BELPHEGOR have finished work on their thirteenth studio album. The Austrian black death metal veterans confirmed the record is scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2027 via Reigning Phoenix Music.
No title or artwork has been revealed yet, but two songs from the sessions are already circulating: "Scarlet Beast — Leviathan," issued in February 2026, and "Sanctus Diaboli Confidimus," which surfaced back in August 2025. The band has pointed supporters back toward both while the rest of the album is finalised.
Formed in 1993 in Salzburg by vocalist and guitarist Helmuth Lehner, BELPHEGOR have spent more than three decades welding the violent precision of death metal to the ritual darkness of black metal. From the raw early salvos of The Last Supper (1995), Blutsabbath (1997) and Necrodaemon Terrorsathan (2000) to the more elaborate architecture of Lucifer Incestus, Pestapokalypse VI, Bondage Goat Zombie and Totenritual, the band has kept its bearings while steadily widening its compositional range.
Their last full-length, 2022's The Devils, remains one of the most ambitious things in the catalogue. Recorded at Fascination Street Studios with producer Jens Bogren, it moved between feral aggression and something closer to liturgy — "Glorifizierung Des Teufels" and "Virtus Asinaria — Prayer" folded choral passages into the ritual structure, while "Damnation — Höllensturz" unfolded with genuine dynamic complexity. The lyrics wove German, Latin and English together, and Seth Siro Anton supplied the artwork.
The Devils also brought BELPHEGOR an unlikely piece of establishment recognition: the 2023 Amadeus Austrian Music Award in the Hard And Heavy category, a rare official nod for a band that has spent its entire life at maximum distance from the mainstream.
Live, BELPHEGOR remain a touring machine, having worked their way across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia and appeared at Wacken Open Air, Hellfest, Bloodstock Open Air, Knotfest, Tons Of Rock and Sweden Rock, where their shows function less as concerts than as ceremonies of smoke, blood and fire.
Early word on the new material suggests a continuation of the path The Devils opened — more focused, more ritualistic, and, if the band's own framing of the number thirteen is anything to go by, considerably more devastating.