IN

which the band clashed both internally and with famed producer Bob Ezrin (Kiss, Pink Floyd, Jane’s Addiction), who never finished the album. When the tension reached a breaking point, Moreno took a hiatus from the band and toured with his side project,

NEW ALBUMS IN PROGRESS

Chimaira

Satyricon

From left: Chi Cheng, Moreno, Stephen Carpenter, Abe Cunningham, and Frank Delgado

Thursday

VITAL STATS ^{Team Sleep, leaving the}

TITLE EROS (TENTATIVE) ^{fate of the Deftones} RELEASE DATE JANUARY 2009 undecided. Once tempers ^{PRODUCERS TERRY DATE} cooled and the singer RECORDING IN THE SPOT (BAND’S STUDIO),

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA ^{returned, however, the}

re-tooled Wrist tracks drew praise from critics and fans alike.

“I love that record. I think it turned out really well, as difficult and insane a process as it was, and as long it took, and the amount of money it cost,” Cunningham says. “Never again do I want to repeat that process; it was horrible. I aged many years.”

So this time around, the group re-enlisted their longtime collaborator and master of the knobs Terry Date, who produced each of the releases prior to Wrist, as well as Pantera’s best albums. “Having him back was wonderful,” says Cunningham. “We’ve done pretty much everything with him in the past, and he’s just the greatest dude. It was very comfortable, and just good times.”

Working on the new record with Date, in their hometown and in their own studio, was a pleasant change for the band, especially compared with the Wrist sessions. From conception to mixing (which is being done at a separate facility in Seattle), Eros took about a year to complete, and the results, according to Cunningham, have “a pretty lush production” with “jarring, knife-in-your-neck parts, but with floating-on-clouds, beautiful things, too.” Perhaps more important, it sounds as though this time the band didn’t tear each other to pieces along the way.

“Wrist was a cleansing process for everyone, and we realized we’re best friends. We’re just dudes who’ve been making music for 20 years now and having a good time, and that’s really what it was all about from the get-go,” Cunningham says. “It made the process all the more enjoyable and easy. I think our future records will be much better because the line of communication is open, and it feels great.” BRENDAN MANLEY

For many bands, losing a major-label deal spells the end of the world. Yet for THURSDAY, leaving Island Records has meant creative rebirth and renewal. Over the past year, the band has released a split LP with Japanese band ENVY, finished most of their next record, and written an additional 10 or so songs they’ll either mold into a second disc or release through a singles club. “When everyone’s not micromanaging every detail of my career to maximize the impact upon advertising and marketing, I just feel so free and prolific,” singer GEOFF RICKLY says.

Thursday recorded the yet-untitled record with producer Dave Fridmann over a pair of two-week sessions in August and September, during which the band rediscovered their roots and at the same time pushed further into the future. “We want to get back to some of the urgency from when we were younger without turning back the clock,” Rickly says. “And we also love doing weird, experimental stuff. The record will be a combination of all that.”

Tracks include “At Rainbow’s End” (about the death of Rickly’s grandmother), “Time’s Arrow” (about the titular Martin Amis book about a man who experiences life backwards), and “Friends in the Armed Forces” (self-explanatory). The album is tentatively scheduled for early 2009.

It took breaking up with his fiancée, getting sober (mostly), and re-examining his life for CHIMAIRA singer MARK HUNTER to remove the chip from his shoulder. And now that it’s gone, the band is functioning better than ever. “In the past, the rivalry between me and [guitarist] ROB ARNOLD has held us back,” Hunter says. “But now we’re friends again and we’re writing together and coming up with some of our best stuff.”

Hunter says the band’s new songs are catchier, more concise, and more adventurous than those of 2007’s Resurrection: “We really focused on writing awesome, heavy guitar riffs that will stick in your head nonstop.” Look for the new album in March 2009.

Norwegian black-metal legends SATYRICON conjured such a sinister swell of sound while recording their new album, The Age of Nero, at Sound City studios in Van Nuys, California, that the room started to shake.

“First it felt like a soccer team trying to break down my door. Then I realized it was an earthquake, and thought, Fuck, here comes the apocalypse!” vocalist SIGURD “SATYR” WONGRAVEN told Norwegian newspaper VP. Satyricon co-produced the disc with Joe Baresi (Tool, Queens of the Stone Age) and tracks include “Commando,” “Black Crow on a Tombstone,” and “The Wolfpack.”

ALSO IN THE STUDI0… That other midwestern masked metal band, MUSHROOMHEAD, will enter the studio in November to record the follow-up to 2006’s Savior Sorrow.  THE RED CHORD have started writing songs for the follow-up to 2007’s Prey For Eyes. The tentative plan is to start recording in early 2009.  The original NOTHINGFACE lineup is working on the band’s first album since 2003’s Skeletons. The group broke up shortly after the release of that record, re-formed a year later with two new members, then went on hiatus when guitarist TOM MAXWELL joined HELLYEAH.  Three-piece Los Angeles stoner band BIG BUSINESS ( two-thirds of which play in the MELVINS) are working on the follow-up to 2007’s Here Come the Waterworks with producer Phil Ek. The disc will be the group’s first to feature guitarist TOSHI KASAI.  When MÖTLEY CRÜE returned from their worldwide tour, bassist NIKKI SIXX started working on a second album with his side project, SIXX:A.M. The band previously released The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack in 2007 to accompany Sixx’s best-selling memoir.

DEFTONES: ANNAMARIA DISANTO; CHIMAIRA: NEIL LIM SANG