Maryland rock band Clutch have released “The Drifter Returns”, their first new track from an upcoming album and accompanied by an official lyric video. The song has already appeared in recent live sets, signalling the band’s return to recorded material following 2022’s “Sunrise On Slaughter Beach”.

The forthcoming record will be Clutch’s fourteenth studio album and was developed around touring commitments, with frontman Neil Fallon saying the group had accumulated songs through writing sessions in 2025 and early 2026. The band has reunited with producer Gene “Machine” Freeman, who previously worked on “Blast Tyrant”, “Earth Rocker” and “Psychic Warfare”; earlier plans to work again with Tom Dalgety appear to have changed.