For six years, the world spun faster while Equilibrium stood still. In the longest silence of their nearly quarter-century career, the German cinematic folk metal band watched as chaos, division, and the encroaching hum of artificial creation grew louder. It was a period of profound internal change, of departures and new beginnings that forced the band to its foundations. Now, from that quiet crucible, a storm emerges.
Equilibrium have announced the coming of their seventh studio album, ‘Equinox,’ a work poised to arrive on November 28, 2025, through their steadfast label, Nuclear Blast Records. This is not merely a new collection of songs; it is a declaration. In an age of ephemera, ‘Equinox’ is presented as an artifact of the earth, a conscious act of reconnection and a defiant stand for the human hand in art.
The announcement arrives as a culmination of a slow, deliberate reawaking that began with a series of standalone singles over the past two years. But with the album’s formal unveiling comes a more cohesive narrative, one the band describes as being centered on “authenticity, reconnection with and rediscovering our own art.” This theme is more than a convenient promotional angle; it is the direct result of a tumultuous period that saw the band fundamentally reshaped.
Following their 2019 album ‘Renegades’—a record that saw them venture into modern electronic and industrial textures—Equilibrium underwent a necessary deconstruction. The result, as heralded by the album’s title and its first powerful singles, is a work that seeks balance not by compromise, but by embracing the extremes of its own identity: a cinematic and the folky, the harsh and the soft, the light and the dark. ‘Equinox’ is the story of a band that went through the fire and chose to be thunder.
Equilibrium: A Band Reborn from Turmoil
The creative impetus behind ‘Equinox’ is found in the period of profound flux that defined Equilibrium since their last full-length release.
The years following ‘Renegades’ were not ones of quiet contentment but of significant, foundational change. The most pivotal of these shifts came in October 2022, with the departure of vocalist Robert “Robse” Dahn after a twelve-year tenure that had defined the band’s sound for a generation of listeners.
In their official statement, the band cited a “loss of symbiosis,” a delicate but telling phrase that pointed toward a divergence in creative or personal paths. This was not a simple lineup change; it was the end of an era, forcing the band’s creative core—founder, composer, and multi-instrumentalist René Berthiaume—to re-evaluate the very voice of Equilibrium.
The search for a new frontman was a public and deliberate process, culminating in the 2023 announcement of Fabian Getto as the band’s new vocalist. His arrival was heralded as a “bold new chapter,” a promise tested and proven on the 2023 singles ‘Shelter’ and ‘Cerulean Skies,’ which introduced a voice capable of navigating both the melodic grandeur and visceral aggression essential to the band’s sonic palette.
The transformation continued into the summer of 2025 with the departure of guitarist Dom R. Crey, further cementing the sense of a near-total reset around Berthiaume and his long-time creative partner, Jessica Rösch, who handles much of the band’s visual and conceptual direction.
This period of reconstruction was, by the band’s own admission, a challenging one. Berthiaume noted, “It took a long time to go through this process since a lot has happened throughout the last few years in the history of Equilibrium.” This statement frames the six-year gap between albums not as a hiatus, but as a necessary gestation period.
The search for a new “symbiosis” was not just about finding a new singer; it was about rebuilding the band’s internal balance and rediscovering its artistic purpose. The subsequent focus on themes of “reconnection” and “rediscovery” for ‘Equinox’ is, therefore, deeply literal. The album’s conceptual core is inextricably linked to the story of its own creation—a band that had to fall apart in order to come back together, stronger and with a renewed sense of identity.
The Harbingers of a New Season
The path to ‘Equinox’ has been carefully laid with a trilogy of singles, each a distinct chapter in a larger narrative of transformation. These songs, ‘Bloodwood,’ ‘Gnosis,’ and ‘I’ll Be Thunder,’ are more than promotional previews; they are the thematic pillars of the album, forming a coherent rite of passage that mirrors the band’s own journey from painful deconstruction to empowered rebirth.
