FM PRO TECH CULTURE
John Carpenter returns to audio/visual storytelling with Cathedral, a new cross-medium project created with longtime collaborators Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies.
The release pairs a new album, out August 7 via Sacred Bones Records, with Carpenter’s first graphic novel, arriving August 4 via Storm King Comics.
The latest track, The Ferryman, follows Lord of the Underground and arrives with a visualizer built from previously unreleased graphic novel imagery. Heavy, electronic, and cinematic, the track scores a subterranean scene tied to River Styx mythology.
Cathedral is built as both soundtrack and story engine. Each track connects to a chapter of the graphic novel, turning the album into the closest thing to a new Carpenter film in years. The story began with a vivid 2024 dream, then evolved into a nightmare set inside an abandoned downtown Los Angeles church, where detectives uncover a buried evil beneath the city.
Daniel Davies describes the sound as something that grew naturally from the story, with Carpenter calling for heavy riffs scene by scene. The result pushes beyond the Lost Themes world into darker, more metal-driven territory while keeping Carpenter’s signature synth tension intact.
With Cathedral, Carpenter does not just score a story. He builds the system around it: graphic novel, liner notes, visualizers, and music designed to be read, heard, and imagined like a film.