EXODUS: Another New Song Available For Streaming

"Class Dismissed (A Hate Primer)", a brand new song from San Francisco Bay Area thrash metal veterans EXODUS, is available for streaming on the band's MySpace page. The track comes off the band's ninth album, "Exhibit B: The Human Condition", which is scheduled for release in North America on May 18 via Nuclear Blast Records.

Commented guitarist Gary Holt: "We decided to give everybody another taste of the new record… and it's about one of America's favorite pastimes, the school shooting. This song was primarily inspired by the massacre at Virginia Tech, as well as Columbine and the many other instances of unhinged individuals who decided to take out their wrath on their classmates, going all the way back to [University of Texas at Austin’s 1966 tower sniper] Charles J. Whitman."

"Exhibit B: The Human Condition" track listing:

01. The Ballad Of Leonard And Charles
02. Beyond The Pale
03. Hammer And Life
04. Class Dismissed (A Hate Primer)
05. Downfall
06. March Of The Sycophants
07. Nanking
08. Burn, Hollywood, Burn
09. Democide
10. The Sun Is My Destroyer
11. A Perpetual State Of Indifference
12. Good Riddance

EXODUS filmed a video for the track "Downfall" on April 1 in Los Angeles. The clip was directed by Jon Schnepp, who was the creative force behind the band's "Riot Act" video. He is also known for his work on "Metalocalypse" (the animated program about DETHKLOK, the world's most popular death metal band) on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.

Nuclear Blast USA's webshop will be issuing an exclusive mail-order edition of the album featuring a slipcase with different artwork (to be unveiled soon) plus the North American bonus track, "Devil's Teeth".

Regarding the "Exhibit B: The Human Condition" cover artwork, which can be viewed below, Gary Holt recently stated, "We wanted to portray the violence of man at its finest, so we started with our own version of the Leonardo da Vinci sketch [of 'Vitruvian Man'], but done the 'EXODUS' way! I was pointed in the direction of Colin Larks of Rainsong Design for the cover and he killed it! To me, the artwork represents man and his affinity for bloodshed, ignorance, and all-around ability to be led like sheep to the slaughter. The image fits the songs on this record perfectly. The whole layout is going to as sick as the record itself!"

"Exhibit B: The Human Condition" was recorded this past December in Northern California with producer Andy Sneap (MEGADETH, ARCH ENEMY, KREATOR).

In a recent interview with Way Too Loud!, EXODUS bassist Jack Gibson stated about the upcoming CD, "There's a couple [of songs] that are long, and a couple that are shorter, too. Song kind of write themselves. Anyone who creates music or art, and even people who write stories — it takes on its own life. If it's an epic tune, it's a crime to cut it short thinking it could be on the radio or whatever. Especially in today's day and age, radio and video don't mean shit. Radio has never meant anything to a band like us. Maybe now that there's XM satellite radio with real metal stations. We really wouldn't unwrite a song so it could be on the radio. The songs are just the way they come out. The new album has a couple short sweet ones, and I think one of 'em is 10 fucking minutes long! . . . Lyrically, it has to do with the depravity of man, how fucked up things have gotten, and how perverted in the dark corners of everything from religion to politics."

EXODUS recently took part in the "Rust In Peace 20th Anniversary Tour" with MEGADETH and TESTAMENT.

(Thanks: NJthrasher)