SAXON's New Album Is Finished: 'It's Heavy And Melodic', Says BIFF BYFORD

British heavy metal legends SAXON have officially completed work on their new LP for a February 4, 2022 release. Speaking to Neil Jones from TotalRock at this year's Bloodstock Open Air festival, singer Biff Byford said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "The SAXON album is finished. Andy Sneap finished mixing it a couple of weeks ago. I signed it off. So that's finished. While we were rehearsing for this show, we shot a video for the title track. So that should be out in October, on the pre-release day."

Regarding the musical direction of the new SAXON material, Biff said: "It's heavy and melodic, which is what SAXON are all about. I think people are gonna like it. I like it. Some albums we've done I didn't like, actually, but this album's great. The last 10 albums have been great. But this one, I like it. I was listening to it the other day, again, for the video — shooting the video. It's a good album."

This past April, Biff told SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" about a possible title for the new SAXON LP: "I've got a couple of working titles. I'm not supposed to tell anybody, but seeing as it's America, I'll let you know, okay? We might call it 'Carpe Diem', which is Latin for 'Seize The Day'. Which I quite like. It looks good — SAXON 'Seize The Day'. Or we might call it 'The Pilgrimage', which is another song that we have on the album. So there you go."

Byford went on to say that SAXON wanted to hold off on releasing the new LP so he and his bandmates can hit the road in the support of the effort. "Then we have all year to tour on the album," he said.

In March 2020, Biff told The Metal Voice about the musical direction of the new SAXON material: "It's heavy. I would say the direction is the same as 'Thunderbolt' [2018] and 'Battering Ram' [2015] [and] 'Sacrifice' [2013]. It's heavy and it's quite British[-sounding]; we like to retain that. Me and [bassist] Nibbs [Carter] wrote most of the songs again."

He continued: "What I do, I have a start time when I want the boys to start writing, and that's how we do albums. And Nibbs is just a fiend with it — he just writes so many ideas down; it's crazy. I'm getting ideas from all the boys, but predominantly most of them are from Nibbs.

"So, yeah, it's heavy," he added. "There's some great guitar playing on it from the boys. And Nigel's [Glockler] drumming is up there with much younger drummers, if you know what I mean — he's pushing himself very hard with it."

SAXON released a covers album, "Inspirations", in March via Silver Lining Music. The 11-track effort contains some of the classic rock songs that influenced Byford and the rest of the band.

Byford and guitarist Paul Quinn are the sole remaining original members in SAXON's current lineup.

Originally from South Yorkshire, England, SAXON has gone on to sell about 23 million albums and has produced such classic songs as "Denim And Leather", "Princess Of The Night", "Wheels Of Steel" and "Power And Glory".

Biff recently collaborated with his son Seb (NAKED SIX) on a new album, "Red Brick City", which was released last month under the band name HEAVY WATER.