DEATH ANGEL Has Five Song 'Skeletons' For Next Album

Cobra Metal recently conducted an interview with vocalist Mark Osegueda of San Francisco Bay Area metallers DEATH ANEGL. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Cobra Metal: It seems like you guys have been relentlessly touring in support of "Relentless Retribution". How has the road been treating you?

Mark: It's been amazing! This is definitely the most extensive tour we've ever done and we've been winning fans over, all over the place which is good for us. That's what's neat about this run — we've been getting support slots which has never really happened for us. The ANTHRAX and TESTAMENT gig, we got that tour and then this one [with SEPULTURA]. It's nice because a lot of people are coming to see DEATH ANGEL that may have just seen the name or the logo, or never got to see us before. It's been great.

Cobra Metal: Not that it ever died off, but it seems like thrash metal is making a comeback. You recently toured with ANTHRAX and TESTAMENT. I was at the L.A. show and apart from the old-school fans, I saw a bunch of younger fans not even old enough to buy beer. To what do you attest the new popularity enjoyed by thrash metal?

Mark: It's just something that's timeless. Kids can grasp onto it. The great thing about thrash is that it's powerful and it's fast and you get that aggression, but there's also roots in the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal so there's actually some melody to it as well and technicality to it where as for a while in the '90s, there was a lot of rap metal and nu-metal where it was mostly a percussive thing… not a lot of flavor in the middle, if you ask me.

Cobra Metal: It appears that Nuclear Blast has been kind to the band. Have you enjoyed being on the label?

Mark: They've been great! Speaking from experience with different labels we've been on, they understand metal and know how to market a metal band and that's the main goal for the label. We've been on polar opposite sides of the spectrum back in the '80s when "Act III" was on Geffen, but they in turn didn't really know how to market a metal band or this type of metal so it was a learning experience for both of us. [Laughs]

Cobra Metal: Have you started writing for the next album?

Mark: Yeah. It's difficult writing on the road but we have about five skeletons [of songs] right now. I have lyrics down for one, so my plan is to start writing lyrics for the other ones on this tour. I haven't got time to get into the studio, but the goal is to have 15-20 songs and pick out the best to make a solid statement of an album.

Cobra Metal: Any plans to hit the studio any time soon?

Mark: We still have a bit of touring to do for this so we're gonna take our time to write the next one. I'm guessing, in all honesty, it would be tail end of this year or January/February of 2013 at the latest. We're shooting for a spring or summer release in 2013.

Read the entire interview from Cobra Metal.

"Superskum" (web site) has uploaded quality video footage of DEATH ANGEL's April 15 concert at the Gothic Theater in Englewood, Colorado as part of a North American tour with SEPULTURA, KRISIUN and HAVOK. You can now watch the clips below.