DOWN Announce New Album Volume V, Out November 20 on Nuclear Blast

DOWN announced a new studio album, Volume V, on August 24, 2026. It arrives November 20 via Nuclear Blast Records, the band's first full-length studio album since 2007's Down III: Over the Under; the two records released in between, Down IV - Part I (2012) and Down IV - Part II (2014), were both EPs. The announcement came from Premier Guitar alongside a new single, "Blood Oath," and a tracklist built around two writing sessions the band held at Philip Anselmo's home studio, Nodferatu's Lair, throughout 2025.

Guitarist Kirk Windstein described the session as a family reunion more than a recording date: "Everybody played their asses off, wrote great riffs, and Philip is singing amazing. There's so much electricity when we get together." Guitarist Pepper Keenan put the band's chemistry down to geography as much as music: "We all sounded different, but we're still from the same 20-block radius."

DOWN has never been one band's side project, it is five New Orleans musicians who each built a separate legacy first. Philip Anselmo fronts Pantera. Pepper Keenan plays guitar and sings for Corrosion of Conformity. Kirk Windstein is the sole constant member of Crowbar. Jimmy Bower plays guitar in Eyehategod. Pat Bruders rounds out the lineup on bass. The five crossed paths as teenagers in New Orleans' local scene decades before any of their other bands existed, which is the whole reason Keenan says DOWN still works: they knew each other before any of them had "done anything."

Neither Premier Guitar's announcement nor DOWN's own socials say a word about Volume V's specific tuning. What CYS can document is Windstein's own touring history. A 2007 Guitar.com rig diagram of his Down setup lists two tunings side by side: standard tuning down a step and a half (C#-F#-B-E-G#-C#), the same tuning Tony Iommi used to invent doom metal with Black Sabbath, and what the diagram calls "drop B" (B-F#-B-E-G#-C#), a step further down on the low string. Both sit at the low, thick end of the tuning spectrum that makes sludge and doom metal sound the way it does.

A standard .010 set turns to rubber this far down in pitch. Windstein's own documented gauge stayed relatively light for the tuning, closer to the loose, easy-fretting choice Iommi made than the heavy-gauge route most modern players take. Either approach is real; the physics and the tradeoffs are the same ones CYS's C# standard and drop B guides walk through in full.

DOWN is already on the road. The Strap It Down headlining tour with Helmet and Spirit In The Room began August 15 in Atlanta and runs through September 4 in Shakopee, Minnesota, where DOWN closes as direct support to Slayer alongside Suicidal Tendencies and Hatebreed. Along the way the band plays Zakk Wylde's Berzerkus Festival (August 28-29) with Lamb of God and Black Label Society. October brings festival slots at Aftershock and Sick New World Texas, and on December 5 DOWN headlines day two of the Decibel Magazine Metal and Beer Fest in Denver, their first Denver appearance in more than 12 years.