FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DREAD WITCH Unleash a Cinematic Descent Into Darkness With New Doom Metal Album CULT
Danish doom metal force DREAD WITCH will release their crushing second album, CULT , on October 31, 2026 via DHU Records and Gateway Music
Danish doom metal outfit DREAD WITCH are preparing to unleash CULT , their second full-length album and a darker, heavier and more cinematic evolution of the band’s sound. Set for release on October 31, 2026 , CULT is a 36-minute descent into an occult nightmare built from colossal riffs, crushing drums, ritualistic vocals and an immense wall of sound.
Formed in Denmark in 2023 by former members of Scamp, Horned Almighty, Stone Cadaver and The World State , DREAD WITCH came together with one simple mission: create exceedingly heavy and dark doom metal inspired by horror literature, cult cinema and bands such as Pink Floyd and Triptykon .
With CULT , that vision has been pushed even further into the darkness.
The album unfolds like a horror movie translated into sound. From the unsettling opening instrumental “Born Again,” where the cries of a bawling infant collide with dissonant guitars, to the monumental eight-minute closing journey “Omen of Oblivion,” DREAD WITCH create a bleak and immersive universe inhabited by serpents, witches, human sacrifices and unspeakable horrors.
The title track, “Cult,” drives the listener deeper with bone-shattering riffs and dark psychedelic textures, while “The Summoning” introduces occult chanting, sinister lyrics and an eerie atmospheric passage before erupting into a crushingly groove-heavy finale.
The pace picks up on “Cyclops,” the album’s shortest and most aggressive track, delivering an in-your-face barrage of riffs built for serious headbanging. “Altar” brings another dimension to the record with a guest appearance from Sofia Schmidt of Ethereal Kingdoms , who takes on the role of the Dread Witch herself in a performance that is both technically impressive and deeply unsettling.
Then comes “Marrow,” where up-tempo death metal phrasing and staccato riffs collide with the unexpected sound of a didgeridoo, creating what feels like an infernal freight train barreling straight into the abyss.
Instrumental “Vesexuff” serves as an ominous prelude to the album’s epic finale, “Omen of Oblivion,” completing a journey through dark landscapes of monumental riffs, powerful vocals and oppressive atmosphere.
At the center of the sonic assault is an immense wall of sound created from three low-tuned guitars, distorted bass, crushing drums, ritualistic vocals and ambient textures . The result is doom metal that is massive without sacrificing dynamics, atmosphere or detail.
CULT was engineered, produced, mixed and mastered by legendary Danish producer Tue Madsen , whose extensive credits include Meshuggah, Baest, Moonspell, The Haunted and Belphegor , among many others. The album was recorded at Antfarm Studios , with artwork created by Deliriavision and layout by Andreas Cadaver .
DREAD WITCH previously established their reputation with their 2023 debut, Tower of the Severed Serpent , which Deathrattle Podcast praised for its “riffs of gravitational force and neutronium density.” The band has continued to develop that crushing foundation on CULT , creating what is arguably an even more immersive and sinister statement.
DREAD WITCH creates Boschian landscapes of doom that, as RockHard Italy said, “capture the listener in a magnetic whirlpool that is difficult to escape.”
With CULT , there may be no escape at all.
DREAD WITCH – CULT
Release Date: October 31, 2026
Labels: DHU Records / Bottomless Pit / Gateway Music
Formats: Digital / CD / LP
Genre: Doom / Death Metal
For Fans Of: Conan, Triptykon, Devin Townsend
DREAD WITCH
Mikael Rise – Lead Vocals & Guitar
Dennis Larsen – Drums
Andreas Cadaver – Guitar
Leifur Nielsen – Bass & Vocals
Jesper Kragh – Lead Guitar
Credits
Recorded at Antfarm Studios
Produced, Mixed & Mastered by Tue Madsen
Artwork by Deliriavision
Layout by Andreas Cadaver
Music & Lyrics by Andreas Cadaver
Discography
Tower of the Severed Serpent – 2023
CULT – 2026
The official “Cult” music video was directed by DREAD WITCH and edited by Leifur Nielsen.
EPK, logos and additional band materials:
https://linktr.ee/dreadwitch
DREAD WITCH’s CULT arrives October 31, 2026. Enter the darkness. Join the cult.
No generative AI was used in the making of CULT.
Check out the video:
Connect:
https://linktr.ee/dreadwitch
Their atmospheric soundtracks long outlived the shows they were written for. Their blend of traditional Celtic music with modern instruments and leftfield arrangements pioneered a new sound that’s inspired generations. In 2014 Prog asked: How prog were Clannad?
