📅 Release Date: 29 May 2026
💿 Record Company: Eclipse Records
🏷️ Record Label: Eclipse Records
Melbourne’s heavy music scene has produced its fair share of absolute monsters over the years, but ANA are approaching things from a rather different angle.
High fashion. Masked musicians. Cinematic visuals. Huge orchestral arrangements. Crushing guitars. And enough theatrical ambition to make your average stage production look like a rehearsal down the local community centre.
Welcome to the world of “couture metal.”
ANA released their debut full-length album, Motivated By Death, on 29 May 2026 through Eclipse Records, taking the foundations established on their 2024 EP The Art of Letting Go and pushing them into something considerably bigger.
And despite that rather ominous album title, this isn’t simply eight tracks of staring into the abyss.
Quite the opposite.
Motivated By Death is about recognising that our time is limited — and using that knowledge as fuel to actually bloody live.
Cheery stuff, then. 💀🔥
💀 Motivated By Death – But Very Much About Living
Death and heavy metal have been drinking buddies since approximately five minutes after somebody first discovered the distorted guitar.
ANA, however, aren’t simply using mortality as a convenient excuse for some suitably dark artwork.
At the heart of Motivated By Death is the idea that knowing life eventually ends can become a powerful reason to make something of the time we’ve got.
Rather than becoming paralysed by mortality, ANA turn it into motivation.
Chase the dream.
Take the chance.
Create something.
Tell somebody how you feel.
Stop waiting for the mythical perfect moment.
Because eventually the clock runs out.
It’s a surprisingly life-affirming philosophy wrapped inside an album carrying one hell of a metal title.
🎸 Meet ANA
At the centre of ANA is vocalist Anna Khristenko, whose commanding vocal presence provides the dramatic focal point for the band’s mixture of symphonic grandeur and modern heaviness.
Alongside her, ANA combine musicianship, theatrical presentation and a carefully constructed visual identity to create something designed to extend beyond simply being another symphonic metal band.
The line-up behind Motivated By Death features:
- Anna Khristenko – Vocals
- Josh Mak – Guitar
- Cody Lamb – Bass
- Mark Shi – Keyboards
- Cleveland Beckford Gonzalez – Drums
Together, they operate inside ANA’s world as masked figures, bringing a striking visual component to music already bursting with cinematic ambition.
And that’s where the band’s description of “couture metal” starts making considerably more sense.
👗 What The Hell Is Couture Metal?
Symphonic metal certainly isn’t short of theatricality.
We’ve had orchestras.
We’ve had choirs.
We’ve had enormous costumes, fantasy concepts, fire, castles, gothic imagery and enough leather to bankrupt several cattle farms.
ANA have decided to take another route.
Their idea of couture metal takes inspiration from the craftsmanship and attention to detail associated with high fashion and applies that philosophy across their music and presentation.
Rather than simply sticking on some fancy clothes for a photoshoot, the aesthetic becomes part of the band’s wider identity.
The result blends symphonic metal, modern hard rock, orchestral arrangements, cinematic production and high-fashion theatricality into a package that immediately stands apart.
Fans of bands including Nightwish and Evanescence should find plenty of familiar territory, but ANA aren’t interested in simply following an existing blueprint.
They’re building their own bloody wardrobe.
🔥 Inside Motivated By Death
Production duties on Motivated By Death were handled by Josh Mak and Anna Khristenko, while the record was engineered and mixed at Monolith Studios with Chris Themelco.
Themelco’s previous work includes Australian heavy acts such as Harlott and Orpheus Omega, making him a pretty natural choice for a record attempting to balance polished orchestration with genuine metallic weight.
Rather than allowing the symphonic elements to swallow the guitars whole, ANA keep the heaviness firmly at the centre of proceedings.
Big riffs collide with keyboards and orchestral textures, while Khristenko’s vocals move between dramatic power and considerably more vulnerable territory.
Across eight tracks and roughly 35 minutes, the album explores love, hatred, mortality, grief, independence and the uncomfortable reality that none of us are getting out of this thing alive.
Lovely.
Pass the biscuits. ☕💀
🔥 ‘Hate Me’ Comes Out Swinging
The album kicks open the doors with “Hate Me,” a defiant introduction to ANA’s world.
Built around the relationship between love, hatred and indifference, the track examines the hostility that can sometimes follow ambition and success.
Rather than allowing negativity to become an anchor, ANA turn it into fuel.
It’s effectively a musical middle finger delivered with orchestration, massive guitars and considerably better tailoring than most middle fingers receive.
“Hate Me” was also given the full visual treatment with an official music video, allowing ANA’s fashion-driven aesthetic to sit alongside the music rather than existing as a separate gimmick.
For anyone wondering exactly what “couture metal” looks and sounds like, it’s a pretty effective starting point.
⏳ ‘Shadow Of Life’ Stares Down Mortality
Then there’s “Shadow Of Life,” a track that gets particularly close to the central philosophy behind Motivated By Death.
