We’ve just received word that death metal lifers Cannibal Corpse have begun recording their twelfth studio album at Sonic Ranch studios in Texas with producer Erik Rutan. The new full-length will be the follow-up to 2009′s Evisceration Plague.

“After having spent the past 7 months writing and rehearsing new material, we’re very excited to finally begin recording,” says bassist Alex Webster. “We’ve had great success working with Erik Rutan on our past two albums so we’ve decided to work with him again, but to keep things fresh we decided on a change of location – we’re returning to Sonic Ranch studios in Texas, where we’ve recorded several albums in the past. We are psyched to see how this combination works out- we feel it’s pairing that could result in our best album yet.”

“I am super excited to work with Cannibal Corpse for our 3rd album together,” says Rutan, who worked with Cannibal Corpse on both Kill (2006) and Evisceration Plague. “We are determined to make the best album we possibly can. Everyone is very focused and the new material is awesome. There is a great blend of classic, old school CC with a newer, more heavy, dynamic and aggressive approach. I look forward to the challenge of making one heavy as hell record!”

We’re told that more details on the album, including art, songs and title, will be revealed in the next few months. But for now, tide yourself over with this video for “Priests of Sodom,” from Evisceration Plague:

The Wacken performance was a reenactment of Gorgoroth’s controversial Black Mass show from Krakow, Poland in 2004, which was filmed in a TV studio. The band’s Wacken concert included  “crucified” nude models, satanic symbols, sheeps heads, and oodles of sheep’s blood.

The group effectively dissolved after Gaahl elected to retire from the scene.

09/23 Springfield, VA. Jaxx
09/24 Pittsburgh, PA, Mr. Small’s Theatre
09/25 New York, NY, Gramercy Theatre
09/26 Boston, MA, Middle East
09/28 Quebec City, QC, Imperial de Quebec
09/29 Montreal, QC, Café Campus
09/30 Toronto, ON, Opera House
10/01 Columbus, OH, Outland Live
10/02 Chicago, IL, The Bottom Lounge
10/03 St. Paul, MN, Station 4
10/05 Winnipeg, MB, West End Cultural Centre
10/06 Regina, SK, The Exchange
10/07 Edmonton, AB, The Starlite Room
10/08 Calgary, AB, Dickens Pub
10/10 Vancouver, BC, Rickshaw Theatre
10/11 Seattle, WA, El Corazon
10/12 Portland, OR, Hawthorne Theatre
10/13 San Francisco, CA, Slim’s
10/14 Hollywood, CA, The Troubadour

The band had this to say about the situation on their website:

“The master tapes were handed over to Regain by the band in April this year, and so it is of course very disappointing for the band that the label for the second time is not able to meet the set release date. Therefore, to avoid this happening again, no new release date will be given by the band until Regain can sort out their problems and provide a new date with 100% certainty.”

Check out the first vid, which introduces new drummer Dustin Boltjes (Demiricous), here:

Additionally, the band has announced a string of Midwestern headline dates, which will immediately follow their run supporting Arch Enemy and Devildriver.

Skeletonwitch tour dates:
8/30 Tucson, AZ – The Rock ^
8/31 Farmington, NM – Top Deck ^
9/1 Lubbock, TX – Jake’s Sports Café ^
9/2 Austin, TX – Emo’s ^
9/3 Houston, TX – Scoutbar ^
9/4 Little Rock, AR – Juanita’s ^
9/6 Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade ^
9/7 Norfolk, VA – Norva ^
9/8 Baltimore, MD – Rams Head Live #
9/9 New York, NY – Best Buy Theater #
9/10 Worcester, MA – Palladium #
9/11 Rochester, NY – Montage Music Hall #
9/12 Quebec, QC, Canada – Theatre Imperial #
9/13 Montreal, QC, Canada – Metropolis #
9/14 Toronto, ON, Canada – Phoenix Concert Theatre #
9/15 Flint, MI – The Machine Shop ^
9/17 Winnipeg, MN, Canada – The Garrick Centre #
9/18 Saskatoon, SK, Canada – Louis’ Pub ^
9/19 Calgary, AB, Canada – MacEwan Conference & Event Centre, University of Calgary #
9/20 Edmonton, AB, Canada – Edmonton Event Centre #
9/21 Prince George, BC, Canada – The Generator ^
9/22 Vancouver, BC, Canada – Commodore Ballroom #
9/23 Seattle, WA – Showbox Sodo #
9/24 Spokane, WA – Knitting Factory Concert House #
9/26 San Fransisco, CA – Regency Center #
9/27 Los Angeles, CA – Club Nokia #
9/29 Phoenix, AZ – Marquee Theater #
9/30 Albuquerque, NM – Sunshine Theater #
10/1 Englewood, CO – Gothic Theatre #
10/2 Omaha, NE – Sokol Underground ^
10/3 Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue #
10/4 Chicago, IL – House of Blues #
10/5 Sauget, IL – Pop’s ^
10/8 Lawrence, KS- Jackpot Music Hall
10/9 Wichita, KS- The Sceneary
10/10 Fayetteville, AR- Rogue on Dickson
10/11 Memphis, TN- Hi Tone Café
10/13 Newport, KY- The Historic Southgate House
10/14 Columbus, OH- Ravari Room
^ w/ DevilDriver
# w/ Arch Enemy, Devildriver

Check out “When I Was Flesh” off Demonoir below:

British thrash revivalists Evile are scheduled to release their third studio album, Five Serpent’s Teeth on October 18 via Earache Records.

