Michael Barber Leaves Gloryhammer to resurrect Wizardthrone

The black gate has opened, the necrodimensional paperwork has been signed, and one of power metal’s longest-running fictional villains has finally escaped his own continuity. Michael Barber has stepped down from Gloryhammer after a decade behind the robes, face paint and cosmic malice of Zargothrax, ending a chapter that began with a guest appearance in 2015 and became permanent the following year.

Gloryhammer confirmed Barber’s departure on 7 October, explaining that the decision had been made some time ago and that the band agreed he would remain through the 2026 festival season before disappearing into whatever forbidden geometry lies beyond Dundee. Barber himself said he made the choice at the end of last year, bringing ten years of interdimensional villainy, several continents of touring and an unreasonably large quantity of wizard-based violence to a close.

Zargothrax is gone. Michael Barber remains. Somewhere beyond the event horizon, Wizardthrone is getting louder.

But this is less a retirement than a transfer of occult jurisdiction.

Barber’s attention now moves fully to Wizardthrone, the extreme wizard metal entity that first breached this plane in 2021 with Hypercube Necrodimensions. And the timing is not subtle. Almost simultaneously with the Gloryhammer announcement, Wizardthrone released “Death Cycles”, their first new music in five years and the first proper transmission from the project’s new incarnation.

On “Death Cycles”, Barber is not lurking behind a character or occupying one corner of the arrangement. He is the lead vocalist and lead guitarist, as well as handling keys and programming: effectively standing at the centre of the ritual circle and pulling the levers himself. The track introduces a completed Wizardthrone lineup featuring Matthew Bell on guitar, Keiran Allen on bass, Christopher Bowes on keyboards and Isak Olsson on drums.

Musically, “Death Cycles” is less interested in politely re-opening the door to 2021 than in kicking it off its hinges and feeding it to an extradimensional machine. The song pushes Wizardthrone’s melodic black/death metal foundations into something heavier, sharper and more direct, still dense with labyrinthine riffing but less concerned with mathematical ornament for its own sake. The result feels like Children of Bodom, Dissection and Wintersun being forced through a particle accelerator operated by people who have read too many fictitious grimoires.

The lyrical premise is appropriately deranged. “Death Cycles” imagines an alien intelligence collapsing innumerable timelines into a single point, crushing every possible version of existence together until causality itself becomes a kind of cosmic meat grinder. Barber has linked the idea to burnout, grief and the relentless passage of time, turning the familiar human experience of watching the years disappear into a full-scale metaphysical extinction event. The artwork comes from Dan Goldsworthy, who also created the visual world of Hypercube Necrodimensions, while the mix and master were handled by Dave Otero at Flatline Audio.

In other words: the new Wizardthrone is not merely “Mike’s other band”. It is rapidly becoming the place where all of Barber’s musical obsessions are allowed to breed without supervision.

That transition will become physical on 21 November 2026, when Wizardthrone play their first-ever concert at The Underworld in London. More new material is already in progress, and the band will continue into 2027 with further live activity.

Gloryhammer, for their part, thanked Barber for his decade with the band and wished him well, while Barber returned the sentiment and thanked the musicians, crew, agents and fans who shared that era with him.

So Zargothrax is gone. Michael Barber remains. Somewhere beyond the collapsing event horizon, Wizardthrone is getting louder.