The Wolfess arrives somewhere between worlds. On “Hunter in the Veil,” the second single from Urzah‘s incoming LP, that figure carries the whole song — graceful, menacing, neither alive nor dead, watching over a process the Bristol four-piece treat as sacred rather than terminal.
“Hunter in the Veil draws on mythic symbolism and elemental imagery to explore cycles of power, death, and renewal,” the band explain.
“A graceful but menacing feminine presence, the Wolfess evoked in the track exists between worlds as an archetypal force. Death and transformation are portrayed as sacred processes rather than endings, and the sombre outro expresses how our bodily ash returns to the soil and our memories feed rebirth.”
The track is the latest preview of “A Tranquil Void,” out 5th June on APF Records — home to Mastiff, Video Nasties and Swamp Coffin.
It’s Urzah’s second full-length, following 2024’s debut “The Scorching Gaze.” For anyone coming in fresh, the band’s compass points to Elder, DVNE, Russian Circles, Neurosis, Mastodon and Herod — atmospheric post-metal passages, abrasive punk and post-hardcore underneath, soaring melodies on top. Urzah formed in 2020 right before the pandemic and moved fast: self-titled EPs “I” (2020) and “II” (2022) laid the groundwork before the debut LP arrived on APF.
The new album is one half of a diptych the band didn’t quite plan to make.
“We didn’t consciously plan them this way, at least initially, but art can take on a life of its own after it’s channeled through your subconscious and struggles towards its final, imperfect structure,” they say. “When writing our debut, we paired up songs so they were next to their natural twin, due to shared modal, atmospheric or thematic qualities. This helped the album to flow and created a level of cohesion, which has always been of paramount importance to us. All the best albums feel very cohesive. But it wasn’t until we had written about 40% of ATV that we realized we could do a similar thing again and match songs to their natural twins.”
In the way Urzah describe it: “The Scorching Gaze” burned brightly with the rage and destruction of an erupting volcano; “A Tranquil Void” captures the cathartic, contemplative still that follows. Each song on the new record has a relative on the older one.
“The Aesthetic” and “Bark & Branches” function as the heaviness palette cleansers around the midpoints of their respective LPs. “Thera I” and the new album’s 13-minute closer “Entwined, Twisted Roots of Chaos” pair as Odyssean final chapters that pass through long meandering sections. As a whole, the new record reads as a distorted elemental reflection of the debut, with recurring water imagery answering the older record’s fire.
The continuity is also literal. “A Tranquil Void” opens on the same open note “The Scorching Gaze” fades out on. From there, the records part ways. “Thera II,” which closes the debut, is a percussive repetitive chug — a relentless march. “At the Mouth of the Cave,” which opens the new one, lands in 7/8 with an offbeat melody and overlapping tribal call and response.
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“The ground is less firm, the gait of the walker feels less human, unsure of their footing and their existence,” the band explain. “Instead of using familiar ‘caveman’ riffs we wanted to use these simpler heavy sections to create tension and unease. The fact that the song title imagines someone outside of a cave is a happy coincidence!”
It’s also the first song they ever wrote on a screen before bringing it to a guitar. “MOTC is also the first song I’ve ever written out before playing on guitar or proposing to the band,” they say. “The rhythm was noted out on an online drum machine, with the bass drum acting as the low note and a hi-hat acting as the natural harmonic. Although arranging and writing collaboratively in our rehearsal space is our favourite way of making music, I’ll likely employ this method in the future. Being able to consider something precisely over the course of a few days means you aren’t taking up other people’s time trying to figure something out on the spot.”
The next track, “The Call Beneath,” changed process differently. Ed Fairman and James Brown mapped the song’s interlocking sections out on a whiteboard so the rest of the band could read the structure cold and learn it that way. The result, by the band’s account, is something complex, unpredictable and chaotic — and a song that wrestles with overcoming grief.
The clean vocals on “The Scorching Gaze” were performed by Eleanor Tinlin. For the new record, one of the band’s vocalists wanted to take more of those parts on directly — partly for convenience, partly to be able to perform “Bark & Branches” and “In the Mouth of the Wolf” live themselves. Vocal lessons happened. New parts were written. The opening of “Entwined, Twisted Roots of Chaos” needed something more ethereal, so the band’s vocal tutor Victoria Bourne (The Spark’s Desire) sang on that section.
