Bloodbath have announced their sixth studio album, Survival of the Sickest, arriving September 9th. The Swedish death metallers also offered up the video for lead single “Zombie Inferno.”
Grinding old-school death metal is Bloodbath’s forte, and “Zombie Inferno” delivers a heavy dose of what the band does best. Downturned riffs, pummeling drums, and the guttural bark of singer Nick Holmes make for a brutal four-and-a-half minute blaster.
The Ash Pears-directed music video is, well… a bloodbath. The stylized clip puts Holmes at the wheel of a muscle car as he floors it along a highway infested with zombies. Exploding flesh ensues.
“One man’s struggle to rid the World of Zombie Infestation that seems to have inconveniently taken over the planet,” the band said of the track in a press release. “Particularly, as he’s just refueled his 1969 Dodge Super Bee 440.”
Bloodbath are unabashedly paying homage to the death metal of yore on Survival of the Sickest. They’ve even enlisted some notable genre luminaries to guest on the record: Barney Greenway (Napalm Death), Luc Lemay (Gorguts) and Marc Grewe (Morgoth).
“If there was a declaration of goods attached to this album, it would say Florida death metal exported from Sweden,” the band added.
Bloodbath themselves are a supergroup of sorts. The lineup features guitarist Anders Nyström and bassist Jonas Renkse (both of the band Katatonia), as well as drummer Martin ‘Axe’ Axenrot (formerly of Opeth) and session guitarist Tomas Åkvik (of the bands Lik and Nale). Singer Nick Holmes replaced founding vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt (current and founding frontman of Opeth), who left the band in 2012.
You can pre-order Bloodbath’s upcoming album Survival of the Sickest on CD, vinyl, cassette, and digitally via Napalm Records.
Watch the video for “Zombie Inferno” and see the album art/tracklist below.
Survival of the Sickest Artwork:
Survival of the Sickest Tracklist:
01. Zombie Inferno
02. Putrefying Corpse
03. Dead Parade
04. Malignant Maggot Therapy
05. Carved
06. Born Infernal
07. To Die
08. Affliction of Extinction
09. Tales of Melting Flesh
10. Environcide
11. No God Before Me