Gates of Ishtar have put out "Ghosts", their first new song since 1998. The album was announced earlier, and it now has a date: Murder the Light arrives on 21 January 2027 through The Circle Music.
Three of the people on it were there the first time. Andreas Johansson and Tomas Jutenfaldt are on guitars and Mikael Sandorf sings, with Markus Parkkilla new on bass and Fredrik Andersson on drums for the sessions and the live shows.
Decibel, who premiered the song, hear classic melodic death metal guitar lines with modern black metal in the way they are played, which is about the only honest way to come back to a style whose whole audience remembers how it sounded in 1997.
The record was made in two stages this year. Drums and bass went down at Humbucker Studios in Hagsatra in May, guitars and vocals followed in June and July at Fallen Studios, and Robert Pehrson produced, mixed and mastered it there.
It comes out on a leather box set, gatefold vinyl, CD, cassette and digitally, which for a band whose last record predates streaming entirely is a tidy joke.