The Funeral Portrait have finished recording their next album with Jon Lundin. Vocalist Lee Jennings announced the milestone in a birthday post on social media, describing the project as the band’s next “rock opera” chapter.
Jennings said the collaboration began when the band went into writing sessions with Lundin earlier in the year. They connected immediately, with Jennings particularly enthusiastic about finding someone who understood what he wanted to achieve.
“I’ve never met someone who understood my vision and what I wanted to achieve on this next ‘rock opera’ chapter of The Funeral Portrait!” he wrote.
The announcement follows months of work on a record Jennings had already described as a more developed storytelling project. In an interview with Metal On Tap, published September 24 after their conversation at Louder Than Life, he discussed recording live strings, piano and a choir. He also explained that guest artists would portray characters within the album’s story, giving their appearances a role in the larger narrative.
That concept had been taking shape during a year in which Jennings was also pushing to build a larger pool of songs. Speaking to Wall Of Sound in January, he said the band had around 10 demos and wanted at least 20 to choose from. He wanted each new song to challenge the strongest material they had already written, rather than settling on the first album’s worth of ideas.
“I want my favourite song to be beat,” Jennings told the publication.
At that stage, he was aiming to record during 2026 and release the album in 2027. His birthday update confirms the recording milestone, although it does not establish a release date. Jennings concealed the album’s name with blanks and did not identify its first single.
The project follows Greetings From Suffocate City, released September 13, 2024, through Better Noise Music. That album was expanded with a deluxe edition in June 2025. The new sessions with Lundin move the band into a separate album project, with Jennings placing the rock opera concept at the center of his description.
One song has already emerged as the introduction to that record. Jennings said the planned first single was the very first song the band wrote with Lundin. In his Metal On Tap interview, he had outlined plans to release new music before the end of 2026. When he shared the recording update, he was preparing to hear that single’s first mix.