Nightwish man Troy Donockley remembers the very moment Clannad first made an impression on his music – and his life: “I was 18 years old, confused, in a bikers’ pub listening to a jukebox, and Theme From Harry’s Game stopped me dead in my tracks. I lost all contact with my surroundings. That atmosphere – and Moya Brennan’s voice – was like nothing I’d ever heard.”
Clannad (the name created by contracting ‘Clann as Dobhar,’ meaning ‘family from Dore,’ not Gaelic for ‘family’ as many believe) broke into the world’s consciousness with that 1982 single, which has more than outlived the TV series it was attached to. As the only UK Number One single in the Irish language, its uniqueness could make it prog in its own right.
The track launched the second of three phases in the clan band’s history, all trademarked by soaring close harmonies, traditional and modern instruments, and left-field arrangements. Their career path has entailed kick-starting the stardom of younger sibling Enya, duetting with U2 singer Bono (who bought a hearse and pretended to be dead in the back during the video for In A Lifetime), persuading Steve Perry to appear on the only non-Journey track of his career at that point, and backstage parties with Phil Lynott and Rory Gallagher – which no one in the band admits remembering.
More importantly, those three phases all carry prog credentials to varying degrees. Although main songwriters Pol and Ciaran Brennan at first claim to be unaware of what prog actually is (possibly a surprised reaction at being approached by this very magazine), they soon open up and those influences become clear.
Siblings Moya, Pol and Ciaran, along with their uncles Noel and Padraig Duggan, had a definite aim with their self-titled debut album, released in 1973. They’d gone around their native Donegal with tape recorders, capturing folk songs before they were forgotten forever. “We had in our minds that we’d make folk albums,” Ciaran recalls. “Some of them didn’t have any pattern or arrangement, so you could wrap anything around them to keep them alive. We were listening to Jethro Tull and jazz rock, and I would have been very influenced by Pentangle.”
Donockley supports Ciaran’s assertion. “Clannad were primarily a prog folk act,” he says. “Structurally, they were very much like Pentangle; the progressive tendencies shine out on albums like Dulaman [1976] and Fuaim [1981]. Check out Strange Day In The Countryside from Crann Ull [1980] – it’s very pastoral hippie-acoustic prog, with its cross-fade from harp to guitars and wordless voices.”
Clannad’s debut saw them immediately embroiled in the kind of artistic battle many prog artists would be familiar with, as they stuck to their guns about singing in the Irish language, fighting label pressure to do otherwise. Ciaran recalls: “We did it in two and a half days after we won a competition in Letterkenny or somewhere. The record label MD said, ‘That’s never selling!’ and sent us back in to translate one of the songs into English. I was a pushy 19-year-old. I told him, ‘You’ll probably get a villa in Spain out of this!’”
He can’t have been far wrong. For Pol, though, it was always about crossing cultural streams. “It’s definite,” he says. “Our background is between the traditional stuff and classical stuff. When we were very young we were all classically trained on piano, and we had voice training and stuff. But we were growing up with the music of the day all around us. In the 60s we were stuck to Radio Caroline and Luxembourg. Ciaran and I listened to a lot of John McLaughlin but we were soaking in everything. I was much more of a rock-head myself. Musically, I was very challenged by it.”
Marillion guitarist Steve Rothery was struck by their unique blend at an early point in his career. “I thought Clannad were a unique blend of Celtic folk with prog elements,” he remembers. “They had a very evocative and ethereal sound. Moya Brennan’s vocal and the band’s harmonies are quite unique.”
The massive success of Harry’s Game brought those elements to global attention and led to a change of direction in the mid-80s, powered more by synths and a sound which could be compared to the neo-prog of the era. It’s first hinted at on 1983’s Magical Ring, of which Donockley says: “It’s an unreserved classic – a masterpiece of spacey prog-folk which is just beautiful. If it’s not already in your record collection, your musical education has amounted to nothing and you are an utter buffoon!”
Pol enthuses over a new era of inspiration: “The influences of bands like Yes, Marillion and fucking anyone – we were eating them up! If you’re looking for prog in our music, look in the riffs.”
He points to the band’s work on another 1980s TV series, Robin Of Sherwood, and particularly the track Scarlet Inside, written for Ray Winstone’s Will Scarlet. “I was rocking out with that. It’s Joe Elliott of Def Leppard’s favourite – he took me for beers and told me so!” he laughs.
If you like Sirius, don’t ever say so in Ireland!
