Long-running Southern California metal act HERETIC will release its new album, "Shape Of Things To Come," on July 24 via Candlepower Records, a 12-song set produced by Steve Watson at Watson House Studios in Pasadena, California.
Guitarist Brian Korban, who has anchored HERETIC's sound since the band's formation in the 1980s, described the album as a deliberate homage to both the wider classic metal canon and the band's own earlier work. "When I started writing the record, I knew I wanted to pay tribute to classic metal bands and early HERETIC records. I made a conscious effort to create songs with a wide spectrum of styles. You will hear thrash, slow songs that end fast, an acoustic ballad and medium-paced power riffs. I couldn't be more pleased with the results," Korban said.
Producer Steve Watson, who oversaw the album's tracking, echoed that enthusiasm while framing the project in personal terms as both collaborator and longtime fan of the band. "Tracking and producing HERETIC's 'Shape Of Things To Come' was an honor and a lot of fun. We wanted to capture the band's live power while giving these songs the production they deserve. As a HERETIC fan, I couldn't love these songs more. As a friend, I'm proud of each of them, and as producer, I hope this album connects with listeners the way it touched me," Watson said. He added a pointed assessment of where the finished record leaves the band: "With 'Shape Of Things To Come,' HERETIC takes a stand that they are, more than ever, a heavy metal band to be reckoned with."
HERETIC first emerged from the Los Angeles metal scene in the mid-1980s, building a reputation for technically sharp, riff-driven traditional metal that predated the era's later shift toward thrash and glam-adjacent hard rock. Korban's guitar work has remained the band's defining constant across various lineup configurations and long stretches of inactivity in the decades since, with "Shape Of Things To Come" marking the latest entry in a discography built on outlasting rather than chasing trends.
With its stylistically varied tracklist positioned as both a nod to the band's roots and a showcase of its current capabilities, "Shape Of Things To Come" arrives as HERETIC's latest attempt to reassert its place among Southern California's classic metal veterans, backed by a producer whose praise for the finished album leaves little ambiguity about how the band itself views the record's stakes.