New Wave Of British Heavy Metal veterans CLOVEN HOOF have announced their tenth full-length studio album, "Never A Prophet In Your Own Land," due September 25 via High Roller Records, alongside a lyric video for lead single "Iron Mask."
The album continues the band's current chapter fronted by JAG PANZER vocalist Harry "The Tyrant" Conklin, whose performance has drawn particular praise from his bandmates. "The praise is all Harry's. We are indeed fortunate to have such a brilliant vocalist and frontman in the band," said bassist Lee Payne, one of CLOVEN HOOF's longest-serving members.
Payne described "Never A Prophet In Your Own Land" as a spiritual sibling to an earlier point in the band's catalog rather than a radical departure. "'Never A Prophet In Your Own Land' resembles 'A Sultan's Ransom' more closely, yet this resemblance was not contrived or planned," he said, adding that the songwriting process leaned into range rather than a single dominant style: "We wanted to make this album as rich and varied as we could, to show how far the band has progressed musically." He went further in his assessment of the finished product, calling it "the most satisfying album we have ever done" and adding, "This album has everything you could wish for in the heavy metal genre."
The album's ten-track lineup — "Terror From The Sky," "Conquistador," "Never A Prophet," "Gypsy Roller," "The Bigger They Are," "Iron Mask," "Phantom Chaser," "Flying Dutchman," "Prodigal Son" and "Seven Sacred Wonders" — spans the mix of mid-tempo cuts, faster material, epic-length compositions and straightforward heavy metal rockers that Payne says defines the record's variety.
Formed in the West Midlands in 1979 and among the acts that helped define the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal alongside contemporaries like ANGEL WITCH and DIAMOND HEAD, CLOVEN HOOF has weathered numerous lineup changes across more than four decades while Payne has remained a constant presence. With Conklin's arrival having reinvigorated the band's studio output in recent years, "Never A Prophet In Your Own Land" arrives as the latest entry in a late-career run that Payne and his bandmates clearly regard as some of CLOVEN HOOF's strongest work to date.