As psyched as I am for the new Cynic, this is way, waaaaay more awesome news. I CANNOT FUCKING WAIT to hear this...


Vocalist Kelly Shaefer of the reactivated seminal technical metal pioneers ATHEIST has issued the following update:

"You asked for it, the first new ATHEIST material in 15 years has risen to the surface and it was truly amazing, much better than we could have expected! We ended up with a bit over three minutes of truly ATHEIST, brutal, fast-as-hell, technical metal madness!!!!

"My trip to Atlanta [where ATHEIST drummer Steve Flynn currently resides] began in true ATHEIST 'cursed' style. I enter Avatar rehearsal studios and with guitar and backpack in hand, I proceed to bust my fucking ass... like really bust ass and fucked up my knee; shit, I have not fallen like that in years. So I hobbled to the practice room, and plugged in my guitar… knee bleeding and all, and, of course...my guitar does not work!!! Most of you know I am left-handed so... I could not play anyone else's guitar SO..... Friday was a wash. I did, however, get to watch GNOSTIC [Flynn's other band] rehearse and that was incredible; you all are in for a treat when that record comes out. Fortunately for me, the GNOSTIC boys enlisted one of their buddies, Rick, to perform some guitar surgery, and I am very grateful to him for that 'cause we would not have been able to write anything had he not fixed that fucker up for the next day so everyone say... RIGHT ON, RICKY BOY!!!

"Saturday I get my guitar back and it's perfect, and from about the sixth minute of jamming (after smoking out), the new ATHEIST riffs started surfacing off my brain and Flynn's brain, and just like old times we were rolling, smiling ear to ear all the while.

"I have not written with Steve Flynn since 1991... so we did not know how it would be, but, people, it was fucking magical and inspiring. Me and Flynn used to always do most all of the arrangements for the ATHEIST music, and so once we started spitting riffs, we started sewing together what will be the first new ATHEIST material in many moons.

"We are thrilled to death (pun intended) to say that I will indeed be eating my words about not doing new material, but I want old fans to know how serious we are about this. We are not making a record again for any reasons but the right ones. Sure, we all need to take care of our families, but our intentions are to rip a brand new hole in the ass of technical metal and raise the bar of expectations on the fusion of death metal and progressive musical mind-blowing. We hope that people will understand that this is truly for all the right reasons. I do expect old-school metal people to be skeptical, and my words to you are DON'T WORRY! WE AIN'T ABOUT TO FUCK THIS UP!

"Steve Flynn is one of the most musically articulate, motherfucking monster drummers alive on this planet...if his performance level on 'Unquestionable Presence' was a 9 or a 10, then he is now gonna be on 20; he is faster, smarter and more creative than I have ever seen him be, and I have known him for over 25 years. I just stand in awe of his ability to manipulate rhythms; it's such a signature style that he makes it very easy for me to drop brutal riffs and NEVER lose sight on the heaviness that separates us from that sort of epic, finesse-orientated technical metal you hear from a lot of today's tech bands. We want to confuse you, then punch you in the back of the head at the same time before your brain has time to do anything about it!!

"What do I need to say about the skills of Tony Choy (bass)? He was masterful at piecing the 'Elements' bass and drum sections together so he will no doubt be laying down some dizzying shit, fo sho!

"We know more than any writers, or others, who think they know what's best for us, and we hope everyone will not choose to be negative about all of this; life is to short to worry about shit like that.... Ask our good friend, the late great Roger Patterson [former ATHEIST bassist who died in a road accident on tour in 1991], about borrowed time!! We will not sleep 'till we have created the Theory of Technical Evolution!

"Me and Flynn discussed this sort of 'Einstein scenario,' whereas Einstien was never the brightest or smartest amongst his peers, but he was extremely creative and clever, and I think that combining the technical knowledge of this metal we play, with cleverness and creativity will trump the equations of the many bands of today who may have more complicated scales and within their tunes, and maybe are more technical than ATHEIST, but lack the ability to put it together in a brutal and creative manner so that people can actually still count on us not losing sight of the latter half of the definition as it's written of our sound death metal!

"With that said we ALSO intend on celebrating the 20th anniversary of 'Piece of Time' [ATHEIST's debut album] release with a bunch of shows in 2009 in Europe and the U.S., A live DVD and now a brand new set of ATHEIST's metal puzzles for your confusing enjoyment, of course. We will keep you posted on all of the details as they happen. Hold on to your brains, fuckers!

"Promoters and labels, contact starrfactory@verizon.net to book shows or show interest in helping us take the record to the people who made us!

"We thank you all so much for making this happen for us; we totally could not do this without your endless urging to DO ANOTHER RECORD! No longer can we ignore the masses of young metal heads just getting into our music for the first time. We never could have imagined it would happen that way, but once it was realized after the Hellfest gig in France last summer.... we knew we had to consider it."

this is going to be incredible

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

It isn't very patriotic to listen to a band called Atheist. Have you no moral compass?

FUCKING EXCITED

Bad idea. Elements was terrible compared to the first two albums. Atheist's sound came from Roger writing the first two albums. This is gonna flop. Just let Flynn keep going with Gnostic, they're incredible.

Retarded. Elements is my favorite by them by far. When I think of Atheist I always think of Elements and even if you don't like it how can you say Atheist doing something new after so many years is a bad idea even if you didn't like their last years-old piece of work.

Their legacy died with Roger. He wrote PoT and UP. Those were definitive albums. Elements was written and recorded in 30 days and sounds like a pile of uninspired slop. Thank you.

Elements is sick but it definitely has a different vibe than the other two, a bit more mellow. Maybe they were smoking more weed at the time. That's the only one I think where they specifically thank weed in the liner notes. Unquestionable Presence is the best, and the Relapse reissue with Patterson-tracked demo songs is killer.

Yeah, I was stoked when the Atheist albums got released. They're probably my favorite band and changed the way I looked at the bass guitar, when i heard Elements I was greatly disapointed. There just didn't seem like there was much to it. It's written and played great, but...fuck that album.

hyper sludge, although i respect you for having the sense to comment in this thread, you need to just stop and think about what you are saying. compare elements to 90% of "deth prog" these days and you are still blown away. i will only accept a statement as follows: elements is my least favorite atheist album. that said, i, among all other atheist fans have no choice to be skeptical of this new album just because of the state of today's media. how many bands are going to reunite?? how many movies are going to be remade? when is there going to be a movement that truly transcends present day media? what the fuck am i talking about? the world may never know.

Every band is going to reunite. Carcass is back, At The Gates are back, even if it's only for touring, Motley Crue are back, look for Jon Zweetsloot to reform Dissection with dead Jon's head on a stick, Demilich are going to go on a 60,000 date world tour, Max will rejoin Sepultura, bla bla bla bla.

I already said the album was written and played great, that doesn't mean it should've been released under the name "Atheist". Steve's new band, Gnostic is probably the best stuff I have heard in a long time and I'd say from the few demos I have heard, that it's already better than Elements. But it's not just balls out prog and "look what I can do", which is how I feel Elements sounded, DAMNIT