Danish rock and rollers VOLBEAT — Michael Poulsen (vocals, guitar),Jon Larsen (drums) and Kaspar Boye Larsen (bass) — have announced their ninth album, “God Of Angels Trust”, due on June 6 via longtime label Vertigo/Universal.
The LP will coincide with plenty of touring on the band’s “Greatest Of All Tours Worldwide”.
Today the band shares the first taste of new music via the video for the first single “By A Monster’s Hand”. The song is a mid-paced riff-fest with no concessions to standard meter, juxtaposing pummeling rhythms with point-counterpoint hooks.
The video, which splices footage of VOLBEAT in their most natural state of performing, all the while following an ominously unsettling and familiar face, can be seen below.
The video was produced by Ghost Atomic and directed by Adam Rothlein, the same team that lensed videos for prior VOLBEAT hits “Shotgun Blues”, “Die To Live” and “Leviathan”.
With “God Of Angels Trust”, the Danish band — which has scored ten #1 songs on the Billboard Mainstream Rock airplay chart, the most ever for a band based outside North America — has thrown caution to the wind, ignored comfort zones, and paid little heed to traditional songwriting in the search for something more immediate and surprising. The end result will thrill VOLBEAT‘s dedicated legion of fans.
“In the past, I’ve taken a long time to write and obsessed over so many elements of the songs before finishing them,” says Poulsen. “This time, I wanted to make a VOLBEAT record without thinking too much about it. Instead of following any kind of structure I said, ‘Okay, there are no rules. I can do anything I want. I can start with a chorus or do songs that are just a bunch of verses stacked on top of each other. Anything goes.’ That was freeing for me and made it exciting to write this album.”
Poulsen‘s excitement to thwart convention is palpable throughout “God Of Angels Trust”, a punchy, crunchy album that’s undeniably VOLBEAT, yet marches to a fresh new metallic and melodic energy.
Poulsen started working on songs for the follow-up to 2021’s “Servant Of The Mind” in the summer of 2024. VOLBEAT was taking a year-long break from touring to give Michael a chance to recover from throat surgery and to tour with his death metal band ASINHELL. Driven equally by his excitement to record a new VOLBEAT album and by his determination not to follow convention, Poulsen worked on songs for a mere three weeks with bandmates drummer Jon Larsen and bassist Kaspar Boye Larsen. Amazingly, they worked on a new song at every rehearsal. Three weeks into the process, VOLBEAT had arranged half of “God Of Angels Trust”. That’s when Poulsen decided that having no rules meant he could follow his muse wherever it took him, and he veered off on a different path. He and the band still wrote and rehearsed two songs a week, but they started composing more familiar rock songs that drew from traditional elements.
The band entered the studio with their longtime producer Jacob Hansen in the fall of 2024. As with the songwriting, Poulsen wanted to work quickly and rely on instinct, so they just plugged in and started to play. To keep the music sounding urgent and immediate, VOLBEAT recorded live in the studio, playing as few takes as possible before moving from one song to the next.
When it came time to add lead guitar, there was no question that VOLBEAT would tap Flemming C. Lund, who currently tours with the band and worked with Michael in ASINHELL. A mere 13 days after they started working with Hansen, VOLBEAT were finished.
As impressive as it is that VOLBEAT wrote and recorded an entire album in about five weeks, what’s more incredible is that “God Of Angels Trust” sounds as fleshed out, eclectic, and fulfilling as albums that have taken 10 times longer (or more) to create. In the end, creating such a strong album so quickly was a tremendous challenge that demanded Zen-like calm, a joy for exploration, maximal creativity, and razor-sharp concentration to pull off.
“In some ways, it feels like we’ve come full circle,” Poulsen explains. “If you start drawing a circle over an extended period of time, eventually you’ve going to get back where you started, and that’s how I feel now. I’ve dealt with medical operations, lineup changes, and all these things, and now it feels like a rebirth. It doesn’t feel like we’re doing our ninth studio album, it feels like we’re on our first album again and there’s something really refreshing about that.”
VOLBEAT will return to the road on the “Greatest Of All Tours Worldwide” beginning in June and running throughout 2025. The tour begins in June with a co-headline Canadian run with THREE DAYS GRACE and special guests WAGE WAR, which will be followed by headline treks in the U.S. with special guests HALESTORM and THE GHOST INSIDE, and Europe with special guests BUSH and GEL. All dates are below.
Fans who pre-order the album from volbeat.dk or select Universal Music Group webstores through 5 p.m. local time on Sunday, March 9 will receive a code to access tickets before anyone else starting Monday, March 10 at 10 a.m. local time. Regular on-sales begin Friday, March 14 at 10 a.m. local time.
