Rosetta Stone announce ‘Executing Nostalgia’ and release first single ‘Shadowban’
Rosetta Stone release “Executing Nostalgia” on 25 September 2026 via Cleopatra Records. First single “Shadowban” and its video arrived on 18 August 2026.
Rosetta Stone, the gothic rock project Porl King has fronted since 1988, release “Executing Nostalgia” on 25 September 2026 through Cleopatra Records. The first single, “Shadowban”, arrived on 18 August with an official video on the label’s channel and runs 3:41. Cleopatra’s Dave Thompson describes it as “the driving, near-Motorik pulse” of the record, “a mantric chant that could go easily have lasted far longer than its 3 minute 40 lifespan”.
What is on Rosetta Stone’s ‘Executing Nostalgia’
The album runs ten tracks: “Shadowban”, “Someone”, “Regression”, “Negative”, “Rejection”, “Incubus Succubus”, “Pagan Love Song”, “Alone”, “Moya” and “Talk About The Weather”. Four of those titles reach back into the early-1980s post-punk and positive-punk records King grew up on. “Moya” was Southern Death Cult’s debut single in December 1982; “Pagan Lovesong” came out on Rough Trade in June 1982 for the Virgin Prunes; “Talk About The Weather” is the title track of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry‘s 1985 debut on Red Rhino. Bandcamp credits “Incubus Succubus” as a feature with Thunder Bae, whom Cleopatra describes as “a rising star in the German electronic scene”.
That makes “Executing Nostalgia” a second record in eighteen months built partly on other people’s songs, after the all-covers collection “Nothing Is Sacred” in February 2025.
Cleopatra Records has the album on CD, cassette and a black, gold and white splatter vinyl LP, with a signed test pressing offered separately. All formats are open for pre-order through the label’s own store, and the digital edition is on Bandcamp.
About Rosetta Stone
Porl King and bassist Karl North formed Rosetta Stone in Liverpool in 1988, filling out the line-up with a drum machine and synth rack they called Madame Razor. Early tape-only releases through 1988 and 1989 and support slots with The Mission built the audience for the debut album “An Eye for the Main Chance” in 1991, by which point Porl Young had joined as second guitarist. The 12-inch “Adrenaline” followed as their widest-reaching single, and a cover of The Rattles’ “The Witch” appeared in 1992.
Cleopatra Records signed the band in the United States and issued “Foundation Stones” and the “Adrenaline” compilation in 1993. “The Tyranny of Inaction” arrived in 1995, recorded after the advance paid for an Alesis ADAT and pushed the guitars into a harder electronic setting; “Hiding in Waiting” followed in 1996. King lost part of his left little finger in an accident late in 1997, which changed how he played. The band split in 1998 after “Chemical Emissions” and a limited remix disc, closing with a headline set at Whitby Gothic Weekend that October; North joined Dream Disciples. A contractual album of New Romantic covers, “Unerotica”, closed the first run in 2000.
King spent the following years on Miserylab and then In Death It Ends, and produced and remixed for other artists. He restarted Rosetta Stone as a solo concern in 2019 with “Seems Like Forever”, mixed by Jürgen Engler of Die Krupps, and has kept a steady pace since: “Cryptology” in August 2020, “Under The Weather” on 30 August 2024, “Nothing Is Sacred” on 14 February 2025 and “Dose Makes The Poison” on 20 August 2025. Cleopatra has run a parallel reissue programme across the same period, including the “Anthology 1988-2012” box set.
“Executing Nostalgia” is the fourth Rosetta Stone album in just over two years, and follows “Dose Makes The Poison” by thirteen months.
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