EPK – Ancient Thrones – Melancholia (2025)
Publicist – Jon Asher – jon[@]ashermediarelations[.]com
For fans of The Black Dahlia Murder, The Red Chord, Deafheaven, Revocation, Opeth
“I think this album is a turning point in the band, where we were able to take the atmosphere of our previous record, and kick the aggression up to a thousand. The last record was intended to be poetic and hopeful, but this record intends to crush any ounce of hope that is left. We just want as many people to move to our music as possible, whether it’s at home, at a show, or anywhere in between. Bang your head and feel something. Lyrically, I want to get under your skin with this album. With the last album, it was story-driven and at times dialogue-heavy. This time around, I left a lot to be interpreted by the listener, and kept things more grey and abstract. It was hard to choose singles to release, since the album as a whole flows so naturally and every song has something unique to offer. We could not possibly be more excited to welcome you to this new chapter of the band. It was a long but fulfilling 5 years to get to this point. We’re proud to share this album with our fans, old and new, and we hope this album moves you in unnatural ways. Enjoy the trip while it lasts”. – Sean Hickey – Ancient Thrones
Band: Ancient Thrones
Album Title: Melancholia
Release Date: September 19, 2025
Label: Self-Release
Facebook.com/Ancientthrones | Instagram.com/ancientthrones | Youtube.com/@ancientthrones234
Ancientthrones.bandcamp.com | Spotify | Apple Music
“Hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Ancient Thrones’ second album, Melancholia not only cherry picks from a sturdy stable of metallic subgenres — from the melodic, blackened and textural to the technical, exploratory and unhinged — but is also ground zero for an interesting concept/story. The record’s nine songs tell the story of a colorblind individual who dives head first into psychedelic drug use as a last ditch attempt to experience life in color. The album chronicles everything they experience in the process as life goes on with their newly minted perceptual capabilities. Given that it’s an extreme metal album, we can only surmise that the story doesn’t end on a particularly happy note, but you can find out for yourself via the stream of Melancholia we’re running below, a single day before its release date.” – Decibel Magazine
“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)
“indeed a contentious and brutal slab of metal that will roll right over you and crush your skull into dust. Just when you think the band has reached their limit of intensity, they take it up a notch to impossible heights. If you dare, travel to their world of “Melancholia.”” – Metal Temple
“Who needs a compact disc when you have a vinyl? That’s what Canadian’s Ancient Thrones are saying as they approach the 19th September arrival of their new album “Melancholia“. Curiously enough with their guitar playthrough for new song “A Turning Point” the outfit trade Speed for Sludge, Groove and emotional weight as they continue to evolve their progressive and existential sound.” – Metal Noise
“Thrashy blackened death metal, pretty cool stuff.” – The Mosh Pit 89.9 FM (Madison, WI)
“Tracks like A Moon Fused Key and Vacant drive the narrative through blasts of speed, cinematic atmosphere, and suffocating heaviness, pulling from black, death, and tech death while pushing into surreal territory.” – IDIOTEQ
“The whole album, clocking in at 42 minutes, is a descent into what I can only call emotional extremity, not just brutality for brutality’s sake, but a narrative steeped in alienation, transformation, and the horror of seeing the world differently. Tracks like “Achromatopsia” (a 90-second tone poem of dissonance) and the doom-smeared closer “Vacant” frame a journey that’s as cerebral as it is crushing. Think Deafheaven’s atmosphere meets Archspire’s velocity, with a dash of The Red Chord’s structural madness. And the production? Impeccably violent. Every layer was obsessively sculpted: tones dialed, performances honed over a year just to play the damn thing. You can hear it. This isn’t noise; it’s architecture. A cathedral of dissonance with stained glass made of feedback.” – Papy Jeff Metal
“Let us commence this week’s proceedings with a bit of Melancholia, seeing as I’m in that kind of mood. The video for this song, the title track from the Nova Scotia-based blackened death metal marauders’ second full-length album, is set in a birthday party for the band’s drummer who doesn’t seem entirely keen to be celebrating the event. This is certainly apt! I love the sense of macabre gleefulness throughout the whole affair. The album is due to be made available on September 19th and, needless to say, it’s heavy as all Hell, with some virtuoso musicianship on display from these crazy Canadians!” – Metal Lair