“None of the band had ever heard me sing, so I wanted to present them a properly recorded vocal take as a proof of concept. I recorded these with Josh when no one else was there to avoid feeling too self conscious, but fortunately the parts were met with positivity and have been kept in.”
“Entwined” was the song the band debated most. Whether to keep its long meandering outro at the end of an already long song. Whether the repetitions would become tedious. The decision came down to texture. Guest vocals from Chris Wilson (Row of Ashes) and Victoria Bourne, plus a subtle phaser effect on the final instrumental section, kept the part interesting. Live road-testing helped confirm it. Fans told the band the ending put them in a meditative state — which is exactly what Urzah were after, so the section stayed as written. Across thirteen minutes, the song builds from a haunting whisper to a planet-obliterating roar.
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The band’s tagline, Earthen Heaviness, has been with them since the debut. On the new record they’ve put more behind explaining what they actually mean by it.
“I think of our tagline of ‘Earthen Heaviness‘ as akin to the concept of breathing in meditation; you are grounded by focus on the breath, then float away to explore the span of your consciousness, but keep returning to the steady repetition of your breathing, grounding yourself on earth. Likewise, we want our music to be crushingly heavy at times, and meditative and transcendent at others, but still with our toes in the dirt. Earthen Heaviness is like the gravity of reality, affirming your existence on earth with a weight you can feel sonically.”
That gravity holds across the writing too. “In the Mouth of the Wolf” examines forgiveness and personal healing. “Infernal Star I” reflects on the power of memory and connection casting light into a vast and uncharted universe. “At the Mouth of the Cave” rejects apathy in favour of aspiration. “Bark & Branches” sits with the question of creating art and meaning in spite of adversity. The band have been clear about not wanting metal that just lists an adversary’s shortcomings.
“Metal can be really cathartic for channeling anger and grief, but we also like to include songs that are overtly positive because they celebrate something or encourage positive behaviour,” they say. “We don’t like metal songs in which the lyrics are a list of an adversary’s shortcomings, and think this negativity is a trap many lyricists can fall into. We always try to give the darker themes balance with love, forgiveness, bravery and friendship.”
“A Tranquil Void” was recorded at Stage 2 Studios in Bath in November 2025 — the same room they used for the debut. Josh Gallop produced, mixed and mastered again. The same four guitar amplifiers came back, with different cab and pedal combinations; the blend of hardcore and doom amps, the band say, fits what they do, and live they bring it across with a 5150 and an Orange Thunderverb. Cello on the record is provided by Luke Clemenger. Beyond Wilson and Bourne, Dave Cook of Empire of Dust also features on guest vocals. The cover art — a celestial vortex in blues and whites — is by Indonesian artist Putra Satria Nugraha, the same artist commissioned for “The Scorching Gaze.” APF Records is pressing a limited “Supernova” vinyl variant in blue and white burst that picks up directly from the artwork.
Live, Urzah have spent the last year sharing stages with a wide spread of heavy bands — Bongzilla, Tuskar, Mastiff, Greenleaf, OHHMS, Dopelord — alongside more atmospheric outfits like Hidden Mothers, Underdark and Nadja. The album rollout runs through the spring and summer:
Saturday 23rd May — Bristol, Loco Klub (Temple of Doom festival)
Friday 29th May — Bath, The Bell
Wednesday 10th June — Portsmouth, Edge of the Wedge
Thursday 11th June — Brighton, The Pipeline
Friday 12th June — Chatham, Poco Loco
Saturday 13th June — London, The Devonshire Arms (Camden)
Friday 26th June — Newport, McCann’s Rock N Ale Bar
Sunday 28th June — Torquay, Arena
Saturday 25th July — Bristol Album Launch Party, Exchange
Saturday 1st August — Chelmsford, Bay Days Festival
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The launch party at Exchange Bristol’s main room on 25th July features Hundred Year Old Man (Leeds, atmospheric post-metal), Mountainscape (Reading, cinematic post-metal) and Dead Space Chamber Music (Bristol, experimental gothic doom).
Urzah are: Ed Fairman — vocals / guitar, Tom McElveen — vocals / guitar, Dan Bradley — bass, James Brown — drums
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