The story begins with ‘Bloodwood.’ Released in September 2025, the track serves as the album’s genesis myth. Conceptually, it tells the story of a tree becoming human, a violent and beautiful metamorphosis that explores what the band calls “lineage, loss and the slow, sacred violence of becoming.”
The lyrics, penned by Jessica Rösch, are visceral and poetic, capturing the shock of this new existence and the trade of natural stillness for sentient pain. Musically, the track mirrors this process, building from an atmospheric, almost pastoral introduction into a storm of melodic death metal, with Getto’s vocals shifting between guttural roars and soaring cleans.
The accompanying music video, a self-produced effort directed by Berthiaume, brings this transformation to life. It depicts Getto as a primeval forest entity, his body marked with bark-like textures, awakening to a new and confusing reality. The aesthetic is raw and organic, rooted in the natural world, visually establishing the album’s commitment to an earthy, handcrafted feel. ‘Bloodwood’ is the painful birth, the splintering of an old form to make way for a new, feeling consciousness.
If ‘Bloodwood’ is the birth, then ‘Gnosis’ is the chaotic awakening that follows. The song’s title refers to the Greek term for a special, intuitive knowledge, often mystical or esoteric, gained through direct experience rather than intellect. For the ancient Gnostics, achieving gnosis was the key to salvation—an inner realization of the divine spark trapped within a flawed material world.
Equilibrium’s track channels this philosophical weight, with Berthiaume stating that it “delves into themes of ignorance, suffering, and transformation,” speaking to “the chaos that often accompany profound change, while also offering a glimmer of hope for new beginnings and enlightenment.”
The song’s lyrics evoke a sense of rebellion against a world of illusion and promise a fiery renewal. Sonically, ‘Gnosis’ is pure epic sweep, a torrent of symphonic bombast, driving riffs, and a dynamic vocal performance that captures the struggle between despair and revelation. The music video amplifies this Gnostic theme, portraying a cloaked figure navigating a desolate, almost alien terrain.
The visuals are stark and symbolic, filled with imagery of cosmic phenomena and inner turmoil, perfectly capturing the song’s journey from the darkness of ignorance toward a difficult, hard-won enlightenment.
The trilogy culminates in ‘I’ll Be Thunder,’ the single released alongside the album announcement. This track is the final declaration of power, the moment the transformed entity, having endured birth and achieved gnosis, announces its authentic self. Described by the band as an “impulsive song that shows the experimental and uncompromising side of Equilibrium,” it is a direct statement of self-empowerment about breaking free from limitations. It is the roar that follows the awakening. This theme is powerfully reflected in its music video.
In stark contrast to the narrative focus of the previous videos, ‘I’ll Be Thunder’ is a raw, elemental performance piece. The band is shown in an archaic, handcrafted setting, surrounded by fire and earth, their costumes and props all created by Jessica Rösch. The editing is frenetic, the lighting stark, and the focus is entirely on the primal energy of the performance. It is a visual stripping away of all artifice.
Presenting themselves in this raw, unvarnished state, they physically manifest the song’s theme of embracing one’s true strength. The progression is unmistakable: ‘Bloodwood’ was the pain of becoming, ‘Gnosis’ was the struggle to understand, and ‘I’ll Be Thunder’ is the unshakeable confidence of being.
An ‘Equinox’ of Light and Shadow
With its thematic foundations laid by the singles, the full scope of ‘Equinox’ reveals an ambitious conceptual work. The album’s very title signifies a moment of cosmic balance—the point in the Earth’s orbit when day and night are of equal length. This serves as a powerful metaphor for the album’s stated intent to represent “the bright and dark side of our music,” a duality that extends from its sonic palette to its philosophical core.
This search for balance in a world of extremes suggests a deeper, almost spiritual undertaking, one that can be understood as a form of modern Gnostic rebellion.
Gnosticism1, a collection of religious ideas from the early centuries AD, is fundamentally dualistic. It posits a distinction between a flawed, material world created by a lesser, ignorant, or malevolent deity—the Demiurge2—and a true, transcendent spiritual realm.
