Dead Can Dance have returned with “Death Cults,” the latest entry from their newly launched run of monthly 2026 releases. The 8-minute, 53-second track is now available on the group’s Bandcamp page, where it is listed as a digital release, accompanied by a PDF with lyrics and original artwork by Brendan Perry.
The band’s official site says the current campaign will unfold as a series of songs released on a regular monthly basis throughout 2026, issued exclusively through Bandcamp on Dead Can Dance’s own Holy Tongue Records imprint. Each release is stated to be accompanied by a digital PDF containing song lyrics and original artwork. The first entry in the series, “Our Day Will Come,” was released on March 20 and is dedicated to the shared national aspirations of the Irish and Palestinian peoples, with its title drawing directly from the Irish republican slogan Tiocfaidh ár lá, or “our day will come.”
Our Day Will Come by Dead Can Dance
That release was followed by Mnemosyne on April 10, though that item appears to function more as a digital lyric book/PDF release than as a conventional standalone song. That makes “Death Cults” the second clear new track in the current sequence. As of now, Dead Can Dance have not announced a new full-length album alongside the singles, and the official framing remains a month-by-month release series rather than a traditional LP rollout.
The new material also raises an obvious question: what is Lisa Gerrard’s role in this phase of Dead Can Dance, and what is her status in the band going forward? At the moment, there is no public clarification on that point. The Bandcamp page for “Death Cults” does not specify personnel beyond the note about Brendan Perry’s artwork and the recording location, and Dead Can Dance’s official site has not detailed Gerrard’s involvement in the new tracks. The group is still described on Bandcamp as the long-running collective founded by Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard, but beyond that, the current rollout is light on credits.
That uncertainty feels notable in light of the band’s last studio album, Dionysus, which arrived in November 2018 as Dead Can Dance’s first full-length in six years. Officially, the record was presented as a two-act, seven-movement work centered on the myth and cult of Dionysus. As Brendan Perry discussed in our interview around the release of the album, Dionysus was very much shaped by his own long-running fascination with the deity and the ritual traditions surrounding him. Given that history, it would not be surprising if Perry were again steering the initial phase of this new Dead Can Dance cycle, with Gerrard perhaps appearing later in the series. For now, however, that remains speculation, and the public-facing credits simply do not make her involvement clear.
The 2026 return comes after a long stretch in which Dead Can Dance’s post-Dionysus momentum was repeatedly interrupted on the live front. The group first announced its “A Celebration — Life & Works 1980–2020” North and South American tour in October 2019, with dates scheduled for April and May 2020. As the pandemic spread, those dates were pushed to April and May 2021, and then the North American leg was moved again in March 2021 to October 2021.
A separate North American return was then announced in June 2022, with 17 dates planned for March and April 2023. At the time, the run was billed as Dead Can Dance’s first North American tour in a decade. But in September 2022, those North American dates, along with the band’s upcoming European shows, were canceled for health reasons.
In the years since, both core members have remained active, though not always under the Dead Can Dance banner. Gerrard’s official site documents a steady run of work, including the 2021 collaborative album Burn with Jules Maxwell, the later album Exaudia with Marcello De Francisci, the 2023 live release One Night in Porto, and the 2024 compilation Come Tenderness, which included the new song “Whispers.” Her recent activity has also included soundtrack and touring work tied to Hans Zimmer Live and several film-related projects.
Perry’s official channels have been quieter, but they do show a few significant markers, including his 2020 solo release Songs of Disenchantment – Music from the Greek Underground. In 2023, he also issued an expanded reissue of Eye of the Hunter paired with Live at the I.C.A.
For now, “Death Cults,” a sprawling, incense-scented recording mixed at The Temenos in Epidavros, Greece, stands as the latest sign that Dead Can Dance are active again, even if the shape of that return remains deliberately opaque. It feels like a seamless addition to the group’s canon, carrying the atmosphere of another time and another world — something haunted, ceremonial, and palatial. What is clear is that Brendan Perry has chosen a direct-to-fans route, with new material arriving one release at a time on Bandcamp rather than through a conventional album campaign. Whether Lisa Gerrard will step into the series later — and whether these tracks will eventually point toward a larger body of work — remains to be seen.
Listen to Death Cults below:
Follow Dead Can Dance:
Website
Instagram
Bandcamp
Facebook
Follow Lisa Gerrard:
Follow Brendan Perry:
The post Dead Can Dance Returns with “Death Cults,” Their Second New Song in Five Years appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
