CANCER BATS: New Album Title Revealed

Canadian metallers CANCER BATS have set "Dead Set On Living" as the tentative title of their fourth album, due in early 2012. Lead singer Liam Cormier tells AOL's Noisecreep that he and his bandmates have been looking outside the heavy music universe for inspiration.

"In a lot of ways we get really inspired by non-metal bands," he says. "For me, I find I really like looking at other things because I just don't want to make a traditional hardcore record lyrically. So for me, I listen to a lot of indie rock and I've been getting super psyched on a lot of that, like the new 'Helplessness Blues' by FLEET FOXES..."

Despite this, Cormier insists that he has no interest in moving away from the thrash-stoner-punk-hardcore sound which has characterized CANCER BATS' first three albums 2006's "Birthing The Giant", 2008's "Hail Destroyer" and 2010's "Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones".

"I love what we do," he says. "I don't want to make this record be us trying to be MUSE, or us trying to extend ourselves into other things, like me trying to do clean singing parts so we can get played on the radio. When you hear bands that you love try shit like that it's just such a bum-out.

"The new stuff definitely doesn't sound like 'Bears' or 'Hail' or 'Birthing', but it sounds like where we should be at, trying to really fuckin' go for it.

"We really looked at it like, 'Let's make this album the ultimate party in every way that I know CANCER BATS fans want to get down.' Because I'm not sick of what we do, I fucking love playing these songs every night. That's the kind of vibe I still want to have going."

He continues, "I think the big thing, too, we've all turned 30. I'm going to be 32. Now that we're all older, we all really understand CLUTCH. I think there's like an age factor in understanding that band. If you're too young, you just don't get it.

"If you listen to CLUTCH, all their records sound like CLUTCH, and they're the best at doing that, but they still take really rad chances and do different things that are fun. Like, a lot of vocal stuff that's goofy, but it doesn't ruin the song, it just makes it really fun. I'm looking at someone who's been able to do that and still nobody's going to call those dudes a bunch of pussies, you know what I mean?

"So looking at that and not being too hung up on things we could over-think at this point, like, 'Ah, it needs to be super heavy and negative and brutal metal can only be like this.' It's like, 'Naw, we can do whatever the fuck we want.' Because we're not 100 percent a metal band; we're like punk-weird-hardcore-whatever band."