Coheed and Cambria/Porcupine Tree/the Dear Hunter

It took a decade of slogging through the trenches of contemporary punk and emo, but Coheed and Cambria finally did it: The band is now considered strictly a rock band, with no silly, hyphen-carrying prefixes before it. Sure, frontman Claudio Sanchez still writes lyrically obtuse concept albums about space and the apocalypse and stuff — honestly, we stopped paying attention to the lyrics right around 2005's Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness — but we'll be damned if the actual music hasn't gotten beefier and beefier with each subsequent release. Coheed is the type of band grizzled Rush fans and their Warped Tour-attending kids can bond over. (And it doesn't hurt that the quartet usually has rad opening acts, either; this tour features Porcupine Tree and the Dear Hunter.) Do we always get it? No. Do we still headbang in unison along with Sanchez and his mighty locks? You better believe it, space cadet.