ASHEN SUN is Johnny Hagel stepping back into the dark after years as bassist and co-writer in TIAMAT and SUNDOWN, only this time he’s building the whole thing himself. The project emerged quietly in 2024, written in solitude, and it carries that closed-room intensity: isolation, inner decay, the feeling of a world dimming out in real time. Sonically it sits in dark gothic rock with a cold electronic spine, where 90s melancholy, cold-wave synths and cinematic textures move together without trying to look “modern” for the sake of it. Hagel calls it “a requiem for fading empires and dying stars,” which is basically the mission statement if you want one.
After the first single “Faith’s Funeral” dropped in December 2025 and quickly picked up playlist adds and strong early reactions, Ashen Sun now follow it with the six-track EP Velarium, out March 27, 2026 on Desert Plain Records. Lyrically it’s bleak in different shades: the claustrophobia of a mind turning cynical, devotion rotting into something corrosive, cities collapsing into smoke, a wheel that never stops turning, the end-of-world backdrop of “Velarium”, and that last foggy piece where sleep keeps dragging the dead back into the room.