Five Serpent’s Teeth was recorded at Parlour Studios in Kettering, UK, with producer Russ Russell (Napalm Death, Dimmu Borgir), who also helmed the band’s 2009 release Infected Nations.

Five Serpent’s Teeth Track Listing:
1. Five Serpent’s Teeth
2. In Dreams of Terror
3. Cult
4. Eternal Empire
5. Xaraya
6. Origin of Oblivion
7. Centurion
8. In Memoriam
9. Descent Into Madness
10. Long Live New Flesh

Check out the album video preview here:

Formed by members of Race Against Time and ParalexHell back in 1982, Hell—who have long been cited as big influences by Metallica—only just released their debut album, Human Remains, this past May.

REVOLVER How did All Pigs Must Die come together?
KEVIN BAKER We’ve been in bands together, or whatever bands we were in have been on the road together, for years now. In 2009, Matt wanted to create a heavy band that embodied everything good about heavy music from an uncompromising standpoint, so we got together, put down five tracks, and recorded them. All on our own, too.

Did you guys set out with a specific sound in mind?
A lot of it was going back to the things that we’ve liked since we were teenagers that have stood the test of time. There’s plenty of shit that you loved at some point that you listen to now, 10 or 15 years later, and think, Holy shit, that’s terrible! We looked at the music that, to this day, still makes the hair on the back of our necks stand up—early Integrity, early Slayer, the first four Bathory records, Samhain, early hardcore bands like Void, Negative Approach, Discharge, the Exploited. These are the bands we really love musically, and we wanted to go in that direction and make something nasty, and to make it for ourselves, and self-finance the whole thing. So going into it, there was definitely a conscious decision of what it was supposed to be like.

The band has a really venomous tone to it but remains huge and powerful—is it hard to find a balance between big and raw?
I can’t speak for the rest of the band in terms of gear and set-up and all that, but as a writer and a lyricist, I wanted to write something that wasn’t happy, but that wasn’t negative for the sake of being negative. It’s not corny. The songs aren’t about raping a corpse. We’re coming from a very negative place about things that happen every day in this world, and we’re trying to make it as dark as possible. We want to fuse all of our influences, but sound like us, not like a cover band. I want people to hear our influences, but not just hear those bands. I want it to be distinct.

What can you do in this band that you can’t do in Hope Conspiracy?
I think the lyrics here are really blunt, and they match the tone of the music really well. The Hope Conspiracy comes from a bit more personal place. I touch on similar issues in both, but lyrically, here I’m much more focused in man’s inhumanity towards man, and the idea of mankind devouring itself and destroying everything around it, the environment, the world.

The title of the album, God Is War, is a pretty blunt and brutal.
Again, we wanted to focus on man’s inhumanity—not that everyone’s a bad person, there’s good and bad in everyone, just that the whole history of mankind is based on cruelty. The title itself actually came from the book Blood Meridian by Cormack McCarthy. One of the characters in the book, the Judge, who represents humanity’s darker side, talks about how war is God, so we flipped it around. We thought it really worked well with our concept behind this band.

How was recording with producer–and Converge guitarist–Kurt Ballou?
We work with Kurt exclusively. He’s the best in the business as far as we’re concerned. For underground, heavy music, you can’t beat Godcity [futureusgalleryStudios] and you can’t beat Kurt. He knows what you’re going for, and he knows how to get you there. He knows what the end result is supposed to be.

With God Is War hot on the heels of your self-titled EP, it seems like you guys are making a strong push to just get music recorded and put it out there.
Everyone has commitments outside of this. We’re doing this because we love to do it. There’s no pressure…we never really intended to sign any record deals with anybody. We just wanted to make this music. The one label we did consider was, of course, Southern Lord, which is why it was cool that they came across the EP and loved it. We never aimed to be a big band. We just wanted to put this music out, play a show here or there when we could. The most important thing with this band is the writing, first and foremost, before playing out. That’s why we started doing this—being able to write on a consistent basis and being able to record on a consistent basis. We love playing out, we really do, but we’d always much rather write and record new music. So we’ll see. Hopefully this time next year, we’ll have another record.

Tell me about the art for both your releases. It’s incredibly striking.
Florian Bertmer did the art. He’s a good friend of ours. We’ve known him for years. We have a circle of people surrounding this band: Kurt’s one of them, and so is Florian. When the time came to do art for the band, we immediately thought to ask him. He has a real talent at creating art that represents actual music, and I think he did that very well with our art. I’ve bought albums based on what they look like before, so I think it’s really important for a band to have artwork and graphics that stand out and also communicate the music. For both of our records, I think he really nailed it. CHRIS KROVATIN

Photo by Greg Anderson