Halifax, Canada’s Ancient Thrones has dropped a blistering guitar playthrough for their latest single “A Turning Point,” offering fans a visceral preview of their forthcoming full-length album, “Melancholia,” out on September 19th, 2025 (Vinyl and Digital). The track marks a sonic shift for the band, trading speed for sludge, groove, and emotional weight as they continue to evolve their progressive and existential sound.
“A turning point is exactly that; a complete shift from speed into a groove-focused, more sludge-influenced sound, with twists and turns as our character in the story sinks his feet into the muddy path ahead, going deeper into the trip. Originally, this song was meant to be a bit more straightforward rhythmically, until Sean flipped the drum part to channel influences like Brann Dailor on Mastodon’s “Leviathan’, big energy and lots of fills. Featuring a ground-shaking bass performance by Matt LeBlanc and ending with a standout finger-bleeding solo from Dylan Wallace, the song offers something to satisfy all metal fans,” adds the band.
Watch and listen to the playthrough for “A Turning Point” via its premiere on Metal Insider HERE.
Formed in 2011 and rebranded in 2018, Ancient Thrones carved out a new identity rooted in fast, extreme, progressive, cinematic, and existential soundscapes. With “Melancholia”, the band introduces a 42-minute descent into existential exhaustion, delivering an unapologetic extreme metal concept album that fuses blistering speed, cinematic storytelling, and emotional brutality.
From the chaotic opener “A Moon Fused Key” to the doom-laden closer “Vacant,” the band exposes raw intensity and jagged vulnerability. The narrative follows a colorblind protagonist navigating hallucinogenic visions in search of meaning, an unsettling journey through idealism, dread, and transformation. After five years of creation, Ancient Thrones proudly bring to light this new chapter, inviting listeners to embrace the chaos and feel something truly unnatural.
“For this album, a big focus for us was on the production. We meticulously, painstakingly spent several hours dialing every tone, note, layer, vocal, etc. We were fortunate to have time and a slower world on our side during production. Everything on this album was thought out and brought to life in a fully fleshed-out way. It took us 5 years to make this album, with 1 of those years used just levelling up our musicianship and techniques in order to play the material. We’re faster, more technical, and have a singular focus to make sure this album was beating you down from head to toe,” says Leblanc.
Drawing inspiration from the chaotic precision of The Red Chord and The Faceless, the poetic intensity of Deafheaven, and the breakneck technicality of Archspire, Ancient Thrones forges a sound that’s ferocious and relentlessly extreme. “Melancholia” marks their most ambitious leap yet—each note sharpened and sculpted over five years of obsessive writing and sonic refinement.
Album pre-order (Vinyl, Digital) (out Sept 19th, 2025) – https://ancientthrones.
Lyric Video – “A Moon Fused Key” https://youtu.be/IfDBNhlJ0sI
Music Video – “Melancholia” – https://youtu.be/_LvSTJ78kd8
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Track Listing:
1. A Moon Fused Key (5:12)
2. Achromatopsia (1:19)
3. Melancholia (6:17)
4. A Turning Point (5:46)
5. A Pellucid Prism (4:26)
6. Sacred Swollen Glass (6:16)
7. Blight (2:18)
8. A Pale Palace (4:55)
9. Vacant (5:31)
Album Length: 42:00
Band Lineup:
Dylan Wallace – Guitar
Nick Leslie – Guitar
Matt LeBlanc – Bass
Sean Hickey – Drums & Vocals
More info: Facebook.com/Ancientthrones | Instagram.com/ancientthrones
“The music is indeed violent, and immediately so, exploding in a blast of turbulent riffing, heavily undulating bass tones, and furious beats. The guitars wildly writhe and rapidly spear off in crazed angles, kaleidoscopic in effect, and the words spit forth in caustic screams that are equally deranged. Dissonant and dismal tones intrude, along with guttural roars, blast-beat outbursts, and pulverizing blows, and the riffing also seems to swarm in agony, adding further dimensions of darkness to the song’s overarching manifestation of delirium. Backed by a pulse-pounding and highly headbangable groove, the song also introduces yet another dimension, an eerie guitar solo that slowly slithers, brightly swirls, and evolves into an entrancing harmony, very much like a beckoning and seductive presence that manifests within the mayhem.” – No Clean Singing (single – A Moon Fused Key – 2025)