“Ancient Thrones offer up their latest full length for your enjoyment, and I’ll say it now, I’ve no idea how these guys are unsigned. They feel that they have jettisoned all that was extraneous from their sound and amp up that aggression. I think you can say that its job done. I heartedly recommend having a decent pair of headphones for this or play it at insane volumes in order to let it swamp over you. Ancient Thrones drop you straight in the middle of this as A Moon Fused Key opens up their account with an incredibly well polished song that brings all that is good about heavy metal into one space. ” – Musipeda of Metal
“There’s A LOT going on in each of the nine tracks on Melancolia. Vocalist/Drummer Sean Hickey, has a quintessential late 2000’s/early 2010’s melodeath high/low vocal combo (think The Black Dahlia Murder or, The Juliet Massacre, if you will) that pair oh, so well with Nick Leslie and Dylan Wallace’s frantic melodic riffs and Sean’s brutal blast beats that pepper the nuked soundscape from track to relentless track. (Apologies to Matt “No Not THAT Matt LeBlanc” LeBlanc as I wasn’t able to make out much in the way of bass work, but I can’t tell if that’s my headphones going to shit or if it was something that happened during production.) This album has me convinced that these guys would have made a great touring/festival accompaniment to Alterbeast or The Kennedy Veil. Highlights: Album opener “Moon Fused Key” screamed out of my speakers like a warning shot from a Kratos heavy assault tank while my favorite track, “Blight” attempts to break your neck with its sudden plunge into The Red Chord-esque deathgrind.” – The Posers Graveyard
“A psychedelic trip turns sideways on Ancient Thrones’ second album, Melancholia. A concept inspired by vocalist/drummer Sean Hickey’s own experience on hallucinatory drugs, chilling fright is given through blackened death metal. Their songwriting trims the excess from their debut The Veil, while never losing sight of the overarching story of a person’s inner turmoil. A few songs use piano for cinematic effect, including the calming interlude “Achromatopsia” and rumbling stance of “Vacant.” The latter is the group at their slowest, slinking along as each word is coughed out with disdain. A cavalcade of drum fills perks the tune up before an extended bout of noise finishes Melancholia on a hopeless note for our suffering main character.” – Heavy Music HQ
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
“From the icy lands of Halifax, Nova Scotia lies one of Canada’s best-kept secrets: Ancient Thrones! …Fusing the intensity of traditional black metal with the modern stylings and production of death metal and tech death, “Divided/Dissolve” has a little bit of something for everyone. 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 (2020 – The Veil)
“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)
“a 57-minute descent into purgatory….” – Permafrost Today (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)
“one of the most promising young bands in the region (Atlantic Canada) right now […] I already can’t wait for the next one. 4/5 stars” – Mettalworx Music Group (2020 – The Veil)
[Download Album Cover | Download Album Lyrics]
Band: Ancient Thrones
Album Title: Melancholia
Release Date: September 19, 2025
Label: Self-Release
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
Album Credits:
All songs performed by Ancient Thrones
Piano by Dan Richards on tracks 1, 2, 3, and 9
Additional vocals by Dylan Wallace on track 7
All songs written by Ancient Thrones
All lyrics by Sean Hickey
Produced by Ancient Thrones
Mixed and Mastered by Dylan Wallace
Drum editing by Nick Leslie
Album Artwork by Carter Doody
Content is 100% MAPL
Band Lineup:
Dylan Wallace – Guitar
Nick Leslie – Guitar
Matt LeBlanc – Bass
Sean Hickey – Drums & Vocals
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About The Album Artwork:
The album cover is symbolic of the character in the story. The character is treading a path to destruction while on a hallucinogenic journey to some sort of peace. I wanted the colours to feel like colours you recognize in nature, but to feel like there’s something off with them, something not right. The bloody red birds fleeing the castle are meant to symbolize the blood leaving the body. The castle is made of glass, symbolizing its jagged, dangerous nature, but also the fragility of life, and it stands tall and menacing, but still somehow beautiful and intriguing. We worked with an artist named Carter Doody from our home province in New Brunswick, and we gave him tons of details about the album’s story to incorporate into the cover. There are references to glass, birds, sirens, and storming water all throughout the album, and it is on full display on the cover. Imaginative realism is the best description I can think of, something that could possibly exist, but most certainly should not.
