Xandria talk about new album Eclipse, share thoughts on arts, politics, touring plans and more

German symphonic metal icons Xandria have released their new studio album, “Eclipse”, on August 7, 2026, via Napalm Records. The full-length features eleven tracks that represent the most diverse body of work in the band’s discography so far. Classic, ‘80s-inspired metal riffs stand alongside low-tuned modern metal guitars, cinematic orchestral sounds meet Celtic folk influences, and dark electronic elements blend with intimate rock moments, even including a guitar solo that owes more to Pink Floyd than to any metal genre.

While “The Wonders Still Awaiting” (2023) marked the rebirth of Xandria with a new line-up, “Eclipse” goes further. It is more focused and direct, the lyrics are more outspoken, the contrasts are stronger, and the different musical and vocal colours feel even more naturally integrated into the songs.

The first spark for “Eclipse” came just a few weeks after the release of “The Wonders Still Awaiting”, while the actual songwriting process began at the start of 2025, followed by studio production in November 2025. All vocals were produced by Marco and vocalist Ambre Vourvahis at his Neverworld Studio. This approach resulted in what may be Ambre’s most astonishing vocal performance to date. This versatility becomes especially clear on the title track, “Eclipse.” It brings together the full range of her voice within a single song: soft and emotional passages, powerful rock vocals, intense dark growls, and operatic parts—an impressive vocal spectrum within one metal track.

As guests, Xandria welcomes Subway to Sally’s violinist Ally Storch, who can be heard on “Lore,” while the band’s longtime friend McAlbi is featured on four songs with his Celtic tin and low whistles (“The Shannon’s Home,” “Northstar,” “Masquerade,” and “Lore”). “The Last Generation” features a children’s choir and piano performed by Richard Z. Wang, a Hollywood pianist who has worked at Hans Zimmer’s studio. In addition, the band has once again collaborated with the Sofia Session Orchestra & Choir, known for their work on numerous film and television scores, including His Dark Materials. All songs were orchestrated by two film score composers working in Hollywood: Lukas Geppert, who worked on the scores for Nobody 2 and the latest Final Destination, and Ishaan Tyagi, who has contributed to productions such as Wuthering Heights.

Chaoszine had the opportunity to talk to Marco Heubaum and Ambre Vourvahis about their long awaited ninth full length, discussing the music videos, the politics behind some of the new songs and their artistic influences. They also spoke about their upcoming touring plans for this fall, as well as the new and creative way which Ambre has found to come up with their set list.

You can read the full interview below:

Xandria have a new album, “Eclipse”, out on August 7th via Napalm Records. How excited are you guys for the release?

Ambre Vourvahis: Yeah, very excited. It takes so long to make an album that you can almost not believe it when it’s time that the first single and then the album come out. And it takes a while to realise that, oh, wow, we are in the process now of showing the world what we have been doing. Yeah, that’s great.

“Eclipse” features lyrics that are like way more political than anything that you’ve done before. How important do you think it is for artists to tackle topics such as this?

Marco Heubaum: Well, let’s say in the past, people did not realise much when we were tackling political topics in the lyrics. So, this time, I was thinking, I probably have to be a bit more direct so people really notice. And also, in the last few years, probably starting with the pandemic, you have noticed things are moving in a very strange direction in the world, even in our so-called Western societies and the countries where you and we are living. That democracy, diversity, pluralism and open society is being questioned, which is, I think, the result of people who are after power and they distract people from looking at their direction by putting these thoughts of division into the heads of people. And this is something that always happened and that humankind was always suffering from. It’s quite frustrating to see that. And even more, it’s dangerous for us all. And to such an extent that this is something we have been thinking about a lot. For me, as a lyricist, it’s not really a question of what I want to write about on the new album. And I was wondering what it could be. It was just there because these are the things that are on my mind right now and in the last years a lot. So, I need to talk about it. I know that with song lyrics, you cannot really change the world. But at first, it’s, of course, an expression of ourselves. And then for the outside, it’s just the hope that we can reassure people that they are not alone if they are fighting the same kind of fight, standing for the good things. They are not alone in this. I think in these times, it’s really important to show that.

Yeah. And if you think about a movement like what happened in the late 70s with punk rock, it was a musical movement that, together with a social movement, triggered some changes in society in a way. Artists are really lucky and also have a sort of responsibility to sort of plant that first seed.

