Danish metal veterans RAUNCHY are back after twelve years of studio silence, releasing the official music video for their new single "Designed Despair." The track is the lead preview from the upcoming album Prisoner, due later in 2026 via Mighty Music, and it confirms that the band's return is anything but a nostalgic exercise.
Recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered by Jacob Hansen at Hansen Studios — Denmark's premier metal production facility — "Designed Despair" blends mechanized grooves, razor-sharp riffs, and haunting atmospheres into one of RAUNCHY's most intense tracks to date. The song channels the band's signature balance between aggression and melody, the approach they pioneered as one of the architects of the "death pop" subgenre.
The band offered some context for the song's themes: "This song reflects the reality of a system that creates roads to nowhere, where escape exists only through the narrow cracks of a broken foundation."
The 2026 lineup features Jesper Andreas Tilsted (guitars, keyboards), Lars Christensen (guitars), Jesper Kvist (bass), Morten Toft Hansen (drums), Jeppe Christensen (keyboards, vocals), and Mike Semensky (vocals). The Danish act, hailing from Thisted, formed in 1992 and released six studio albums before going quiet — now, with Prisoner, they appear ready to reclaim their place in the European metal landscape.