Salvation, in this worldview, is achieved through gnosis: direct, intuitive knowledge of the divine spark of the true God that is imprisoned within the human soul. This ancient philosophy of rejecting a false reality in search of authentic truth finds a striking parallel in the narrative of ‘Equinox.’ The album’s exploration of light and dark, its explicit inclusion of a track named ‘Gnosis,’ and its thematic focus on breaking free from limitations all echo the Gnostic journey of enlightenment.
This connection becomes even more pronounced when considering the band’s vocal opposition to the use of artificial intelligence in their art. The album’s artwork was created by Jessica Rösch “with her own hands and without any input from A.I. or any other technology.” In a Gnostic framework, AI can be seen as a modern incarnation of the Demiurge’s creation: a soulless, imperfect imitation of true, divine creativity, designed to trap and devalue the human spirit.
The band’s insistence on “handcrafted” and “organic” art is therefore not just an aesthetic choice but a philosophical rebellion. It is a conscious effort to reject the work of the “craftsman” god and instead connect with the authentic, divine spark of human creativity. Their stand for authenticity is a quest for gnosis in a world increasingly filled with the Demiurge’s illusions.
The album’s thirteen-song journey further develops these themes. The tracklist, presented in full, reads like a mythic cycle: ‘Earth Tongue,’ ‘Awakening,’ ‘Legends,’ ‘Archivist,’ ‘Gnosis,’ ‘Bloodwood,’ ‘I’ll Be Thunder,’ ‘Anderswelt,’ ‘One Hundred Hands,’ ‘Borrowed Waters,’ ‘Rituals of Sun and Moon,’ ‘Nexus,’ and ‘Tides of Time.’
Several titles stand out as signposts on this journey. ‘Anderswelt,’ a German term for the “Other-world,” evokes the mysterious realms of Germanic and Celtic mythology—a plane of existence separate from our own, akin to the Gnostic concept of the Pleroma, or the fullness of the divine world.
‘Rituals of Sun and Moon’ directly reinforces the titular theme of cosmic balance and duality. Titles like ‘Awakening,’ ‘Nexus,’ and ‘Tides of Time’ speak to a grand, cinematic narrative of cyclical change and moments of profound connection.
The album’s sound is enriched by a community of collaborators, including former Eluveitie violinist Shir-Ran Yinon and members of the Dutch Viking metal band Heidevolk, with the final mix handled by Danny McCook. This communal, human-centric approach to creation further underscores the album’s core message: in a world of artifice, true art is an act of connection—to the self, to nature, and to each other.
A Place in the Folk Metal Pantheon
‘Equinox’ arrives not in a vacuum, but as the latest chapter in a long and storied career that has seen Equilibrium both define and challenge the boundaries of folk metal.
Formed in Bavaria in 2001, the band began as a one-off project playing covers of their influences, which ranged from the symphonic black metal of Dimmu Borgir to the classic heavy metal of Iron Maiden. This diverse foundation would prove crucial.
While the folk metal genre was being pioneered in the early 1990s by English thrashers Skyclad, who first integrated violins into their sound, Equilibrium’s approach was forged in the crucible of a different movement. Their sound was deeply indebted to the first wave of black metal—bands like Bathory and Celtic Frost, who established the raw, atmospheric, and anti-Christian template—and the concurrent explosion of symphonic and melodic death metal.
The band’s early albums, ‘Turis Fratyr’ (2005) and the seminal ‘Sagas’ (2008), were landmarks of the genre’s 2000s boom. Sung entirely in German, they combined traditional Germanic melodies and mythological themes with the epic bombast of film scores and the ferocious intensity of extreme metal.
Alongside contemporaries like Finland’s Finntroll, Ensiferum, and Turisas, Equilibrium helped solidify a particularly grand and symphonic strain of folk metal that captivated a global audience. However, where many of their peers remained rooted in Viking and fantasy tropes, Equilibrium began to evolve.
