APOSTASY Guitarist Quits

Swedish death/black metallers APOSTASY have parted ways with guitarist Ludvig Johansson.

"I have decided to leave the band for personal reasons," says Johansson in a statemeent. "It has been a hard decision to make, and there's no hard feelings involved. It's been a great time and I wish all the guys in the band the best luck in their future endeavors."

APOSTASY recently announced the addition of drummer Thomas Olsson (THE PROJECT HATE, KAMTJATKA) to the group's ranks.

Several new songs from APOSTASY are available for streaming on the band's MySpace page. The tracks will appear on the group's forthcoming third full-length album, "Nuclear Messiah", which will be released later in the year.

"Nuclear Messiah" was recorded in part at Ballerina studios in Umeå, Sweden.

Vocalist Fredric Edin previously stated about the upcoming CD, "It's been a rocky road for us when we lost [guitarist] Henrik [Johansson], but now we are stronger than ever and can guarantee you folks that this will surely be the most brutal and most technical we have ever made, so what I want to say is: We don't slow down like everybody else does, we just accelerate and make it more brutal. It is worth waiting for!"

APOSTASY made national headlines in Sweden in 2006 when the group's guitarist Henrik Johansson was stabbed to death by his girlfriend. At 3:55 a.m. on March 9, 2006, the 19-year-old girlfriend dialed 112 (the Swedish equivalent of 911 in the U.S. or 999 in the U.K.) and said that her boyfriend was lying bleeding on the floor in the couple's apartment in Kramfors, Sweden. When the paramedics and police arrived, Henrik Johansson was already dead.

Swedish national TV station SVT uploaded professionally filmed video footage of APOSTASY's performance at this year's Rockweekend festival, which took place July 8-10 in Kilafors (two hours north of Stockholm),Sweden. Watch the clip below.