Mad God have released their third album An Age Of Ash through Mongrel Records. Out today, 27 March 2026, the five-track record sees the Johannesburg trio expand their traditional doom roots into darker, more progressive territory.
Formed in 2014 by vocalist and guitarist Tim Harbour and drummer Patrick Stephansen, Mad God made their name in the South African underground with two albums of slow, psychedelic doom: A Tale of A Sightless City (2017) and Grotesque and Inexorable (2018). The arrival of bassist Danny Helsing in 2021 reshaped the band’s chemistry, leading to what they now call their most complete work yet.
At its centre, An Age Of Ash tells a bleak fantasy tale set in a collapsing kingdom where forgotten gods resurface and human greed twists into ruin. It follows the fallout of Left To Rot, their 2025 single introducing Fadden, a farmer drawn into a demonic pact. The new record continues the story with themes of betrayal, resurrection and the decay of power; a cycle of faith lost and debts repaid in blood.
Each of the album’s five songs – Godforsaken (The Pact), Left To Rot, An Age Of Ash, Chosen and The Price – builds its own chapter in that world. The band wrote and refined the material across several years, developing many songs from long jam sessions.
True to their process-first approach, An Age Of Ash was recorded live at Helsing Studios with all instruments tracked together in single takes, solos included: “We wanted something more natural and unified than our previous releases,” the band explain. “We also wanted a more natural-sounding album and opted for a live recording without click, with each song recorded in full in one take.“
Mixing and mastering were handled in-house by Helsing, who focused on keeping the sound dense but unpolished – heavy in tone yet still breathing like a live set. The result captures Mad God at their rawest: a band locked in at full volume, carving slow riffs through the smoke and ruin of their own mythology.
