The legendary John Carpenter has announced his highly anticipated return to the realm of audio/visual narrative storytelling with Cathedral, a new album set for release August 7 on Sacred Bones Records alongside his first ever graphic novel, set for release August 4 via Storm King Comics. Carpenter and longtime band mates Cody Carpenter (synths) and Daniel Davies (guitar) offer its first single and visualizer for “Lord Of The Underground” today, May 19. — STREAM / WATCH IT NOW
Designed as a fully immersive project, Cathedral functions as both soundtrack and narrative engine: each track aligns with a chapter of the graphic novel, with liner notes guiding listeners through the story. As a result the story unfurls like a film and is certainly the closest approximation to a new movie from Carpenter since 2010. “It was so cinematic and vivid,” Carpenter says of the dream that inspired the story. “I thought, ‘I have to score this.’ It’s kind of our first heavy metal album.”
Inspired by a vividly cinematic dream he had in 2024, the story centers on an abandoned church in downtown Los Angeles that shifts from a forgotten building to the site of a waking nightmare. After the killing of a police officer draws attention to the long-ignored cathedral, Lieutenant Christine Marks and detectives Paul Hernandez and Steve Mayfield are pulled into an investigation that leads them deep into its catacombs and toward a centuries-old evil imprisoned within. Both the album and graphic novel are previewed today with the release of “Lord of the Underground,” accompanied by a visual that features animated versions of illustrations from the book.
“The story informed everything,” says longtime musical collaborator Daniel Davies of the album. “John would describe a scene and say, ‘We need a heavy riff here.’ We didn’t set out to make a metal record, but it evolved that way.” Carpenter is joined by Davies and Cody Carpenter, continuing a partnership that spans the Lost Themesalbum series, the recent Halloween films, and multiple reworkings of Carpenter’s classic scores. On Cathedral, the trio leans into a heavier, more aggressive palette without losing the tension and atmosphere that define Carpenter’s sound.
Whereas the Lost Themes albums were written as scores to movies of the mind, Cathedral scores the first original graphic novel written by Carpenter, in collaboration with his wife and long-time creative partner, producer and editor Sandy King, and writer Sean Sobczak, fleshed out by illustrators Federico De Luca and Luis Guaragna, colored by Sian Mandrake, and lettered by Marshall Dillon. Fans can get a first peek of its look via the visualizer for “Lord Of The Underground” out today and its first chapter, as featured in John Carpenter’s anthology Tales For A HalloweeNight Vol 11.
While the Cathedral album was crafted to be listened to as one reads the graphic novel, it was important to Carpenter that the music stand on its own. “That’s first and foremost,” the director says. “It’s all about making the music work. This is somewhat different sounding stuff that we’ve done, but it’s done with the same desire in mind,” he adds. “In other words, put this thing on and imagine you’re watching a movie. That’s what we want you to do.”
With Cathedral, Carpenter extends his world-building into a tightly wound, cross-medium experience; part score, part story, and unmistakably his own.
About John Carpenter
John Carpenter is an influential filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, and composer whose work has shaped modern horror and genre cinema for decades. A graduate of the USC School of Cinema, he first gained attention with Dark Star before breaking through with Halloween in 1978, which became the most profitable independent film of its time and launched a landmark franchise.
His directing credits include genre classics such as The Fog, The Thing, Escape From New York, Big Trouble In Little China, They Live, Christine, Prince of Darkness, In The Mouth Of Madness, Vampires, and Escape from L.A., as well as Starman, which earned Jeff Bridges an Academy Award nomination. For television, he directed “Elvis” and “John Carpenter Presents Body Bags,” and received a CableACE Award for writing El Diablo. More than five decades in, for the first time in his career he will release his first original graphic novel with CATHEDRAL in August 2026. Also to further cement his talents as a composer and musical artist known for soundtracking his own projects, the release will be accompanied by CATHEDRALthe album this August.
Carpenter is also an accomplished composer, releasing his debut non-soundtrack album Lost Themes in 2014 to international acclaim. Born in Carthage, New York, and raised in Bowling Green, Kentucky, he lives in Hollywood with his wife and producing partner, Sandy King.