Leon Brennan
Rothery confirms Clannad’s work informed at least the artistic intent of his Wishing Tree side-project. “The blend of the symphonic and acoustic elements of the music, and the odd time signatures of some of the pieces, give them a progressive feel,” he notes. “The mood and atmosphere of their music was one of the influences on the Carnival Of Souls album.”
But Clannad’s most riff-led album is 1987’s Sirius, which saw them fully embracing elements of neo-prog and even pop in a big US-style production. It involved Steve Perry, Bruce Hornsby and JD Souther, and resulted in a record many fans hated – brother Leon Brennan, the band’s tour manager, warns: “If you like Sirius, don’t ever say so in Ireland!” Nevertheless, it contains tracks where synths and different time signatures dominate, including In Search Of A Heart, Second Nature and the title track. Ciaran reflects: “I would agree it’s a prog rock album. I was very glad we took that direction when we could. We’re very comfortable with it now, but at the time there was that backlash. It was very expensive…”
Although they don’t revisit many of its tracks in their live shows, Pol says: “I’ve said to Ciaran it’s the one I’d love to do as a live album. Rock it out, use real strings – do a one-off show. The songs are good. With some of the timings, there’s an element of prog. Some of them are straight, but then that’s the last thing that some of the others are. I think what happened was we didn’t have enough of our own identity on them.”
Donockley is one of those who wasn’t a fan of Sirius: “There was a lot of 80s-style pop on that record, which I didn’t like. Clannad, to me, was a thing of art that didn’t follow fashion. But a lot of the synth sounds were quite 80s prog, mind!”
The 1990s saw the departure of Pol from the band, intent on pursuing an offer Peter Gabriel had extended to him. “I’d come to a point where I wanted to experiment,” he recalls. “I’d been asked by Peter when we were in Real World Studios to do some production, so I wound up working out of there for four or five years. It was almost like going back – while I write from a place of construction, it was deconstruction there. It came from instinct.”
Mel Collins fitted like a glove, being in bands like Crimson. We gave him one playback and told him, ‘Have fun!’
Ciaran Brennan
That led to something of a departure in his next musical project: Trisan, an experimental three-piece with Japanese percussionist Joji Hirota and Chinese flautist Guo Yue. “Real World was a masterclass, then Trisan were really stripping it right back. The last time I’d been on stage, there were 12 or 13 people there.”
Meanwhile, Clannad – now led by Ciaran – entered their third phase, in which they secured a trademark approach which remains more or less in place today. That included a stack of collaborations with some prog names: Mel Collins (King Crimson), Anton Drennan (Genesis, Mike & The Mechanics) and Vinnie Colaiuta (Frank Zappa).
Ciaran recalls: “Being with a major label gave us the chance to experiment with people who drifted into the studio. Anton Drennan was always influencing us. Mel fitted like a glove, being in bands like Crimson – the deal was we let them do their own thing and Mel loved the band for that. We gave him one playback and told him, ‘Here are the chords – have fun!’ I was delighted to play with Vinnie, who was on drums for Lore.’”
Donockley cites Lore (1996) as being among Clannad’s very best outings, calling it “their most prog album for me, just in its ‘this is us’ approach. It’s a massive-sounding album, and to me was a killer return to form.”
He went on to work with Moya Brennan on her solo album Two Horizons, and recalls “late nights round the kitchen table with Pol, initiating him into the cosmic wonders of Thomas Tallis.” He adds: “They’re a delight to be with. Moya is the real thing and Pol is deeply splendid, and definitely progressive in his total willingness to experiment.”
The Brennan brothers – Pol returned to the fold for 2013 album Nadur – are comfortable with Clannad being described as a prog band, and themselves as prog musicians. “It started for me when I discovered my father had a double bass from his showband days, which I jumped on without lessons,” Ciaran says. “The influences just came out as soon as we rehearsed in my father’s tavern. I would be in charge of a lot of the arrangement and whatever I was listening to at the time went in.”
Pol believes the attitude of blending influences which haven’t previously been put together remains a strong element of his band’s music – and of the entire prog world. Namechecking fledgling Irish outfit Shattered Skies, he says: “Prog is just huge, isn’t it? When I go to write, the first part is a riff for me, and the prog bands I listen to are all riffs and counter-riffs with amazing syncopation.
“The thing with me is, I’ve always rocked the thing out. In my head I’ve always looked for the riff, looked for a bit more cut into anything. When we’re doing a nice ethereal thing, I’m like, ‘It’s really nice, but we need to get a cut through it.’ Unconsciously it was always a part of the sound, and it was as important as the ethereal stuff.”
Rocked out or not, there’s certainly a lot more to this mystic crew than anyone would expect.