“God Of Angels Trust” track listing:
01. Devils Are Awake
02. By A Monster’s Hand
03. Acid Rain
04. Demonic Depression
05. In The Barn Of The Goat Giving Birth To Satan’s Spawn In A Dying World Of Doom
06. Time Will Heal
07. Better Be Fueled Than Tamed
08. At The End Of The Sirens
09. Lonely Fields
10. Enlighten The Disorder (By A Monster’s Hand Part 2)
“Greatest Of All Tours Worldwide” tour dates:
2025 co-headline with THREE DAYS GRACE and WAGE WAR:
June 7 – Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena
June 9 – Calgary, AB – Scotiabank Saddledome
June 10 – Edmonton, AB – Rogers Place
June 12 – Saskatoon, SK – SaskTel Centre
June 13 – Winnipeg, MB – Canada Life Centre
June 16 – Laval, QC – Place Bell
June 17 – Quebec City, QC – Videotron Centre
June 19 – Toronto, ON – Budweiser Stage
June 21 – London, ON – Canada Life Place
June 22 – Ottawa, ON – Canadian Tire Centre
2025 U.S. headline tour with special guests HALESTORM and THE GHOST INSIDE:
July 17 – Denver, CO – Ball Arena
July 19 – Salt Lake City, UT – Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre
July 21 – Auburn, WA – White River Amphitheatre
July 22 – Ridgefield, WA – Cascades Amphitheater
July 24 – Wheatland, CA – Toyota Amphitheatre
July 25 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum
July 26 – Phoenix, AZ – Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre
July 28 – Irving, TX – The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory
July 29 – Houston, TX – 713 Music Hall
July 31 – Rogers, AR – Walmart AMP
August 2 – Franklin, TN – FirstBank Amphitheater
August 3 – Alpharetta, GA – Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
August 4 – Tampa, FL – MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
August 6 – Charlotte, NC – PNC Music Pavilion
August 7 – Bristow, VA – Jiffy Lube Live
August 9 – Camden, NJ – Freedom Mortgage Pavilion
August 10 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center
August 12 – Bangor, ME – Maine Savings Amphitheater
August 13 – Gilford, NH – BankNH Pavilion
August 14 – Mansfield, MA – Xfinity Center
August 16 – Hershey, PA – Giant Center
August 17 – Cincinnati, OH – Riverbend Music Center
August 19 – Clarkston, MI – Pine Knob Music Theatre
August 21 – Noblesville, IN – Ruoff Music Center
August 22 – Tinley Park, IL – Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre
2025 European headline tour with special guests BUSH and GEL:
September 18 – Herning, DK – Jyske Bank Boxen
September 19 – Copenhagen, DK – Royal Arena
September 23 – Amsterdam, NL – Ziggo Dome
September 24 – Antwerp, BE – Sportpaleis
September 26 – Stuttgart, DE – Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle
September 27 – Cologne, DE – LANXESS Arena
September 28 – Oberhausen, DE – Rudolf Weber-ARENA
September 30 – Vienna, AT – Wiener Stadthalle
October 3 – Prague, CZ – O2 universum
October 4 – Berlin, DE – Uber Arena
October 6 – Munich, DE – Olympiahalle
October 8 – Frankfurt, DE – Festhalle
October 10 – Leipzig, DE – QUARTERBACK Immobilien Arena
October 11 – Hamburg, DE – Barclays Arena
October 13 – Warsaw, PL – COS Torwar
October 15 – Tampere, FI – Nokia Arena
October 17 – Stockholm, SE – 3Arena
October 18 – Oslo, NO – Unity Arena
October 19 – Gothenburg, SE – Scandinavium
October 21 – Hannover, DE – ZAG Arena
October 22 – Rotterdam, NL – Rotterdam Ahoy
October 23 – Esch-Sur-Alzette, LU – Rockhal
October 25 – Zurich, CH – Hallenstadion
October 28 – Bilbao, ES – CUBEC – Bilbao Exhibition Centre
October 30 – Barcelona, ES – Sant Jordi Club
October 31 – Madrid, ES – Palacio Vistalegre
November 2 – Paris, FR – Zénith Paris – La Villette
November 5 – Nottingham, UK – Motorpoint Arena
November 6 – Cardiff, UK – Utilita Arena
November 8 – Manchester, UK – AO Arena
November 10 – Glasgow, UK – OVO Hydro
November 12 – Birmingham, UK – Utilita Arena
November 13 – London, UK – OVO Arena Wembley
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