Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

Thrash metal monsters EXODUS has recently announced hip hop producer Dan the Automator, METALLICA ‘s Kirk Hammett and TESTAMENT ‘s Chuck Billy as special guests on the band’s upcoming album “Blood In, Blood Out”.  Obviously appearance of a hip hop producer on a metal album, especially thrash one is a rare event. Dan the Automator is an American hip hop producer, DJ and  violinist who is responsible for ‘Black 13’, the first track of the band’s upcoming album.

“We ran into each other a couple times,” shares EXODUS guitarist & songwriter Gary Holt. “I knew what I wanted to hear and I knew he could do it, and could do it that day. So we sent him a file with the drums and guitars we already had there and just told him to go crazy with it.”

TESTAMENT frontman Chuck Billy lends his signature roar to the track ‘BTK,’ one of the first songs recorded by returning vocalist Steve “Zetro” Souza, who recently said, “Chuck and I have known each other forever. We work really well together, we know each other really well. So if I’m doing my vocals and he’s there, I can trust him to go ‘No way Zet, doesn’t sound good like that. Do it like this,’ or ‘Yeah that’s killer.’ If he says it sounds killer, I know it is.”

Original band guitarist Kirk Hammett (METALLICA) contributed a solo to ‘Salt The Wound.’

“This was actually the first time Kirk got to play on an official EXODUS release,” states Holt.  “He did the early demo, and then joined Metallica and didn’t do anything with us after that. So he was totally gung-ho about it. He came down and ripped out a bunch of takes and we picked the best one and then had a barbecue and drank beer.”

“It felt really casual, really cool – just like it did back in 1980 when we were all just hanging out back in the day,” Hammett confessed to RollingStone.com in July.

“Blood In, Blood Out” was produced by Andy Sneap, features cover illustration by Swedish artist Par Olofsson (PSYCROPTIC, ABYSMAL DAWN, REVOCATION). The album is set to be released on Europe on October 10 and October 14th in North America via Nuclear Blast.