BLOODBATH Recruits PARADISE LOST's NICK HOLMES As Its New Singer

Swedish death metal supergroup BLOODBATH, which features in its ranks KATATONIA's Jonas Renkse and Anders Nyström, as well as OPETH's Martin Axenrot, has recruited PARADISE LOST's Nick Holmes as its new lead singer.

Holmes will make his BLOODBATH debut on the band's new album, "Grand Morbid Funeral", which will be released on November 17 via Peaceville. The effort features guest appearances by Chris Reifert and Eric Cutler from AUTOPSY.

"Ever since I got into 'Lost Paradise' back in 1990," Renkse tells Metal Hammer magazine, "Nick Holmes has been one of my favorite growling vocalists out there. He was always audible and articulate but still deep and definitely morbid. It is a great pleasure to work with him some 25 years later after I was introduced to his thunderous roar!"

Adds Nyström: "Little did I expect to be working with the voice behind the death metal classic 'Lost Paradise', or the genre-defining 'Gothic' and yet here we are decades later, fullfiling another death metal dream. With his sinister and ominous vocal delivery, it's an absolute pleasure to make Old Nick the bell-ringer in BLOODBATH's 'Grand Morbid Funeral'!"

Regarding the musical direction of "Grand Morbid Funeral", Nyström says: "We're proud of all these different styled releases and we loved doing each and every one of them, but the objective was never to settle with a certain style, so our time has come to shift once more.

"It was already decided right after the last album that the next record would not become a 'Fathomless Part 2', but in certain aspects it would actually to become its antithesis! So prepare yourselves for an ultimate blueprint of destructive, raw, heavy, organic and sludgy death metal! The time has come to stomp those HM-2 pedals once more and close the circle of the death metal archives with our 'Grand Morbid Funeral'!"

Recorded once again at Ghost Ward Studios and the City Of Glass Studios in Stockholm, and mixed by David Castillo, "Grand Morbid Funeral" is undoubtedly the band's darkest and dirtiest opus yet; an organic collection of filth-ridden tracks straight from the grave, boldly eschewing the approach of somewhat over-produced modern death metal in favor of something altogether more rotten to the bone.

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

BLOODBATH is set to appear on a string of festivals throughout 2015, including Inferno festival (Norway),Neurotic Deathfest (The Netherlands) and Maryland Deathfest (U.S.),with more to be announced.