While his boss Dave Mustaine battles throat cancer, putting Megadeth mostly on the shelf for 2019, the band's longtime bassist David Ellefson is keeping busy by dropping his first-ever solo album. Titled Sleeping Giants and due July 16th via Combat Records, the record will serve as a companion piece to the thrash OG's new memoir, More Life With Deth. The LP features an array of new material as well as unreleased tracks and demos from projects such as F5, Ellefson's band with ex-Megadeth drummer Jimmy DeGrasso. It also boasts an all-star cast of guests including Armored Saint/former Anthrax singer John Bush, Alter Bridge's Mark Tremonti, ex–Guns N' Roses guitarist Bumblefoot, DMC of Run-DMC, and actor and DJ Kristian Nairn — you know, Hodor from Game of Thrones — who helmed a remix of lead-off track "Vultures."
Ahead of Sleeping Giants' release, Ellefson has offered up the LP's lead single, the thrashing cut "Hammer Comes Down." The song finds the bassist teaming with Thom Hazaert and Eric AK on vocals, Tremonti and Sacred Reich's Joey Radziwill, who contributed guitar work, and former Machine Head/current Sacred Reich drummer Dave McClain. Most notably, though, it sees Ellefson reuniting with ex-Megadeth shredder Chris Poland, who played on albums 1985's Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!, 1986's Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? and 2004's The System Has Failed. Check out the song above.
