Posted in: Music, Pop Culture | Tagged: john carpenter, sacred bones records, storm king comics

John Carpenter Announces His New Storytelling Album: Cathedral

John Carpenter has announced Cathedral, an audio/visual narrative storytelling album paired with a new graphic novel; the project is previewed today with the single "Lord of the Underground."

John Carpenter has announced that he is putting out a brand-new audio/visual narrative storytelling album with the reveal of his latest endeavor, Cathedral. This is a multi-genre release as the album itself will be coming out on August 7 on Sacred Bones Records, with music by John, Cody Carpenter (synths), and Daniel Davies (guitar). Alongside the album will be Carpenter's first-ever graphic novel of the same name, set to come out ahead of the music on August 4 through Storm King Comics. The band also dropped their first single, "Lord Of The Underground," with a special visualizer music video, which you can check out above.

This is a pretty awesome thing to see Carpenter do, as it breaks away from the normal kind of creativity he's been known for and pushes the boundary in another capacity. We have the finer details from the label for you below, as we look forward to hearing what this latest endeavor has to offer.

John Carpenter's New Album Cathedral Arrives This August

Whereas the Lost Themes albums were written as scores to movies of the mind, Cathedral scores the first original graphic novel written by Carpenter, in collaboration with his wife and long-time creative partner, producer and editor Sandy King, and writer Sean Sobczak, fleshed out by illustrators Federico De Luca and Luis Guaragna, colored by Sian Mandrake, and lettered by Marshall Dillon. Fans can get a first peek of its look via the visualizer for "Lord Of The Underground" out today and its first chapter, as featured in John Carpenter's anthology Tales For A HalloweeNight Vol 11.

Inspired by a vividly cinematic dream he had in 2024, the story centers on an abandoned church in downtown Los Angeles that shifts from a forgotten building to the site of a waking nightmare. After the killing of a police officer draws attention to the long-ignored cathedral, Lieutenant Christine Marks and detectives Paul Hernandez and Steve Mayfield are pulled into an investigation that leads them deep into its catacombs and toward a centuries-old evil imprisoned within. Both the album and graphic novel are previewed today with the release of "Lord of the Underground," accompanied by a visual that features animated versions of illustrations from the book.

Designed as a fully immersive project, Cathedral functions as both soundtrack and narrative engine: each track aligns with a chapter of the graphic novel, with liner notes guiding listeners through the story. As a result the story unfurls like a film and is certainly the closest approximation to a new movie from Carpenter since 2010. "It was so cinematic and vivid," Carpenter says of the dream that inspired the story. "I thought, 'I have to score this.' It's kind of our first heavy metal album."

"The story informed everything," says longtime musical collaborator Daniel Davies of the album. "John would describe a scene and say, 'We need a heavy riff here.' We didn't set out to make a metal record, but it evolved that way." Carpenter is joined by Davies and Cody Carpenter, continuing a partnership that spans the Lost Themes album series, the recent Halloween films, and multiple reworkings of Carpenter's classic scores. On Cathedral, the trio leans into a heavier, more aggressive palette without losing the tension and atmosphere that define Carpenter's sound.

While the Cathedral album was crafted to be listened to as one reads the graphic novel, it was important to Carpenter that the music stand on its own. "That's first and foremost," the director says. "It's all about making the music work. This is somewhat different sounding stuff that we've done, but it's done with the same desire in mind," he adds. "In other words, put this thing on and imagine you're watching a movie. That's what we want you to do."

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