French symphonic metal band HARTLIGHT have released an official music video for their new single "The Golden Egg," featuring guest vocals from Noa Gruman of Israeli progressive metallers SCARDUST. The song is the first taste of Iosis, the band's next record, and it arrives alongside a Kickstarter campaign that opened on November 1 to help fund the project.
HARTLIGHT call Iosis their most ambitious work to date. It is conceived as a metal opera that runs in parallel with an original dark-fantasy novel written to expand the album's story. Both the record and the book are illustrated by William Aubert, and the band present them as two separate doors into the same world.
That world is Iosis, a land sealed beneath an impassable sky and watched over by two rival moons, Albedo the White and Darga the Red. At its center stands the Crystal City and its Tower, seat of the Cult that rules over everything. Outside its walls, the peoples of Iosis survive in a beautiful but wounded land, poisoned by a corruption seeping up from the Pit, the world below. The story follows Lune, a slave from Vallaris, whose life changes when the shadow of the Pit reaches her.
"Iosis is more than an album," the band told their supporters, describing it as a full fantasy universe built around the opera and the novel, and asking fans to back the crowdfunding campaign to bring it to life.
"The Golden Egg" features lead vocals by Noémie Marie alongside Gruman, with Adrien Djouadou handling music, guitar, bass, programming and production, Adrien Guingal on guitar and Guillaume Remih on drums. Lucie André provides narration. The video was shot by Lahav Levi and Cécile Delpoïo and edited by Levi, and the track was mixed and mastered by Flavien Morel.
Formed around Marie and Djouadou, HARTLIGHT debuted with the From Midland and Beyond EP in 2022, followed by the full-lengths As Above, So Below (2024) and The Triumph of Metal (2025). The band name-check THERION, EPICA and AFTER FOREVER as touchstones. A release date for Iosis has not been announced yet.