Hell Or High Water

Hell Or High Water is Yngwie Malmsteen's first studio album since Parabellum in July 2021 and his twenty-third under his own name; the live album Tokyo Live (2025) came between them. Music Theories Recordings / Artone Label Group outside Japan and King Records in Japan share one worldwide release date, 13 November 2026. By his own account he stayed at home and wrote for eight months, finished eighty or ninety pieces and kept the nine strongest, a way of working he first tried on Parabellum and has kept. The running time, forty-six minutes in his words, was built to fit a single vinyl LP. Malmsteen sings on about four songs and the rest are instrumentals. The announcement names "Now Or Never", "(On The) Battlefield" and "Eye For An Eye" for their vocals, while "Am Caprice/Hell Or High Water", "Antikythera" and "Beyond Zeta Reticuli" are instrumentals, the latter two named after scientific breakthroughs and discoveries; he says "Beyond Zeta Reticuli" grew out of his fascination with alien life. The credits King Records has published list Malmsteen on guitars (acoustic included), bass, keyboards, sitar, cello and vocals, and a drummer credited as Jay Lanncerbach. "Father", the last song of the album proper, is a tribute to his father, who died in 2025, and Malmsteen dedicates the whole record to him. Three songs have videos: "Now Or Never" (5 August 2026), the second single, "Beyond Zeta Reticuli" (1 October 2026), and "(On The) Battlefield" (13 November 2026, release day). King Records' Japanese CD, KICP-4128, adds a tenth track that no international edition has, "(He Is) Living A Lie (Alternate Version)", and the same bonus track is on its limited heavyweight double LP (KIJP-90003~4), with a release date of 11 December 2026.