouTube and subsequent covers, they branched out from their first couple of EPs and first album as a band willing to experiment with pop elements while also keeping the tight, djenty feel while mixing progressive elements and math rock time signatures and progressions into their sound, creating a unique and upbeat sound.And then in 2017, ''TheMostHated'' EP dropped, marking a hard left turn in their sound.
TheMostHated incorporated trap beats, pop synths, and drum machines into their sound, creating a weird but very original take on their contemporaries, and it was such a wild success that they haven't looked back since, releasing their next album and their next five singles using this formula, and they don't appear to be slowing down whatsoever.
They are also characterized by their deeply un-serious-but-serious personas, especially Tim and Scott, who basically spend interviews and videos messing around and telling jokes when they aren't playing.
Band Members
- Tim Henson - Guitar
- Scott LePage - Guitar
- Clay Gober - Bass
- Clay Aeschliman - Drums
Discography
- Resurrect (Demo) - (2011)
- Inspire - EP, 2013
- Muse - 2014, re-released in 2015
- Renaissance - 2016
- TheMostHated - EP, 2017
- New Levels New Devils - 2018
- Remember That You Will Die - 2022
Polyphia and their music contains examples of:
- Avant-Garde Metal: A standout case of a band pushing the boundaries of Progressive Rock and Progressive Metal to such an extent that they overlap and weave into each other
- Deadpan Snarker: The whole band is this. They insisted on calling themselves "true Christian Metal"...while releasing their intentionally raunchiest video.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Tim is an extremely attractive, young, fashionable looking guy.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Go listen to their first couple of EPs and first album after listening to Renaissance or anything after that. You'd think an entirely different band made them.
- Genre-Busting: Their blend of djent and math rock with trap beats and pop sensibilities is very unusual.
- Instrumentals: All but two of their songs don't feature a singer.
- New Sound Album: TheMostHated was a hard Genre Shift into Lighter and Softer but no less technical and creative musical territory.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. Both their drummer and bassist are named Clay.
- Progressive Rock / Progressive Metal
- Re-release the Song: LIT is actually Light from Renaissance, but re-orchestrated and with additional trap/pop elements, and as a result it sounds extremely different.
- Special Guest:
- New Levels New Devils features Lewis Grant appears on Look But Don't Touch, Yvette Young on featured in "Rich Kids", CHON guitarists Mario Camarena and Erick Hansel on "Yas", Jason Richardson on "Nasty", and Ichika Nito on "Death Note".
- Remember That You Will Die takes it up to eleven: vocalist Sophia Black appears on "ABC", Brasstracks is featured in "Genesis", keyboardist Anomalie appears on "The Audacity",Chino Moreno sings in "Bloodbath", Lil West has a rap verse at the end of "Chimera", rapper $NOT appears in "Fuck Around and Find Out", rapper Killstation appears in "Memento Mori" and Steve Vai takes a solo at the climax of "Ego Death".
- Uncommon Time
