Some bands find their footing onstage. SHROUD found theirs in a city that had gone quiet.
Guitarist and vocalist Matteo Conti approached drummer Zack Osiris during the COVID-19 lockdowns with a simple proposition: start something new while the world sat still. Despite restrictions and the social stigma of even leaving the house, the two began writing together in Montreal, building songs week by week and discovering a shared vocabulary of influences that ran from black metal to thrash to death. When the city reopened, the lineup completed itself, Justin Cournoyer on bass and Jordan Barillaro on a second guitar, and the chemistry, by the band’s own account, felt immediate. “Once Jordan joined after our first show, it was clear this was the real beginning of Shroud,” says Conti. “Everything since has been a train of reckoning, writing, performing, and bonding.”
The result of that reckoning is Pax Nocturna, SHROUD’s debut full-length, due June 4, 2026. Two singles — “All Creation” and “The Eternal Void” — are streaming now, and both make the band’s ambitions clear. This isn’t a record content to plant its flag in one genre and call it done. The five-word self-description is “Blackened Thrash Metal,” but the actual sonic range pulls from death metal, melodic metal, and something atmospheric enough to feel genuinely unsettling. Fans of Watain, Dissection, Hellripper, Skeletonwitch, and Necrophobic are the obvious reference points, and they’re accurate ones. “It’s meant to be a ride — fast, punishing, sometimes slowing down, but always taking you somewhere while staying true to the sound of Shroud,” Conti explains.
The album runs nine tracks over 45 minutes, with a closer, “Abaddon,” stretching nearly eight minutes and suggesting the band has real range beyond the blunt-force opening statement. Lyrically, Pax Nocturna digs into Satanic Gnosticism, existential dread, and anti-religious critique. It’s territory that, in the wrong hands, becomes posturing, but SHROUD frames it with enough philosophical weight to feel considered rather than costumed. “It’s the rejection of imposed order and the corruption of organized religion. It’s embracing the chaos we come from, acknowledging we are our own gods and masters. It is peace within the night,” says Conti.
The packaging matches the intent. Bassist Cournoyer created the album artwork himself, a surrealist piece depicting the four members in ritualistic worship of the demonic Archduke Murmur, drawing on influences that range from Yoshitaka Amano to the apocalyptic paintings of Zdzisław Beksiński. The record was mixed by Barillaro and mastered by Tore Stjerna of Necromorbus Studio, whose credits include Watain, Craft, and Tribulation.
Live, the band has shared stages with Exciter, Midnight, Goatwhore, Vitriol, and Wormwitch, among others. On June 28, they support Atlanta’s Tómarúm and LA’s Gudsforladt alongside locals Black Market Fossil at Piranha Bar in Montreal.
Pax Nocturna is out June 4. Pre-order on Bandcamp.
Track listing:
- Pax Nocturna (0:43)
- The Eternal Void (5:09)
- The Zealot (5:15)
- Merciless Tyrants (5:59)
- Darkest Night (4:45)
- Diablivion (5:28)
- Death Blows Over (4:18)
- All Creation (5:29)
- Abaddon (7:55)
