Burnt By the Sun Peak Into the ‘Heart of Darkness’

Neo-grind/nu death aficionado's prayers were answered when the prodigal sons vocalist Mike Olender and superhuman drummer Dave Witte returned home to Burnt By the Sun. The band is currently recording 'Heart of Darkness,' which is being touted as their final album via longtime label Relapse.

Bassist Ted Patterson told NoiseCreep, "After Dave and Mike left, [guitarist] Johnny [Abudato] and I continued working on material. John was the point man for getting the ball rolling with Dave and Mike."Patterson and Abudato sent a new song, dubbed 'Goliath,' over to their former bandmates to get their thoughts. Olender and Witte liked what they heard, drinks were had and the foursome decided to go into the studio and write a new record. Patterson deemed the writing process as "quite simply hell," since Witte resides in Virginia and is often on the road. "John and I would have to demo things in his basement and send them off to Dave. We would get together every so often and work the material. With the short amount of time we had, it had to be 100%, full steam ahead when we were able to get the time together." Patterson admits that recording was "more complete hell," since Witte was doing a marathon worth of bass drum work. The band tried some new things during the process, which Patterson admits "added to the torture," with his tongue tucked firmly in his cheek.

Olender is currently in the studio, cutting vocals. The record should be finished by mid-March and out in early summer. "Even with all the insanity we went through writing and recording this monster, it feels really good to be in the studio, with the core of the original band," Patterson says. "I think we actually accomplished what we set out to do, which was to take the raw brutality of the EPs, the heaviness of Soundtrack to the Personal Revolution and the progression of The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good and put it all together to make this thing we call Heart of Darkness."