What the press has said about 2020’s “The Veil”:
“A full-throttle attack, the song (The Sight of Oblivion) delivers bludgeoning rhythms, vicious darting and slashing guitar-work, scorching blackened shrieks, and cold-hearted roars. There’s a brazen, borderline-unhinged quality to the barrage, generated by screaming, rapidly whirling leads, magma-like bass notes, and fast-changing, bone-cracking drums. But within the assault there are also fluid, sinuous melodic leads whose mellifluous, reverberating tones give the music a mysterious, mesmerizing, and mournful quality. And near the end one of those leads morphs into a fret-burning dual-guitar extravaganza that really gets the blood rushing.” – No Clean Singing (2020 – The Veil)
“Nearly an hour in length, The Veil earns that run-time with crisply-written compositions and an arsenal of sky-ripping riffs. The acoustic reprieve of “Sentient” and melodic grief of “Permanent” reveal the album’s heavy heart. But the album conjures strength from those pensive moments. Rife with nimble axe-work from Dylan Wallace and Nick Leslie, The Veil never succumbs to the solemnity of its subject. The Veil remains an impactful listen down to its final dying note.” – Decibel Magazine (2020 – The Veil)
“Trailer Park Boys and Hobo With a Shotgun aren’t the only pieces of media that have emerged from Nova Scotia that you should get excited over.” – MetalSucks
“From the massive tremolo sections and bludgeoning riffs to the surprisingly melodic harmonies between guitarists Dylan Wallace and Nick Leslie, Ancient Thrones have definitely honed in on something special with this track.” – GearGods
“From earth crushing riffs and face-melting guitar solos to the overarching theme of grief and devastation that the record encompasses, this single really ramps up the intensity” – Bravewords
“Canadian band Ancient Thrones perform a combination of black, death and thrash metal with some progressive tendencies on The Veil. They have similarities to Skeletonwitch, but have an even more dynamic sound. The songs are both aggressive and intelligent in equal measure and run through a variety of different emotional tangents. There is a vile and harsh aspect to the band, but there is also a forward thinking one. It all results in a creative and dynamic listen.” – Heavy Music Headquarters (2020 – The Veil)
“The prize for most ambitious album of 2020 already has the name of Ancient Thrones carved in marble. Who among you fancies a 56-minute blackened death metal saga with an epic meditation on one man’s descent into the afterlife? No band thought it conceivable to write the metal version of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, but this Nova Scotia quartet are not just any band. This is a remarkable journey for the contemplative mind.” – Scream Blast Repeat (2020 – The Veil)
“The Sight of Oblivion and The Millionth Grave are steeped in ferociousness and savagery as only a band well versed in blackened death metal are capable of producing.8.5/10” – Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life (2020 – The Veil)
“With this new incarnation, Ancient Thrones has moved into strict Black/Death territory, producing an album filled with pummeling riffs, intricate song structures, and technical musicianship that’s leavened by atmospheric segments and epic, sometimes audacious melodies that border on Cascadian. The production matches this style perfectly, being heavy and abrasive while allowing the songs enough room to stretch out… fans of more epic and melodic Black/Death will want to give The Veil a listen. 4/5” – The Metal Crypt (2020 – The Veil)
“It is fast, thrashing extreme metal with shrieked/growled vocals, and a headbanging attitude. They have elements of thrash, black and death but their method of delivery won’t confuse anyone. It is metal to make the fans move. It is pretty thrashy, pretty brutal but also melodic, and the guitar work has plenty to offer both in the riffs and the melodies.” – Metal Bulletin (2020 – The Veil)
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