Albums like ‘Rekreatur’ (2010) and ‘Erdentempel’ (2014) saw the band’s lyrical focus shift from ancient mythology toward more personal experiences and universal themes, while their musical palette grew increasingly cinematic.
This evolutionary path reached a critical, and for some, controversial, juncture with 2019’s ‘Renegades.’ The album saw the band largely abandon German lyrics in favor of English and incorporate modern metalcore and electronic elements, a deliberate move to break from their past. While a bold experiment, it created a schism in their sonic identity, a departure that makes the narrative of ‘Equinox’ all the more powerful.
The new album is positioned as a grand synthesis of their entire history. In the band’s own words, it contains “all the cinematic, folky, harsh and soft elements an Equilibrium album should have.” It is a conscious integration of the blackened folk aggression of their origins with the sweeping, orchestral grandeur of their middle period.
Framing this as a “reconnection with our own art,” Equilibrium is not simply regressing to a past era. Instead, they are curating their own legacy, embracing the core components of their identity while philosophically rejecting the modern diversions they now seem to view as a detour from their authentic path. ‘Equinox’ is the sound of a band defining its own canon.
The Balance Made Manifest
The arrival of ‘Equinox’ will be celebrated both in physical form and on the live stage, with a European tour package that serves as a powerful statement on Equilibrium’s place within the modern metal world. The album will be made available in a standard CD Jewelcase and on a collector’s edition clear with brown marbled vinyl, with pre-orders already active. But it is on the road where the album’s spirit of connection will be fully realized.
In October and November of 2025, Equilibrium will embark on a tour of mainland Europe, with announced stops in German cities like Langen, Leipzig, Osnabruck, and Berlin, as well as Antwerp, Belgium; Prague, Czech Republic; and Budapest, Hungary.
The lineup curated for this tour is as significant as the album itself. It is not merely a collection of bands, but a cross-section of European melodic and progressive metal that strategically positions Equilibrium at a vital intersection of styles.
Serving as main support are Dark Tranquillity, the Swedish legends who, alongside bands like In Flames and At the Gates, pioneered the Gothenburg melodic death metal sound in the 1990s. Their presence on the bill is a nod to the historical bedrock of the genre, aligning Equilibrium with the very architects of modern melodic metal.
Joining them are fellow Swedes Soen, the progressive metal outfit founded by former Opeth drummer Martin Lopez. Known for their intricate, emotionally complex, and deeply introspective music, Soen represents the artistic, cerebral side of heavy music, a parallel to the philosophical depth explored on ‘Equinox.’ Rounding out the package is Iotunn, a Danish band that blends progressive and melodic death metal with epic, cosmic themes.
As a more recent force in the scene, their inclusion demonstrates Equilibrium’s connection to the genre’s contemporary evolution. This tour is, in effect, a “State of the Union” for a vital branch of European metal. It presents four distinct but interconnected pillars: the pioneers (Dark Tranquillity), the progressive artisans (Soen), the next generation (Iotunn), and at the center, the folk-symphonic storytellers (Equilibrium), who draw strength and context from all of them.
The Dawning of a New Season
After years of silence and reconstruction, Equilibrium returns not with a whisper, but with a declaration of purpose. ‘Equinox’ is more than a comeback; it is a testament to resilience, a deeply personal and philosophically rich statement on what it means to create authentic art in an inauthentic age.
It is the culmination of a journey that forced the band to confront its own identity, to shed what was no longer vital, and to rediscover the elemental forces that first animated its music.
Embracing the duality of their sound—the primal fury and the cinematic beauty, the darkness and the light—they have forged an album that feels both like a return to their roots and a bold step into their future. ‘Equinox’ is the sound of a band that has weathered the storm, stared into the encroaching digital void, and chosen the tangible, the human, the real. It is the sound of a band that has finally found its balance.
Equilibrium’s journey toward ‘Equinox’ is one of rediscovery and a recommitment to organic, human-made art. How does this narrative of pushing back against digital artifice and returning to foundational roots resonate with your own experience as a listener in the modern music world?
References
Discussion