The Golden Hourglass is a classic heavy metal album to raise your spirits and empower you to keep hope alive through the darkness. Soaring vocals, majestic guitars riffs & solos and senses-shattering bass & drum grooves!
Hail, Legion of Thunder! We're kicking off a new era of the band with our most ambitious and personal album ever!
The Golden Hourglass is designed to empower and inspire you. It's an album about facing the dark times and finding the strength to carry on and find the light again.
The album tells a story on three levels:
The Izena, an advanced civilization facing a world-ending cataclysm;
Our band facing its darkest hour, nearly falling apart and coming back together again;
The challenges we all face in life and finding the strength to overcome them.
There's no going back, there's no surrender. We move forward and make the most of each new day. We fight until the end and find joy between the battles.
We're already halfway done recording the album, but we've taken it as far as we can without your help. With your support this campaign will allow us to complete the album in June and pay for all of the rewards!
In 2023 everything fell apart. Our bassist Jesse moved away. Josh faced health challenges that left his future in doubt. And our co-founding drummer Chris retired. It looked like the end. But Nina stayed strong, kept hope alive, and then something incredible happened.
Jesse came back. Josh worked his way back to good health. And against all odds we found an amazing drummer who immediately felt like family. And we carried on.
This was the inspiration for The Golden Hourglass. The album takes you from the heights to the absolute depths and back again with fresh resolve.
Making an old school metal album in 2026 feels like an act of rebellion. Especially pulling out all the stops with our platinum-awarded producer Kevin '131' Gutierrez (Shinedown, OAR) and spending hundreds of hours in the studio poring over every note, word and detail. It's a big-budget, major-label approach for an independent band.
But we're doing it, and doing it the old fashioned way. You'll find no AI, no autotune, and no drum triggers on The Golden Hourglass. Just real guitars, bass, drums, tube amps and human voice, all in the grand metal tradition of our favorite bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Dio, Rush, Tool, Ozzy, etc.
In a world where AI can generate songs with the push of a button there's no point in us giving you anything but our own unique, honest expression. That's what this is. Not heavy metal by numbers and generic production, but something only we could have created.
A Sound of Thunder is Nina, Josh, Jesse & Justin, a 100% independent fan-fueled heavy metal band formed in 2010 in Washington, DC.
We're the most funded metal band of all time on crowdfunding because our fans know we run awesome campaigns and put it all back into killer rewards. We've released 9 previous albums plus EPs, singles, graphic novels & comic books, animation, and lots more. We love making music & cool stuff, and we love telling stories.
After 13 years with no line-up changes our co-founding drummer Chris Haren retired in 2023, and so we welcome our new brother Justin Finger on drums! Wait 'til you hear what he wrote and played on this album!
We knew we needed a completely new and different style of artwork for this album. The search was on for a new artist, but as tends to happen with this band the right collaborator appeared effortlessly. Justin simply said "what if we get the guy who did Brave New World for Iron Maiden?" We found him. We asked him. He said yes.
Steve Stone provided the concept and gorgeous gatefold art for both the exterior and interior of The Golden Hourglass. Steve is best known for his work with Iron Maiden, Stephen King, and Terry Brooks. We're as honored to have him on this project as we are proud that he finds this among his best work. Thank you, Steve!
A deluxe limited edition of our fan-favorite album Time's Arrow will be produced and ship concurrently with this campaign! The hourglass symbol was born on this album which has been out of print in all formats for years. So we're stepping into the time machine and going back to 2013 to rescue it!
AVAILABLE AS A BUNDLE IN THE "SUPER DOUBLE WORKS" PLEDGE LEVEL WITH AN EXCLUSIVE BOSSLOGIC ART PRINT AND PATCH.
Vinyl:
2 x 12" double album in Crystal Clear and Paradox Splatter variants
Upgraded gatefold jacket
Upgraded full-color inner sleeves and center labels
CD mix of "Reign of the Hawklords" first time on vinyl
CD:
Jewel case packaging (collectors, we heard you - ASoT reissues will be in jewel cases going forward!)
Expanded booklet
Bonus tracks: "Reign of the Hawklords" vinyl mix featuring Nik Turner (Hawkwind), plus all bonus tracks from the out of print 2013 Queen of Hell EP - "Hello Nurse", "Queen of Hell" featuring Veronica Freeman, "Trashed" (Black Sabbath cover).
Cassette Tape:
First time on cassette
Color shell
Limited to 100 copies
T-Shirt:
We're bringing back the original vintage Time's Arrow t-shirt, just as it was printed in 2013!
Autographs:
Co-founding drummer Chris Haren will join us to autograph a limited number of copies for backers getting the full bundle in a pledge tier. (Pledge tier backers will still have the option of unsigned items.)
Members of our Patreon have access to these exclusive add-ons! If you're not already a member it's not too late! Join at any time and any paid level before the campaign ends to access these items! JOIN ASOT'S PATREON!
The Golden Hourglass - Cataclysm Splatter Vinyl (100 copies)
Blood Vomit enamel pin
Queen of Hell: Insurrection #1 Black & White Unlettered Artist's Edition (50 copies)
Out of the Darkness cassette tape (100 copies)
"Long Live Heavy Metal" Rainbow homage t-shirt
Queen's Guard anniversary reissue patch (free for all backers in the first 48 hours, Patreon exclusive thereafter)
You must select a Patreon pledge level to access these items. You will only see these items in the add-ons after selecting a Patreon pledge level. (Pledge levels above Executive Producer will also have access.)
Recording of The Golden Hourglass is approximately half done at the time of launch. Drums, bass and rhythm guitar tracking is complete. Nina has recorded a little over half of her lead vocals. What remains are half the lead vocals, all harmony vocals, all lead guitar & guitar overdubs, keyboards, and production.
Recording is already scheduled at the end of June 2026 and we anticipate completing all recording within 1-2 weeks of the end of this campaign.
Mixing and mastering will take place in July.
We anticipate sending the album to the vinyl manufacturer by the end of July. Turnaround time at the vinyl plant is currently less than two months. So we expect to have the pressed albums in hand by the end of September. All other merch has a shorter manufacturing time and will be ordered while we're waiting for the vinyl.
Shipping should commence at the end of September and take approximately one month based on our previous campaigns.
The project budget of $50,000 reflects the remaining expenses after what we have paid out of pocket to get as far as we have with the album at launch, not the total project cost. We've covered as much as we can up front and now we're asking you all to help us get this album over the finish line!
Recording — $20,800
Travel — $1,200
Mastering — $1,900
Merch Production — $21,500
Taxes & Fees — $4,600
*Steve Stone's artwork is not listed in the budget because we have fully paid for that up front.
This is our highest budget yet due partially to inflation but more so due to the Time's Arrow re-issue we are offering with this project, which doubles our vinyl and CD manufacturing costs.
We are planning to press 750 copies of The Golden Hourglass and 500 copies of the Time's Arrow re-issue which is a double vinyl, so that is 1750 12" records in full-color anti-static sleeves, loaded into 1250 full-color gatefold jackets. The vinyl manufacturing is by far the largest part of the Merch Production portion of the budget.
