ALTERSOUL have unveiled a music video for ‘Abandoned,’ the lead single from their debut EP, Origins, due November 27, 2026. The Brockville, Ontario progressive death metal band revisit their oldest composition with new orchestral arrangements and production, introducing a three-track release dedicated to late bassist and founding member Ryan Clements.
Guitarist and vocalist Graham Murphy first developed ‘Abandoned’ as an acoustic guitar composition around 2009–2010, drawing inspiration from IMMORTAL’s ‘All Shall Fall.’ For the new recording, the band retained the composition’s core while expanding its arrangements.
“‘Abandoned’ is a symbolic debut for us because it’s both the oldest song in our catalog and a re-recording from our past,” Murphy explains.
The lyrics follow a man abandoned in a frozen wasteland as he succumbs to the cold. Its shifts between aggressive metal and orchestral passages reflect that struggle. Guitarist and vocalist James Close describes the arrangement: “The orchestral elements alternate between peaceful symphonic moments and traditional metal sections to symbolize the body’s fight against the cold. The finale represents the character’s final breath and eventual acceptance of his fate.”
Origins also revisits ‘End of Days’ and ‘Beyond the Apocalypse.’ All three tracks originally appeared on the debut album by OMINOUS ECLIPSE and were among the first songs written by Murphy, Close and Clements. Close and Murphy established ALTERSOUL after more than a decade of writing, recording and performing as OMINOUS ECLIPSE. Clements died in August 2024, giving the return to these songs further personal weight.
“When Ryan passed away, these songs became even more sentimental. After years of history, they closed out the band’s final set as Ominous Eclipse,” Close says. He describes the EP as “our reminder of where we came from.”
The band recorded, produced, mixed and mastered Origins themselves, incorporating real orchestral instrumentation and revised arrangements. Their musical approach combines death metal and technical death metal with thrash, black metal, progressive metal, folk influences and atmospheric passages. The announcement recommends the release to listeners of DEATH, REVOCATION, GOJIRA, CHILDREN OF BODOM and OPETH.
OMINOUS ECLIPSE’s original drummer Andrew Poskus performs on the EP, which marks the first official release to feature his recorded playing. The recording lineup also includes Murphy on guitar and vocals, Close on guitar, vocals and additional instruments, and Evan Ferguson on bass. Guest musicians Wenhao Zhou and Heather Istead contribute piano and oboe, respectively. Theo Konrad handles drums in ALTERSOUL’s live lineup alongside Murphy, Close and Ferguson.
Although the debut returns to older material, Close says the band have multiple albums’ worth of unheard music: “As much as we’ve written hours of new music, we felt it was important to start by revisiting the songs that made us. These are the building blocks everything else grew from.”
- Abandoned — 5:20
- End of Days — 4:09
- Beyond the Apocalypse — 5:14
The EP runs 14:43. A pre-save link is supplied through the band’s Bandcamp page.
