Dead Man's Bones — the spooky indie duo of Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields — has announced new music arriving October 27, ending a 17-year hiatus.

On October 22 the pair posted an eerie Instagram teaser in which a haunting voice intones: "Dead man's bones must wait to rise, from the house where shadows cry. All of this must change October 27, when our ghosts must leave our world for this, to dance with us at twilight time."

CBC Music reports that Anti Records, the band's label, shared the post, and film-news.co.uk notes the words "new music" flashed on screen as a young girl yelled "October 27." The timing, just before Halloween, is perfectly on brand for a duo built on ghosts, monsters and the supernatural.

The comeback announcement itself arrived as a video, and it leans fully into the duo's haunted aesthetic. According to film-news.co.uk, a man's face appears in the middle of a spiral and delivers a spooky proclamation before finishing with an evil cackle.

Rolling Stone describes the clip as combining Dead Man's Bones' penchant for Halloween-themed music with children's vocals — the calling card of their debut, which was recorded with the Silverlake Conservatory Children's Choir. The video closes with a child's voice announcing the October 27 date.

Rolling Stone notes Gosling's partner Eva Mendes teased the reveal on Instagram, writing "Trying to summon new music from Dead Man's Bones" and later, "He came through on his promise to me."

Dead Man's Bones released one self-titled album in 2009 and then essentially vanished, with CBC Music noting the band has not released an album since.

The duo's existence was tied to unusual circumstances: Rolling Stone reports that Gosling was at the time dating Rachel McAdams, whose sister was dating Shields, and that Gosling's escalating Hollywood schedule made a follow-up unlikely.

The band also never toured easily — Netflix Junkie explains that their signature ghostly children's vocals required coordinating local children's choirs during a short 2009 Halloween tour.

Yet the project cultivated a real cult: Cat Power covered "Pa Pa Power" in 2021, and the duo's music has resurfaced in film and TV, especially after Gosling's Best Original Song nomination for Barbie's "I'm Just Ken."

The duo's whole sensibility traces back to a Disneyland ride.

According to Rolling Stone, Shields and Gosling also drew on the Langley Schools Music Project's cult LP Innocence and Despair, and originally wrote every song for a children's choir to sing before deciding to make the record a duet between the adults and the kids.

Rolling Stone memorably described the 2009 album as "Arcade Fire, Tom Waits and the cast of Sesame Street performing a Kurt Weill musical."

Whether the comeback is real music or marketing is the question fans are already debating.

Rolling Stone points out that Gosling has been prone to viral stunts when promoting films in recent years, and hopes the return is "a genuine attempt to recapture the duo's original spooky magic and not just a way to tell people that Star Wars: Starfighter arrives in theaters on May 28."

Netflix Junkie frames the release as one more entry in a busy Gosling slate that includes his newly announced Ghost Rider casting.

Whatever the motive, the bar is high: the 2009 debut is regarded by Rolling Stone as arguably one of the best ventures by an actor into music, so a follow-up after 17 years carries real weight with the band's devoted cult following.

Everything now points to October 27, the date the mysterious teaser promises the ghosts will "dance with us at twilight time." The band has not performed live since 2010, according to contactmusic.com, so any music release could raise questions about whether shows might follow.

Fans of the duo's haunted folk-rock will be watching the band's Instagram and Anti Records for details of the release format — whether a single, an EP or a full album remains unannounced.