ANCIIENTS have re-recorded "Humanist", the first song the band ever committed to tape, and released it ahead of their first headline run through Europe and the United Kingdom in more than ten years.
The song has always been slightly buried. It was cut for Snakebeard, the Vancouver band's 2011 debut EP, and then turned up as a bonus track on 2013's "Heart Of Oak" — the album that put them on the map without ever quite putting "Humanist" in front of people. The 2026 version fixes the placement and the fidelity at once.
It also closes a loop on personnel. The re-recording is performed by the current lineup — the one that took the 2025 JUNO for "Beyond The Reach Of The Sun" — with backing vocals from former guitarist Chris Dyck, who was in the band from 2011 to 2017 and sang on the original.
The idea came from a dry run. "'Humanist' was the first song we recorded as a band," vocalist and guitarist Kenny Cook says. "After hearing the sonic improvements that came with re-recording 'Built To Die' last year, we wanted to give 'Humanist' the same treatment."
Cook is blunt about where the song sits in their catalogue. "The song represents a wild dream," he says. "Musically, 'Humanist' is one of our heaviest, though we chuck a little bit of everything into the composition." That last clause is the whole band in one sentence — ANCIIENTS have spent fifteen years refusing to choose between sludge weight, melodic twin-guitar writing and long-form progressive structures, and getting away with it.
The timing is not accidental. They have just been out marking the tenth anniversary of "Voice Of The Void", the 2016 record that became their first JUNO winner when it took Heavy Metal Album of the Year in 2018. "Beyond The Reach Of The Sun" made it two in 2025. There are not many metal bands in Canada with that shelf.
"Humanist" is streaming now on the Season Of Mist YouTube channel.
ANCIIENTS 2026 "Ascent Of The Fallen Ones" European/UK tour
| Date | City | Venue |
|---|---|---|
| September 26 | Leeuwarden, NL | Into The Void |
| September 27 | Cologne, DE | Euroblast |
| September 29 | Copenhagen, DK | Stengade |
| October 1 | London, UK | The Black Heart |
| October 2 | Nottingham, UK | The Mist Rolling Inn |
| October 3 | Manchester, UK | The Lodge |
| October 4 | Bristol, UK | The Croft |
| October 6 | Southampton, UK | Joiners |
| October 7 | Brighton, UK | Dust |
| October 10 | Nijmegen, NL | Soulcrusher |
| October 12 | Toulouse, FR | Le Rex |
| October 13 | Barcelona, ES | Razzmatazz 3 |
| October 14 | Madrid, ES | Rockville |
| October 15 | Bragança, PT | JP Rock Cafe |
| October 17 | Porto, PT | Auditório CCOP |
Order and stream ANCIIENTS' catalogue on Season Of Mist: orcd.co/anciientsbeyondthereachofthesun