Polyphia Be Not Afraid — Polyphia’s new album, Be Not Afraid, marks a deliberate turn toward heavier, darker territory for the largely instrumental four-piece. Guitarists Tim Henson and Scott LePage say the record keeps the band’s genre-defying weirdness intact while adding more overt metal nods than ever before. The result is a collection that sounds aggressively human even as it aims to unsettle.
A Heavier Starting Point
The album’s opening track, “Let There Be Light,” set the tone early. Henson describes it as the first song written for the project, begun around late 2023 into 2024. It took many demos to reach that point, but once the band recognized the sound of the album, they cleared most of 2024 and all of 2025 from touring to focus on it.
Henson likens “Let There Be Light” to the band’s earlier track “G.O.A.T.” and “Fear God” to “Ego Death” from 2022’s Remember That You Will Die. Those are the only two songs he feels can be compared to past work; the other ten, he says, resist any such mapping. The original plan to build the album around a lead single fell apart when the material diverged so sharply from that first track.
Digital Amps and Human Hands
Both guitarists have long abandoned physical tube amps in favor of digital modeling. LePage recalls starting with a DigiTech effects unit and the 2009 POD Farm plug-in as a teenager, partly because buying one piece of software was more realistic than accumulating heavy, expensive amps. When the band tried re-amping through a real amp in the studio, they found it sounded worse.
For all the software, the rhythm section remains entirely human. Bassist Clay Gober and drummer Clay Aeschliman come in near the end of the process, playing parts designed to match the demos. Henson notes a common criticism that listeners cannot tell there are drums on the record, which he views as a testament to sound design rather than programming. The goal, he says, is music made by humans that sounds nothing like humans.
Writing Sessions and the Hook Zone
The band modeled its sessions on Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy era, flying everyone out to Miami, Los Angeles and Texas for weeks at a time. Henson says the intensity of those sessions fostered a deep attunement among the members, and the discussions turned toward disturbing material that surfaced in a set of files that year.
That disgust and anger became the album’s emotional core. The record is explicitly a Jesus record, with Jesus on the cover and every song title drawn from biblical language. Henson says the titles carry layered meanings, metaphorical and literal, and the music aims to convey a scream without a singer. Rather than offering escape, the band wants listeners to sit with discomfort and then act.
LePage’s writing often begins with experimentation, sometimes assisted by scotch, and he admits he rarely finishes an idea on his own. Henson frequently takes LePage’s themes to completion. Most of Henson’s own demos did not make the album because they felt too classically Polyphia. Instead, many of his contributions were written on the spot, humming melodies over beats. The hooks, he says, were all written in a pacing area behind LePage’s desk that they called the hook zone.
Outside Influences and a Genreless Identity
The album’s heaviest moments draw from unexpected sources. The grinding drop in “Mark of the Beast” came from a beat LePage heard on TikTok, while another idea was sparked by a Charli XCX song featuring Billie Eilish and its four-on-the-floor pulse. LePage imagined Meshuggah-style guitars following those quarter notes, citing Meshuggah’s remix of Rammstein’s “Benzin” as a model for transforming source material into something unrecognizable.
“Can You Feel It” channels live metal house, with Henson pointing to Benny Benassi’s “Satisfaction” and Kanye West’s habit of looping house and gospel samples. The band deliberately shifted focus away from technicality toward melody, groove and vibe.
As for genre, neither guitarist claims one. LePage says he never knows how to answer that question and prefers to describe what the music has rather than what it is. Henson says the band simply chases excitement. That openness, LePage suggests, may be what allows them to follow any direction without feeling bound to metal.
Asked about Angine de Poitrine, the instrumental band from Quebec, Henson declines to offer a critical opinion in the press but says he is glad they exist. LePage agrees and notes that his father, a Meshuggah fan, is into them and that they pass the head-bob test.
One favorite remains “J-Bomb,” a track Henson says their wives hate. He hears a Lil Wayne Young Money influence in its triumphant, horn-laden beats. It is another example of Polyphia following whatever excites them, regardless of category.