I hope you all had a cracking Christmas and managed to keep the hangover at bay. If you’re looking for something to shake off the festive cobwebs as we head into 2026, you’re in luck. Manchester death/sludge outfit 1986 are wasting absolutely no time, dropping their new album Carneveil on January 2nd.
This isn’t just a standard collection of heavy riffs, though. The band describe Carneveil as their most personal and confrontational work yet. The title itself is a clever play on words – mashing up “carnival” and “veiled” – referencing the masks we all wear to hide what’s really going on underneath. It tackles some properly heavy themes: addiction, mental health, grief, and that exhausting pressure to pretend everything is fine when it definitely isn’t. The message is simple but necessary: if you’re not okay, that’s okay.
Musically, 1986 are pushing the boat out. They’ve taken their death and sludge roots and thrown in a volatile mix of hardcore, doom, and powerviolence. From the bouncy lead single “Black Mirror” to the distorted escapism of “White Rabbit” and the powerviolence closer “Afterlife Crisis”, it sounds like a record that’s going to leave a mark. It’s brutal, deliberate, and sounds like the perfect soundtrack for anyone feeling a bit burnt out by the modern world.
If you want to catch this chaos in the flesh, the lads are holding an album launch show on Friday, 23rd January at SOUP in Manchester. It promises to be a sweaty one, so get your tickets sorted if you’re in the area.
