CROSSFADE Joined By BURY YOUR DEAD Drummer

Columbia, South Carolina's CROSSFADE has announced the addition of drummer Mark Castillo (BURY YOUR DEAD) to the group's ranks.

The band's third album, "We All Bleed", will be released on April 12, 2011 via Eleven Seven Music. The set's 10 tracks, produced by the band, maintain the sonic thunderclap of CROSSFADE's previous efforts, while propelling its guitar-grinding signature with a tapestry of orchestration and programming, and a flourish of keyboards, thanks to the addition of Les Hall to the permanent lineup, alongside lead vocalist and co-songwriter Ed Sloan and bassist Mitch James.

CROSSFADE's debut self-titled, self-produced album was released on Columbia Records in 2004 and spawned top 10 Mainstream Rock hits "Cold", "So Far Away" and "Colors" — propelling the CD to platinum status. Follow-up 2006 disc "Falling Away" fostered hits "Invincible" and "Drown You Out", but with second album sales down amid an industry-wide slump in the music business, the band was cut from the roster.

Being dropped by Columbia choked Sloan's creative momentum. He admits, "Coming from the success of the first record and losing our way after the second album hit me hard. You get signed, everything is golden and you think it'll go on forever. After we were dropped, I was consumed with self-doubt. Music had always been my escape, a friend, but then, music became my enemy. I shut down as a songwriter — and actually, pretty much as a human being.

"Les came in, took me by the boot straps and helped me to step forward," Sloan adds. "After a year of me self-medicating, he just said, 'We're going to write about this and make a third album,' which forced some of these songs that talk about the dark side of life. Les had a big part in rejuvenating my soul, to get out of my slump and focus on music again. He helped me to live my life — and write about it in the moment. It was therapeutic and an inspiration. He woke me from my musical coma."

Highlights on the third album include "Dear Cocaine", a slow burner that addresses letting go of addiction; "I Think You Should Know", offering a deceptively temperate arrangement behind a lyric about escaping reality by retreating in sleep; and "Killing Me Inside", a straightforward assailing classic CROSSFADE rock 'n' roll anthem, albeit with a touch of crafty orchestration.

Sloan and Hall maintain that cutting the ties associated with a major label also helped to charter that new path. "It was a fresh start. We spent two years writing whatever we wanted, with no expectations, no deadline," Sloan says. "Who knew if we would even release another record? It was a blast to have no obligation to copy the past."