Garden of Stone have released Red Giraffe with a video, the third song out ahead of For the World of the Obsolete, which Inverse Records puts out on 11 December.
The pace is the story. The band formed in Tampere in 2023, put out an EP in 2024, a debut album in 2025 and now a second album in 2026, with a steady run of singles between them. Three years from forming to a second record is fast for a melodic death metal band with a day job, and it suggests a group that writes constantly rather than one that waits for a label to ask.
What they play is the Finnish combination that never really goes away: melodic death metal with enough straight heavy metal in the riffing that the melodies have something to sit on. Inverse Records has been releasing bands like this out of the same country for two decades, which is both the opportunity and the risk, because the lane is crowded at home.
A title as odd as Red Giraffe, on a song the band describe as a journey into melancholy and longing, at least suggests they are not writing to the template.