We Speak Metal

Scarblade Return With New Album Guardians of Time

Published

2 hours ago

November 1, 2026

Scarblade. Photo via @scarbladeofficial.

Swedish heavy metal band Scarblade have released their new studio album Guardians of Time, which arrived on 30 October 2026 through Wormholedeath. The record is the band first full length album since The Cosmic Wrath and marks a celebrated return for the Gothenburg group.

Scarblade were founded by vocalist Alicke Kostopoulou, who fronts the band and leads the current lineup into the new album. The group formed in May 2012 in Athens, Greece, under the name Ruthless Steel and has been based in Gothenburg since 2015. The current lineup features Kostopoulou on vocals, Johan Bernspång on keyboards and backing vocals, Viktor Heineson on drums, Jorge B Atz on bass and Josip Markovic on guitar, with longtime guitarist Mathias Helgesson also taking part in the recordings.

The album holds nine songs, opening with the title track Guardians of Time and running through The Walls, Ready for Action, Craving Heart, Alive, Judas Kiss the Serpent, Damnation, A Sign of Heaven and Blind. The title track first arrived as a single on 6 September 2026, and the band presented its official music video alongside the album announcement.

The band describes Guardians of Time as a celebration of their return, a special album full of powerful melodies, energetic performances and songs designed to stay with the listener long after the last note. The record combines traditional heavy metal foundations with a modern touch, giving each song its own identity inside the group characteristic sound.

Scarblade first drew attention with debut album The Cosmic Wrath, released through No Remorse Records in 2016, and an EP titled Die In The Night in 2013. The band stayed active on the live circuit across Sweden and Europe, sharing stages with acts such as W.A.S.P., Kamelot and Doro, and reached the final of the Gothenburg Metal Championship in 2024. Now signed to Wormholedeath, Scarblade return with renewed energy and a record built for classic metal fans.

We Speak Metal

Enslaved Find the Centre on Seventeenth Album Mið

Published

7 minutes ago

November 1, 2026

We Speak Media

Enslaved. Photo via @enslaved_official.

Norwegian progressive black metal pioneers Enslaved have released Mið, their seventeenth studio album, out now through Nuclear Blast. The record arrived on October 30, 2026, with eight tracks running just over 40 minutes, and it follows Heimdal, the album the Bergen band released in 2023.

The title is Old Norse for centre, or middle, and the band treats it as an axis: the point where past and present, origin and reach, all meet. That idea shapes the guest list as well as the songs. Sámi artist Johan Sara Jr appears on I Am Ice, while Kevin Kicking Woman of the Blackfeet Nation joins Spirit Helper, voices from two Indigenous traditions meeting inside Enslaved’s Norse framework. The singles Solar Will, Spirit Helper and Tales of Trees previewed the record’s range, from storm force riffing to wide, atmospheric passages.

Mið was produced by Ivar Bjørnson, Iver Sandøy and Grutle Kjellson, keeping the band’s sound in family hands more than three decades into their career. Few metal bands have evolved as restlessly as Enslaved, who moved from early black metal roots into one of the genre’s most expansive progressive voices without ever cutting ties to the mythology that grounds them. The band marked release week with a hometown show in Bergen and will take the album across the United Kingdom and Europe on a tour alongside Sólstafir. Seventeen albums in, Enslaved are still travelling toward the centre of their own sound, and few bands this far into a career sound this hungry. Mið is streaming now.