IN

seven years. (The band had signed with Virgin in 1999.) They settled the lawsuit in late April of this year.

Initially, the new album was going to be called This Is War, but ever-analytical Jared is unsure now—he doesn’t want the title to come off like an allusion to the band’s legal skirmish. “It’s not like it became our entire lives,” he says of the lawsuit. “There were days where it felt like that, but this isn’t a record that’s just written in reaction to being sued or feeling that we were treated unjustly.”

NEW ALBUMS IN PROGR ESS

When Jared tries

Winds of Plague’s
Johnny Plague

to explain what the album is about, he hesitates, still trying to get his head around the record’s themes. “It’s a religious record in some ways,” he says. “There’s something about this record that examines the idea of faith, consequence, and choices—how you live your life.”

The Red Chord
Baroness

The name of death/grind quartet THE RED CHORD’s forthcoming fourth album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine, might sound sinister, but according to vocalist GUY KOZOWYK, the title’s origins are actually quite mundane. “It’s from the Discovery Channel show How It’s Made,” he says. “They were talking about this machine they feed zippers through, but we just thought the name was creepy.”

Jared also believes
the album illustrates
30STM’s desire
to expand beyond
their earlier gloomy
modern-rock sound.
“This record has a much
more varied and disparate
range,” he says. “There
are stories of revenge and
joy. Something I think was
missing for 30 Seconds to Mars was a real
spirit of optimism. We’re a rock band at our
core, but this album reaches into different
arenas. And that’s really exciting.”

The disc will be the band’s first since the mid-2007 departure of guitarist JONNY FAYE, whom the Massachusetts-based group chose not to replace. “With the economy being so bad, we figured it was time to downsize,” Kozowyk says, only half-joking. “Writing as a four-piece is actually more efficient because there’s one less opinion you have to deal with.”

VITAL STATS
TITLE TBD
RELEASE DATE TBD
PRODUCER FLOOD, STEVE LILLYWHITE
RECORDING IN THE LAB, LOS ANGELES

While their former guitarist isn’t playing on the new record, he is producing it at his home studio in Milford, New Hampshire, having handled similar duties for Whitechapel. When the Red Chord are done, they’ll hand the songs to Zeuss (Hatebreed, Shadows Fall) for mixing and mastering.

Kozowyk says the new songs are more intense and mature than those on 2007’s frantic Prey for Eyes. “It’s faster and heavier, but it’s definitely groove-oriented and melodic where it needs to be.”

Although Jared describes the working environment at his home studio, dubbed the Lab, as a “pressure-cooker factory” because of the tight deadline, he and his bandmates seem in good spirits. Jared razzes his brother about his dirty socks, while Milicevic shows off a new tattoo on his calf inspired by Tim Burton’s poem “The Boy With Nails in His Eyes.” Despite initial reports suggesting the album would come out in September, neither the group nor label could confirm a release date at press time. It’s just one more thing that’s still up in the air—while a much-blogged-about Kanye West collaboration will definitely make the album, another mystery guest’s appearance on the record has yet to be confirmed.

Georgia sludge-metal group BARONESS are in the studio with producer John Congleton, who’s best known for his work with non-metal outfits such as the Roots and the Polyphonic Spree. Congleton should help the band reach their goal for the new, as-yet-untitled album: avoid repeating themselves or sounding like fellow home-state heroes Mastodon and Kylesa, to whom they’ve been compared. “It was fun paying homage to the stuff we felt inspired by,” vocalist-guitarist JOHN BAIZLEY says. “But for the new songs, we paid more attention to the idiosyncratic things that we’ve done that have felt the most genuine and were the most captivating to us.” As a result, he says, the record will be “more melodic and not as ambient” than its predecessor, Red Album, which was Revolver’s Album of the Year for 2007.

While most bands record the drums first when making an album, symphonic deathcore outfit WINDS OF PLAGUE began with guitars for their latest, The Great Stone War—and not by choice. “We went into the studio the day after we got home from a tour, and [drummer] ART CRUZ had zero time to learn the songs,” says vocalist JOHNNY PLAGUE. He insists, however, that the skinsman has since mastered the tunes and the new album is “way more structured and organized” than 2008’s Decimate the Weak.

“We have a lot of work to cram into a little bit of time,” Jared acknowledges. “But it’s going really, really well. It’s slow but steady. With creativity, you can push as hard as you want, but it’s ready when the gods of the creative universe say it’s ready—and not before then.” TIM GRIERSON

ALSO IN THE STUDI0… Death-metal stalwarts DYING FETUS are working on their sixth full-length album, due out in September, at Baltimore’s Wright Way Studios with producer Steve Wright.  San Francisco Motörhead-lovin’ metal warriors SAVIOURS are working with Joe Barresi (Tool, Clutch) on the follow-up to 2008’s Into Abaddon for an October release.  Industrial-metal quintet POWERMAN 5000 are working on their first record since 2006’s Destroy What You Enjoy.  Electronic spazz-metal weirdos HORSE THE BAND are in the studio with XIU XIU member JAMIE STEWART working on the follow-up to 2007’s A Natural Death.  Indianapolis doomsters GATES OF SLUMBER are working on their first album for doom label Rise Above, which will come out this fall.

BARONESS: SCOTT KINKADE