John Carpenter announces Cathedral: his first metal album and debut graphic novel
John Carpenter has announced Cathedral, a dual release pairing a new album with his first-ever graphic novel. The album will arrive on August 7, 2026 via Sacred Bones Records, with the graphic novel following on August 4 through Storm King Comics. Alongside the announcement, Carpenter shared the first single, “Lord of the Underground”, accompanied by a visualizer featuring animated illustrations from the book.
The project was created with Carpenter’s longtime collaborators Cody Carpenter (synths) and Daniel Davies (guitar). Each track on the album corresponds to a chapter of the graphic novel, with liner notes guiding listeners through the narrative. Carpenter has described the result as “the closest thing to a new film I’ve made since 2010.” The story was inspired by a vivid dream he had in 2024: an abandoned cathedral in downtown Los Angeles becomes the center of a supernatural nightmare when a police investigation into a murder leads detectives deep into its catacombs, where a centuries-old evil lies imprisoned. The graphic novel was written by Carpenter alongside his wife and producer Sandy King and screenwriter Sean Sobczak.
Musically, Cathedral marks the heaviest release the trio has put out to date. “The story informed everything. John would describe a scene and say: we need a heavy riff here, » Davies has explained. The result retains the eerie, cinematic atmosphere of Carpenter’s landmark soundtracks — Halloween, The Fog, Assault on Precinct 13 — while pushing further into riff-driven metal territory, with Davies' guitars taking center stage and the Carpenters' synths providing a threatening undercurrent. Cathedral builds on the Lost Themes series but goes further: where those records were scores to imaginary films, this one is tied to a specific story and a specific world.
The album is available for preorder via Sacred Bones Records, including a limited deluxe vinyl edition with a bonus 7” featuring live recordings of “Lord of the Underground” and “Last Rites” from the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles.
