UK death metal band CELESTIAL SANCTUARY will release their new album, Cradle of the Rotten, Shrine to Those Most Foul, on January 22, 2027. It is their first record for Metal Blade Records, and it arrives with a video for lead single "Lashed by Chain".
The band describes the new material as roughly 25% death metal and 75% "everything else" that makes up their idea of heavy metal. The point, they say, was to strip the project back to what it really is: "filtering out all the bullshit, ignoring trends and ignoring what people expect us to do, and we're a way better band for it."
The 47-minute album is a concept piece rooted in the folklore and grim history of Bury St Edmunds and the surrounding region: the martyrdom of King Edmund, the spectral hound Black Shuck, the Red Barn Murder, the witch trials, the sunken bells of Dunwich, the Lantern Man and the area's many public executions, all twisted into the band's own narrative.
Vocalist and guitarist Tomás Palmer-Cronin calls "Lashed by Chain" the first song written for the record and "an immediate statement of intent": tight, fast riffing, a slam breakdown and a twin-guitar solo he says wouldn't be out of place in an IRON MAIDEN song. The lyrics follow a knight who has sold his destiny to fight an unwinnable war, and he warns there is "no happy ending". A video producer by trade, Palmer-Cronin directed the clip himself in a 9th-century deconsecrated church built on a burial site, with animation by Ben Amos Cooper designed to echo James Bousema's cover art.
Tracklist:
- Where the Blood Flows
- Bonestorm
- They Worm Their Way In
- Cradle of the Rotten
- Shrine to Those Most Foul
- Enter the Sanctuary
- Lashed by Chain
- A Dogged Act
- Subhuman Scum
Before the album lands, CELESTIAL SANCTUARY head out in support of KHEMMIS on a European and UK run starting this weekend:
- 10.10 — Bochum, DE — Die Trompete
- 11.10 — Hengelo, NL — Metropool
- 13.10 — Birmingham, UK — The Flapper
- 14.10 — Manchester, UK — The Bread Shed
- 15.10 — London, UK — The Underworld
- 16.10 — Portsmouth, UK — Kola
- 17.10 — Paris, FR — Backstage by the Mill
- 18.10 — Liège, BE — Desertfest
- 19.10 — Leipzig, DE — Naumanns
- 20.10 — Prague, CZ — Subzero
- 21.10 — Berlin, DE — Cassiopeia
- 22.10 — Hamburg, DE — Monkeys
CELESTIAL SANCTUARY are: Tomás Palmer-Cronin (vocals, guitar), Matt Adnett (guitar), Jay Rutterford (bass), James Burke (drums).
Pre-order "Cradle of the Rotten, Shrine to Those Most Foul": Metal Blade
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