MH: That’s exactly what we feel, that responsibility in these times.

There are a couple of singles out from the new album, “The Shannon’s Home” and “Colours”, and both of them have music videos that are already out for the public to see. “The Shannon’s Home” has like a magic forest feel to it. And it gave me a Lothlórien from the “Lord of the Rings” kind of vibe. “Colours”, on the other hand, is very different, a bit futuristic. Can you talk about the concept for both of those videos and how they came about?

MH: When you’re talking about those multiple instances of one person in the “Colours” video, it’s a symbol of people who have been suppressed from expressing themselves. So, they don’t have any colour. And there’s this moment in the end where they have it. Ambre sings it in the chorus. “Let your colours shine.” And so that’s what the people are doing in the end. They are daring to show their colours. And this is also the message we want to transport with the video. Dare to do that.

AV: And “The Shannon’s Home” is more something to fit the music, the magic, the nature. Because it’s a river in Ireland. It’s a metaphor for life in this song. And we thought we needed that kind of magic in the video. But it’s also kind of a voyage, like a travel.

I was really impressed, by the way, Amber, with your vocals. It’s like it has been taken even further, if that’s even possible, than what we heard before. So, can you talk about how you come up with all these nuances for the music?

AV: I’m glad you recognise that. Of course, I continue to work on my singing all the time. So, you make progress, you discover things, your expression becomes wider. And you can interpret some parts better emotionally, as the music and lyrics require. So yeah, it comes naturally, and it becomes easier and easier to match what I want to express and to match the music. And of course, sometimes you’re like, “I need to sound more fragile, and no, it’s too quiet. I need more power. I need to be louder.” And so, you adjust a little bit, but it’s an easier process now, the recording of the vocals. And it hits a little bit more on point, let’s say.

Let’s talk about the orchestrations that we hear on this album. They’re really powerful and really, really great. And I see they’re done by two Hollywood composers, Lukas Geppert and Ishaan Tyagi. So how does this process happen, the back and forth between you, Marco, as a songwriter and the whole band and them as film score composers?

MH: Yeah, it’s mostly, of course, communication from a big distance because they are indeed in Hollywood. We are sending files back and forth. When a song is at that level, it has all the elements so that they can know what to do there with the orchestra. And also, some of the most important lines that I want to have in the orchestra, I’m already laying them out. And so, I sent them that and then they started working on them. They are so experienced and so talented that they just feel what is right in 99 percent of cases. It’s like vibing at the same frequency or something like that. You know, at first, of course, they have to kind of understand our vision and our identity.

AV: So, for example, the first time you work with someone, and you send the song, it’s going to be a bit bumpy. Most of it is fine. But to be honest, it is a little bit bumpy. It takes a second try. Then they get it. They understood what we wanted and who we are. And then it’s such an easy process. We don’t have to sweat it. We know that what we’re going to get will be really good.

In a previous interview, Amber revealed that you, Marco, are inspired by Judas Priest when writing your music. Not at all what one would expect from Xandria, right off the bat. So, besides The Priest, what are your musical inspirations and influences as a songwriter?

MH: Yeah, in metal, it’s it’s actually bands from from every colour. Of course, like probably everyone, I started with the more classic bands like Metallica when I was 14, 15. But even when I was young, I was already listened to Black Sabbath because my father listened to that. Deep Purple, you know, these kind of bands from the 70s. And Pink Floyd, like for the epic size of songs you can go for. And later there was darker stuff, heavier stuff, like also like Emperor in the 90s, Tiamat, Paradise Lost, these kinds of bands. And Emperor already had this more symphonic element to it. A bit of a film score element, actually, which was very interesting. Dimmu Borgir did that, too. Definitely also an influence. I mean, you can actually hear on the new album, there’s a song called “Masquerade”, the middle part. If you just listen to the middle part, it could be Emperor or Dimmu Borgir. But when you say Judas Priest, I’m a big, big fan. I just love the guitar riffing, the melodic twin guitars. So almost all the twin guitars you can hear, if you can hear those harmonic guitar lines in some of our songs, they are often directly influenced by Judas Priest. I can directly tell you one riff, like, for example, “The Prophecy of Worlds to Fall”. The opening riff is directly inspired by Judas Priest.

