Swiss post-rock band Hubris. are heading into Middle-earth. Their fifth studio album, White Shores, arrives on 10th September, with UK live dates to follow in October.
The instrumental quartet from Fribourg have built four albums on Greek mythology, but composer and founder Jonathan Hohl has turned to the source he keeps coming back to. “The Hobbit was my very first exposure to literature as a child,” he said, “and after Peter Jackson’s original film trilogy, I became completely obsessed with Middle-Earth.”
More than a fantasy tribute, White Shores sits with J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing on mortality and immortality. In Tolkien’s legendarium, the immortal elves call death the “gift of men”, a striking reframing of something the West tends to treat as pure tragedy. The album takes its name from Frodo’s departure at the close of The Lord of the Rings, where the grey rain-curtain rolls back to reveal “white shores and beyond them a far green country”.
In the wake of his grandfather’s passing, that image became the emotional and conceptual ground of the record. White Shores unfolds across five movements, each one a word in a single line: Death. Is. Just. Another. Path. The words come from Gandalf’s reassurance to Pippin in Jackson’s films, and they also map onto Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
“Originally, I thought naming a track ‘Death’ might feel too grim,” Hohl said, “but that is precisely what this album is about: offering a different perspective.”
Hohl wrote the album at his home studio before Léo Juston, Lucien Leclerc and Matthieu Grillet shaped the arrangements collaboratively. After an extensive demo process the band returned to La Fonderie Studio in Fribourg, where they had tracked three of their five albums, to record over the course of a week. Peter Miles mixed at Middle Farm Studios, with former Hubris. drummer Nathan Gros mastering.
Lead movements ‘Death‘ and ‘Is‘ are out ahead of release. Of working around a reverse delay pedal on ‘Is‘, Hohl admitted it took real concentration: “Extremely jarring, 0/10 would not recommend.”
White Shores will be available to pre-order soon.
Hubris. UK live dates, October 2026
9th October, Leeds (venue TBA)
10th October, Manchester, Deaf Institute
11th October, London, The Grace
12th October, Bristol, The Gryphon
13th October, Birmingham, The Rainbow
