Death Metal Supergroup BLOODBATH To Begin Recording New Album In January

Swedish/British death metal supergroup BLOODBATH, which features in its ranks KATATONIA's Jonas Renkse and Anders Nyström, along with OPETH's Martin Axenrot and PARADISE LOST's Nick Holmes, is planning to enter the studio in early 2018 to begin recording the follow-up to 2014's "Grand Morbid Funeral" album.

Speaking to Metal Wani, Holmes stated about BLOODBATH's next disc (hear audio below): "The [rest of the] guys are working on it now, so I think we're looking at recording in the end of January. We're looking at doing it maybe early February. So, yeah, we'll definitely do another album. But we'll see what happens. The guys in KATATONIA have been busy touring as well, so they're pretty much winding up now — I think they're playing Russia next week and then they're finished for the year. So, yeah, at the end of January, I think, we're gonna start now."

According to Holmes, there are no plans for BLOODBATH to book any long tours that may conflict with touring and recording commitments by the individual members' main bands.

"With BLOODBATH, we're not gonna do any extensive touring," he said. "We've just done seven weeks in Europe with PARADISE LOST. We wouldn't do that with BLOODBATH. We're doing a short U.S. tour [in May 2018]; we're only playing, like, about eight dates in both places. So anything we do with BLOODBATH is a short, in-and-out kind of quick couple of gigs. We don't wanna do any long tours with BLOODBATH; we wanna keep it quite kind of special in a way. I mean, we only planned on doing 13 shows when we started playing live anyway, and then we ended up doing, like, 30 shows. But it's good fun to do — meet the guys and do it now and again through the year. But, yeah, we wouldn't do anything that's gonna impact on PL or KATATONIA or OPETH for that matter; we just do it in between."

Holmes made his BLOODBATH debut on "Grand Morbid Funeral", which was released in November 2014 via Peaceville. The effort featured guest appearances by Chris Reifert and Eric Cutler from AUTOPSY.

"Grand Morbid Funeral" was recorded once again at Ghost Ward Studios and the City Of Glass Studios in Stockholm, and mixed by David Castillo.

Formed in 1998 with a mutual fascination for horror and the glory days of death metal (especially the old Florida and Stockholm "Sunlight" scenes),BLOODBATH has remained a leading light of extreme metal since its "Breeding Death" EP was unleashed back in 2000, and a formidable force for more than 15 years, further cemented by the devastating — and most successful album to date — "The Fathomless Mastery" in 2008.

Band photography by Ester Segarra