DOWN Announces Volume V, Shares New Single and Video “Blood Oath”
The New Orleans heavyweights return Nov. 20 with their first full-length album in 19 years, while “Blood Oath” is streaming now on Apple Music and other major services.
Fans' wait for a new DOWN album finally has an expiration date.
The New Orleans metal icons will release Volume V on Nov. 20 through Nuclear Blast Records, marking the band’s first full-length studio album since Over the Under arrived in 2007. DOWN announced the 10-song record Aug. 19 alongside its first single, “Blood Oath.”
“Blood Oath” is streaming now on Apple Music and other major streaming services, giving fans their first full taste of Volume V nearly three months before the album arrives.
The new track also comes with an official video that gets directly to the heart of what makes DOWN work. Philip H. Anselmo, Pepper Keenan, Kirk Windstein, Jimmy Bower and Pat Bruders make their way to a rehearsal space, meet up and settle into a good old-fashioned NOLA jam session.
There is no elaborate storyline required. The appeal is watching the boys together in a room again, plugging in, turning up and leaning into the chemistry that has always made DOWN something more than the sum of its considerable parts.
That chemistry also shaped the making of Volume V.
Much of the album was developed during two writing sessions at Anselmo’s Nodferatu’s Lair studio, with the members working face-to-face throughout 2025 and allowing the songs to develop collectively rather than assembling a record from isolated pieces.
Keenan and Windstein carried that approach into the recording process, tracking their guitar parts together rather than recording them independently.
Keenan explained the decision in an announcement published on DOWN’s official website Aug. 19, 2026:
“This record is real, and it sounds like it. When we tracked our guitars, we played at the same time.”
The process was deliberately demanding. If either guitarist made a mistake, the song started again from the beginning. The goal was to preserve the natural interaction between two players whose different guitar voices have helped define DOWN since the band’s earliest days.
That history runs deep.
Anselmo, Keenan, Windstein and Bower knew one another through the New Orleans music scene before PANTERA, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, CROWBAR and EYEHATEGOD turned their individual careers into heavy music history. Bruders, himself a veteran of the New Orleans scene, has now been part of DOWN for more than a decade.
DOWN may contain members of several legendary bands, but it has never sounded like a collection of side-project résumés. There is a specific chemistry when these musicians get together, and that distinctly New Orleans personality remains central to the band’s sound.
“Blood Oath” offers the first complete look at what those new sessions produced.
The track carries the thick guitar sound, rolling groove and easy sense of heaviness expected from DOWN while still sounding like a band interested in moving forward. Anselmo has also said listeners from New Orleans will recognize references to the city woven into the song.
The rest of Volume V offers plenty to wonder about before November.
Most notably, track two, “Merciful Fate,” features KING DIAMOND, with King and Anselmo trading vocals while King Diamond’s wife and longtime collaborator Livia Zita also appears on the song.
The collaboration alone would be noteworthy, but the track reportedly pushes DOWN into some faster guitar territory, making the appearance one of the album’s most intriguing surprises on paper.
The record closes with “Twice-Told Tales,” a song Anselmo has described as bringing together blues rock, classic metal and tightly constructed riffs. He has also acknowledged feeling the influence of Ozzy Osbourne while working on the track.
And immediately before it sits a song simply titled “Ozz.” That should generate a little speculation between now and Nov. 20.
DOWN and Nuclear Blast are treating the physical release of Volume V as an event in its own right.
Seven different double-LP vinyl configurations have been announced, giving collectors options ranging from standard worldwide pressings to tightly limited band, label and magazine exclusives.
The lineup includes a worldwide orange pressing; a yellow-and-red galaxy edition exclusive to Nuclear Blast in the United States; an orange-and-red galaxy edition exclusive to Nuclear Blast Europe; solid-black and clear, black and red smoke editions through DOWN’s own store; an orange-and-black galaxy pressing through Decibel; and a smoke-vinyl edition through Revolver.
Several editions have relatively small pressing runs.
The Nuclear Blast U.S. yellow-and-red galaxy edition is limited to 1,000 copies worldwide. Decibel’s orange-and-black galaxy edition is limited to just 300 copies, while Revolver’s smoke edition is limited to 500. DOWN’s first-run solid-black band-store pressing is also limited to 500 copies.
The variations extend beyond the color of the vinyl. First-run Nuclear Blast editions feature embossed and spot-gloss cover treatment, while the band-store black edition comes as a gatefold double LP with upgraded cover treatment. Revolver’s smoke edition adds a four-page booklet.
CD buyers also have choices. Nuclear Blast is offering a standard jewel-case edition, while DOWN’s official store has an exclusive digipak version of Volume V.
And then there are the bundles. DOWN’s official store launched an $80 LP bundle containing the solid-black double LP, a Volume V T-shirt, a 12-by-12-inch poster and a DOWN cork turntable mat.
A $45 CD bundle includes the webstore-exclusive digipak, Volume V T-shirt and 12-by-12-inch poster.
The individual items are also available separately, including the solid-black double LP, exclusive digipak CD, Volume V shirt and turntable mat.
Even the turntable mat received some thought. The 12-inch, 3mm natural cork anti-static platter mat features DOWN’s classic Smoking Jesus artwork and is designed to help reduce static while stabilizing records during playback.
For collectors, Volume V is shaping up to be considerably more than a routine black-vinyl-or-colored-vinyl decision. There are band exclusives, label exclusives, magazine exclusives, limited pressing numbers, upgraded packaging and full merchandise bundles built around a record fans have waited almost two decades to hold in their hands.
Volume V
Track Listing
- “The Myth”
- “Merciful Fate”
- “Turn Out the Light”
- “The Message”
- “Causeway Grief”
- “Blood Oath”
- “They Walk the Night”
- “They Came From Dust”
- “Ozz”
- “Twice-Told Tales”
Volume V was produced by Eddie Mapp and DOWN, mixed by Dave Fortman and mastered by Maor Appelbaum. The album arrives Nov. 20 through Nuclear Blast Records.
After 19 years without a new DOWN full-length, fans have no shortage of ways to reserve a physical copy. But they don’t have to wait until November to hear the band in 2026.
“Blood Oath” is streaming now on Apple Music and across the major digital platforms.