Death isn’t presented merely as something terrifying waiting at the end of the road.
Instead, mortality becomes the shadow that gives life its shape.
Knowing our time is finite makes the things we do with it matter.
Dreams matter.
Relationships matter.
Creativity matters.
Taking chances matters.
It’s the sort of existential conversation normally reserved for three in the morning after several questionable drinks, except ANA have wrapped it inside a hulking great symphonic metal song.
Fair play.
🖤 ‘Papa’ Gets Deeply Personal
If Motivated By Death has an emotional gut-punch, “Papa” provides it.
The song sees Khristenko tackling the loss of her father, who died following struggles with alcoholism during her childhood.
Suddenly all the theatrical armour surrounding ANA gets stripped away.
Behind the fashion, masks, cinematic imagery and enormous arrangements is something painfully human.
Grief.
Memory.
Things left unsaid.
And the complicated relationship we maintain with people long after they’re gone.
It’s an important reminder that ANA’s theatrical presentation isn’t there to compensate for a lack of emotional substance.
Underneath the spectacle, there’s plenty going on.
🤘 ANA Take On System Of A Down
Then comes an interesting curveball.
Motivated By Death closes with ANA tackling System Of A Down’s “Aerials.”
Now, covering System Of A Down is dangerous territory.
Their songs are so tightly connected to Serj Tankian’s unmistakable delivery and the band’s wonderfully strange musical personality that simply copying the original is usually pointless.
ANA instead bring the track into their own world, adding their symphonic weight and dramatic presentation to one of System Of A Down’s best-known songs.
It’s a bold choice for the closing track of a debut album.
But then again, subtlety doesn’t appear particularly high on ANA’s shopping list.
💿 ANA – Motivated By Death Full Tracklist
- Hate Me
- Shadow Of Life
- You Loved Me More Than I Love Myself
- Following The Wind
- Eyes Of A Child
- Sick Love
- Papa
- Aerials (System Of A Down cover)
🎭 More Than Just An Album
ANA’s ambitions don’t stop when the final note disappears.
The band have been developing a wider multimedia world surrounding their music, including an official comic book series and the feature-length documentary Watch Me As I Rise.
That matters because it explains why ANA put so much emphasis on imagery.
The masks aren’t simply there because somebody thought they’d look cool in the publicity photos.
The clothing isn’t an afterthought.
The videos aren’t disconnected promotional clips.
It’s all intended to exist inside a wider ANA universe.
Whether you call it couture metal, multimedia metal or simply five people refusing to do anything the easy way, there’s clearly a serious amount of thought going into this band.
⚡ From The Art Of Letting Go To Motivated By Death
ANA first started making serious noise with their 2024 EP The Art Of Letting Go.
That release gave listeners an introduction to the band’s developing identity, but Motivated By Death represents a much bigger statement.
This is the debut album.
The point where ideas have to become an identity.
And rather than playing things safe, ANA have gone in the opposite direction.
They’ve created their own terminology.
They’ve built a visual universe.
They’ve embraced fashion.
They’ve tackled grief and mortality.
They’ve covered System Of A Down.
They’ve even got comic books involved.
Nobody can accuse them of lacking ambition.
🎸 The Riff Report Says…
There’s always room in metal for bands willing to make things a little weird.
Actually, scratch that.
Metal needs bands willing to make things weird.
ANA could easily have arrived as another polished symphonic metal outfit with soaring vocals, keyboards, heavy guitars and suitably dramatic promotional photographs.
Instead, they’ve decided they want their own bloody genre description.
Couture metal.
It’s gloriously ambitious.
But underneath all the visual bells and whistles, Motivated By Death needs songs capable of carrying that ambition — and that’s where ANA’s combination becomes interesting.
“Hate Me” brings the attitude.
“Shadow Of Life” tackles the album’s central philosophy.
“Papa” provides the emotional weight.
And “Aerials” gives the whole thing an unexpected finish.
More importantly, there’s a genuinely strong idea sitting behind the album title.
Death doesn’t have to be an excuse to stop living.
It can be the reason you start.
For a band surrounded by masks, theatricality and carefully constructed imagery, that’s a surprisingly human message.
ANA aren’t simply trying to join the symphonic metal party.
They’re arriving dressed to the absolute nines, rearranging the furniture and asking why nobody brought a bloody orchestra.
Couture metal has entered the building.
And Motivated By Death makes one hell of an entrance. 🤘🔥
💿 Album Details
Artist: ANA
Album: Motivated By Death
Release Date: 29 May 2026
Record Company: Eclipse Records
Record Label: Eclipse Records
Genre: Couture Metal / Symphonic Metal
Recorded/Mixed At: Monolith Studios
Produced By: Josh Mak & Anna Khristenko
Format: Full-Length Album
Tracks: 8
🎸 The Riff Report – Supporting rock, metal and the glorious racket in between.
