According to OBITUARY drummer Donald Tardy, the band have completed work on their long-awaited new studio album.
Speaking with Finland’s Chaoszine, Donald said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It is fucking awesome. It is OBITUARY, absolutely 100 percent, meat and potatoes, but with Ken’s [Andrews, lead guitar] influence and him being able to write a few songs with me on this one, he brings a much more old-school thrash metal feel. So it’s fresh, it’s killer, it’s exciting on some of those songs, but then also the meat and potatoes, there are some songs that are so heavy on this record, man. I’m so proud of it. I can’t wait for people to hear it. And the production — we recorded it at our studio and then we sent it off to Joe Cincotta, my boy who’s done the last four albums with us. He did an amazing job; the sound of this record is fantastic. I can’t wait for everybody to hear it. We’re working on the album cover right now. And we are now just waiting for the target date that we’re gonna release it.”
Donald also discussed when fans can expect to get the new OBITUARY album to drop, saying: “Until this pandemic opens up Europe, we will not release this album until we are invited back to Europe. Because the only thing that albums are good for now, and some people won’t agree with this, especially fans, is that it’s there to get people talking about the band so when we get ready to go tour, we can make a living because nobody — and I don’t mean nobody as in zero percent — but the percentage of people actually walking to a Best Buy or walking to a store and physically buying one of my albums compared to 18 years ago, as you can imagine, is nil. So we have to wait for the prime opportunity to release this thing so everybody wants to go and get it. And the prime opportunity is when Europe is open, when America is open, we can release it and we can be in Europe and we can go bust our asses and hope that people go and buy the new album. ‘Cause everyone is listening to it, but we’re all listening to it on Spotify and on these streaming sites, and that doesn’t do musicians like myself, it doesn’t do us any good because we don’t get royalties from those companies.”
He continued: “The reality is we haven’t been to Europe in four years and they’re deserving of it as well. So we’re gonna wait so all of us around the whole world can celebrate this album with us properly where we can go do a world tour and promote it. So, you guys are gonna have to have patience. We’re gonna wait until Europe opens up.”
OBITUARY are set to hit the road for the “RedNeck Run III” spring 2022 U.S. tour along with GRUESOME and 200 STABS WOUNDS which commences on March 18 in Jacksonville, Florida.