About the album as a whole (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY):
The album is about a person who is seemingly colourblind, who takes psychedelic drugs as a last-ditch effort to see colour. As the trip unfolds, he begins to live his ideal life, seeing colour for the first time. In reality, something else is happening. The writing is on the wall from the beginning of the record to the bitter end.
Musically, the album is tailored to the lyrics, and ebbs and flows as the character makes challenging decisions, and experiences pain, joy, and perhaps most prominently existential exhaustion. The album is fast, jagged, and unapologetic in its aggression, as we lead this character to his final tripped-out day in a fantastical place.
Track by Track (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY):
1. A Moon Fused Key- Kicks off the record, setting the stage for the violent nature about to unfold both musically and lyrically. This is the point of the record where the character severs every piece of life from his body. At the end of the song, he sees the hand of god pulling him to heaven, and he severs it. This song is fast, filled with crushing riffs, and sets the stage for what’s to come.
2. Achromatopsia- This is the point where we go back in the story, an interlude of sorts, fading in between the worlds of A Moon Fused Key, and eventually leading us down the path to Melancholia.
3. Melancholia- This is the introduction to the character and his condition. He describes how he feels out of place. At 260 beats per minute, we encapsulate every ounce of self-loathing rage the character has in this song. There is a foreshadowing at the halfway point of the record, a premonition of things to come.
4. A Turning Point- The point where the character notices his surroundings have changed, the woods are speaking to him, and something, or someone, is calling to him. We were inspired by bands like Gojira to focus on a more groove-oriented passage for this song; it’s also one of the few times we felt the need to feature a burning guitar solo. I was inspired by the image of Herbet James Draper with Ulysses being tied to the mast to avoid the sirens, which we reference on the back part of the album. The character is being drawn into this eerie place.
5. A Pellucid Prism- From here, we cross the bridge and enter the castle. He sees new colours, feels new feelings, as he’s exploring the rotting structure. This song is one with more post-black metal sensibilities, with droning guitars and blast beats. This is also the only time on the record where we incorporate a breakdown, with the opening track melody played slower and more sinisterly hinting at the connection.
6. Sacred Swollen Glass- This is when things lyrically begin to turn for the worse. We continue through the post-black metal landscape, connecting these two songs seamlessly and expanding upon the blasting forward verses.
7. Blight- The decision, “which void will I feed?”, live life in misery or end it all succumbing to the void, as the brain turns on it’s itself. There was never an option. In a linear timeline of the narrative, this song would play before A Moon Fused Key. This song also features backup vocals from Dylan in the first verse.
8. A Pale Palace- The character, while dying, imagines what could have been. The mirage is falling apart before him. We were really inspired to write something totally out of our comfort zone for this particular track. This song was semi-inspired by post-rock bands like Russian Circles, as well as more straight-ahead Black & Roll. The riff at the end took us about 5 months alone before we could play it all as a band.
9. Vacant- The end of everything he once knew, as a new castle is forming beside him. Nick Leslie wrote the main riff for this song, and we all thought it just killed. I’m trying to do my best Jamie Saint-Merat (Ulcerate) impression here, with just a barrage of drum fills as the world of our character is being swallowed by the sands of time. I wanted this song to sort of speak the message that if you let it, time will replace you.
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FUN FACTS – STORY ANGLES
1. Sean was inspired to write the concept of this album after a traumatic experience using psychedelics. He’s been sober ever since.
2. One of the main inspirations given to the album artist, Carter Doody, was from the imaginative realism artist Michael Whelan.
3. Aside from the drums, the album was recorded, mixed, and mastered entirely by the band themselves. During the pandemic, every band member upgraded their home studios in order to record demos, practice ideas, and eventually leading to remotely track their respective parts on the final album.
4. Guitarist Nick Leslie became so fed up with the inaccuracy of Sean’s cheap drum triggers that he designed, engineered, and 3D printed the drum triggers used to record this album, and currently being used today. The triggers are purple, which is Sean’s favourite colour, and a dominant colour of the album cover.