And the music of Xandria has such a diversity to it.

MH: Exactly. We love to do that. That’s our thing. It’s not like one formula that we have to just repeat, on and on just to keep this going. It’s a playground for everything that we love to do in music. And we are not afraid to do stuff that maybe some fans might wonder why we are doing that. The answer is always because we love it.

AV: The good thing about symphonic metal is that you can do that. You don’t need to be one thing. If you were a black metal band, I mean, still, you can put orchestra, but it’s difficult to go away from it. You know, if you go all of a sudden into something proggy, groovy, honestly, I’d love that. I love anything that is going outside and breaking the boundaries of the genre. Even Dimmu Borgir does that. I love that. But in symphonic metal, it’s so open. You can do death metal riffs. You can do growls. You can do operatic, ballad, pop, anything you want.

Apart from music, are you inspired by other art forms? Like I get a lot of cinematic vibes from your sound. Not just because you work with composers that work with cinema. But the music brings images to the imagination.

MH: Yeah. It’s images to music and music to images. It’s a good transformation from our minds to the listeners’ minds. It’s really interesting what can happen there. And I’m heavily influenced by film music, definitely. There was a point when I realised how important film music is for a story. Because when you start watching movies as a kid, you don’t really see that. At some point, you realise how important film music is and how it transports a story, how it just takes your mind away into different worlds. And this is so amazing. And when I realised that, I wanted to do the same. So I brought that element into my own music. That was really a key moment for what happened with Xandria in the future. It was between the first and the second album.

This is a question that I don’t get to ask a lot of bands. But you guys have such a long career behind you, nine albums, including the new one, plus a couple of EPs. So how do you come up with a set list to play live – that will please both your audience and yourselves as a band?

AV: Yeah, that is a tricky question. And it gets trickier each time we have a new album. So, there is a mixture of songs that we really want to play first, from the new album, the singles. And then we always want to add a few songs that will not be singles, but that we really want to play, and that we kind of think the fans will like. Then, there is the biggest classic that everyone wants to hear. So, what I did is I just posted a video recently asking. I’m just going to ask because it drives me crazy. So let me know what you want to hear. And I count every single comment, every single message, every single vote. I make a poll, and the top songs will be played. So it’s a mixture of songs that people voted for. The classics they want to hear. And songs from the new album. And songs that we want to hear from the new things, because you’re always excited to play new music. That’s so cool. It’s a process. So we would love to give that experience.

MH: And there are different kinds of people in the audience. There are people who have been to many Xandria shows already. And they are probably like, yeah, we heard these songs so many times. It’s just fine if you play something else now. And then there are others who are at a Xandria show for the first time in their life. And of course they are like, ooh, I discovered you with “Ravenheart” or “Nightfall”.  So they want to hear that song, of course. If they got into the band hearing those songs, we are going to play these songs probably always.

AV: Yeah. For the rest of our lives. (laughs) It’s like that. Some songs, they will have to be in there for the rest of our band career. And I still love to perform. Like “Nightfall”, I love to perform it, which is really strange, because I probably sang it 300 freaking times. But I still really enjoy it. And I can feel the energy from the audience when we do. That makes the whole difference. When you play your biggest classic, you can feel it. And that makes it up for having it 300 times and more.

What about your touring plans? Can you share that with us?  

MH: We are going to have this big European tour in the autumn, which we are very much looking forward to. Because it’s not just a tour in Europe about our album. It’s also a little bit of a combination of what we were heading to in the last years. Because we did a lot of support shows, smaller headline tours. But never such a big tour, like we are going to do now. We have big plans for that. We want to make a great visual show, and it’s going to be exciting.

Is there anything you would like to add to your fans both in Finland and worldwide?

MH: Yeah. We won’t come to Finland on the tour this autumn. But I think we are going to do that as soon as possible. We had some really great experiences. Like on the recent tour we did with Soen. Last summer we have been on the Dark River Festival. Which was super great. It was our first time playing in Finland. We really would love to return.

AV: Which is crazy. Because if you see our Spotify countries who listens to us the most, it’s not the number one. But it’s in the top three or something. You have the US, Germany, Mexico and Finland.

That’s great. I would like to thank you so much for talking to Chaoszine.

Both: Thank you.

You can check out Xandria’s official website here.