More than 20 years removed from where they started, Crippled Black Phoenix are approaching a new threshold with their upcoming new album. Sceaduhelm is the UK macabre rockers’ most inward-looking and grave statement to date. It turns away from collective upheaval to face emotional erosion, fatigue and private collapse.
Sceaduhelm comes out tomorrow, Friday, April 17 on Season of Mist, but you can hear all 12 stark and striking songs today by listening to the full album stream below:
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Where previous Crippled Black Phoenix records addressed historical violence and societal fracture, Sceaduhelm moves inward, listening to what accumulates in the aftermath: grief, complicity, damaged intimacy and the weight of endurance. The album unfolds as a unified psychological space rather than a traditional concept record, with slow builds, minimalist repetition, and unresolved tension carrying as much weight as melody. While stemming from founding member Justin Greaves (ex-Electric Wizard, ex-Iron Monkey), vocals are shared between Belinda Kordic (Killing Mood, Stabb), Ryan Patterson (Fotocrime, Coliseum, Mirrorless) and Justin Storms (Wailin Storms), each occupying a distinct but aligned emotional register across the album's twelve tracks.
Lyrically and thematically, Sceaduhelm is preoccupied with exhaustion as a condition rather than a moment, with time framed not as a healer but as an eroding force. Songs address burnout, grief, surveillance, institutional violence, and damaged intimacy, often blurring the line between the personal and the political. Musically, the album favours restraint over release, employing repetition, minimalism, and slow escalation to sustain tension without catharsis. Recorded across multiple locations and mixed with deliberate austerity, the record resists warmth, clarity serving discomfort rather than solace.
Within Crippled Black Phoenix’s wider catalogue, Sceaduhelm does not seek to resolve previous narratives or replicate past high points. Instead, it documents a moment of exposure and endurance, listening closely to what remains when spectacle fades and outrage exhausts itself. It stands as a severe, human record, concerned less with declaration than with persistence, and affirms once more the band’s refusal to stand still, soften its gaze, or offer easy answers.
Line-up:
Music - Greaves / Words — Patterson
Justin Greaves — Guitars, Drums, Samples
Ryan Patterson — Vocals
Belinda Kordic — Backing Vocals
Wes Wasley — Bass
Robin Tow — Percussion
Lucy Marshall — Synths
Apparently recorded at various times during 2023 to 2025 at:
Chapel Studios, Lincolnshire, UK
Engineered by Pieter Rietkerk
Additional sessions at:
Kapsylen Studio, Stockholm, Sweden
Engineered by Jörgen Jugglo Wall.
House Of Foto, Louisville, KY, USA
Engineered by Ryan Patterson
Mixed by Iver Sandøy at Solslottet Studio, Bergen, Norway.
Mastered by Magnus Lindberg, Stockholm, Sweden
Additional mixing by Pieter Rietkerk at Chapel Studios
Produced by Justin Greaves
Artwork by Erebus Art (Thanasis Stratidakis)
Thank to everyone who helped and supported this venture.
BIG thankye! to Kurt Ballou for his input and work on this album.
All CBP music published by Season Of Mist Publishing.
Lyrics for “No Epitaph, “The Precipice”, “Vampire Grave”, “Beautiful Destroyer”
Copyright 2026 Ryan Patterson (BMI)
Follow Crippled Black Phoenix:
Bandcamp: https://riseupandfight.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CBP444/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cbp_444/
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/artist/crippled-black-phoenix/251718934
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6WEyPcf9ezhNLm1xOBjbwH
Tidal: https://tidal.com/browse/artist/3607159
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/artist/391823