5. Sean found the lyrical components of the album so depressing that he opted to write and direct a cartoonishly violent music video about a bad birthday, instead of directly adapting the harsh and unsettling tone of the album. There are still several components from the album in the video, such as a bad drug trip taking place. The idea for the video also came from the desire to show the dichotomy between the lyrics and the visuals, which is a prominent theme throughout the album.
6. Filmmaker Gaspar Noé was a large influence on the band, with “Enter the Void” being used as a sample in the album, and the opening sounds of the film being sampled to open the live show.
Ancient Thrones Current Line Up
Top L-R: Dylan Wallace (Guitar) | Nick Leslie (Guitar)
Bottom L-R: Matt LeBlanc (Bass) | Sean Hickey (Drums & Vocals)
Photo Credit – Matt Leblanc
Ancient Thrones, formerly “Abysseral Throne”, is an Atlantic Canada-acclaimed blackened metal outfit that rebranded to suit major changes in line-up and songwriting.
Formed in 2011 in New Brunswick and now residing in Halifax, NS, they quickly went to work to establish themselves among their scene and gained local notoriety, eventually allowing them the opportunities to open for renowned metal acts from across the globe.
Sean Hickey (drums/vocals) is the sole original founder of Abysseral remaining. Matt LeBlanc joined in 2015 on bass and improved and refined the sound and operation drastically. Once they lost their original singer and guitar player, Jonny Rains, Dylan Wallace joined and took over main songwriting duties. Hickey took over completely on vocals with a black/death metal vocal style, and Nick Leslie joined shortly after on the second guitar. Work began on writing a new album, which took about 3 months to write the music for. The new material sparked the name change to Ancient Thrones as an homage to one of Hickey’s favorite bands and inspirations, Wolves in the Throne Room.
In 2013, the band released its debut record and its subsequent follow-up in 2016, “Storming The Black Gate”, which was nominated for an East Coast Music Award. Ancient Thrones have toured throughout Canada and played at several festivals, sharing the stages with bands such as The Agonist, Black Crown Initiate, Skull Fist, Beyond Creation, Wormwitch, The Faceless, Rings of Saturn, Within Ruins, Vital Remains, Omnivide, and more.
2020 saw the release of the concept album “The Veil,” showcasing the band’s desire for storytelling and pushing them to new heights musically. That album explored the journey of a man faced with tragedy, his mortality, and ultimately the permanence of our actions, told through technical soundscapes and haunting atmosphere. It was highly praised by metal media and fans globally.
Now, in 2025, the band returns with their next epic, “Melancholia”, an album about a person who is seemingly colourblind, who takes psychedelic drugs as a last-ditch effort to see colour. As the trip unfolds, he begins to live his ideal life, seeing colour for the first time. In reality, something else is happening. The writing is on the wall from the beginning of the record to the bitter end. Musically, the album is tailored to the lyrics, and ebbs and flows as the character makes challenging decisions, and experiences pain, joy, and perhaps most prominently existential exhaustion. The album is fast, jagged, and unapologetic in its aggression, as it leads this character to his final tripped-out day in a fantastical place.
“This is the sound of existential exhaustion. Melancholia is truly an unapologetic extreme metal concept album, from the opening drum fill in “A Moon Fused Key” to the washed-out doomy fallout of “Vacant”. This is 42 minutes of pure aggression, where the band is a translucent body, and you can’t look away from the jagged insides that lie beneath the skin. The musicianship, intensity, and speed are on full display in this sophomore release, while still retaining the cinematic narrative that coincided with the music from their previous work. The lyrics follow a fully colour blind person taking hallucinogens in order to see colour, with many twists and turns throughout, that’s sure to please any dread-laden listener brave enough to venture into this surreal landscape, like a bad trip that you can’t escape. It’s an album that emphasizes the dangers of idealism, while giving the listener a brutal experience of emotional blackened death metal unlike anything you’ve heard before.” – Sean Hickey (Drums, Vocals)
“Melancholia” is due out September 19, 2025.
Discography:
2025 – Melancholia – LP
2020 – The Veil – LP
Shared Stage with: Beyond Creation, Wormwitch, Black Crown Initiate, The Faceless, Rings of Saturn, Within Ruins, Vital Remains, The Carrion Veil, Omnivide, Aepoch
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