Megadeth fans were likely already grousing at the news that their North American tour opening for Ozzy Osbourne was nixed when the Prince of Darkness postponed all 2019 dates of his “No More Tours 2” after suffering a fall recently. Well, now comes news that the thrash metal band likely won’t release their new album until 2020, after previous reports suggested it would arrive this year.
Speaking with the podcast “Talking Rock With Meltdown” [transcribed by Metal Hammer], Megadeth bassist Dave Ellefson said that the new full-length will likely be out early next year as the band is looking at the postponement of the Ozzy dates as a perfect chance to “really get in now” on the writing and recording.
“All things happen for a reason, so I think on the Megadeth schedule, it’s probably good timing to just go right in,” Ellefson said. “We’re going to definitely be hunkering down now to get that going. That’s because we have some of our own shows in August, and there’s actually a few more coming in now – there’s Rock In Rio, and that’s early October and then there’s the MegaCruise.”
The bassist added, “As much as we were hoping to have a record out this year, looking at how the Dystopia timeline was where we were working on it early in 2015, we started doing some shows later that year, we put out a heavy track “Fatal Illusion” and then the record dropped in early 2016.”
He concluded, “So, in this case, sometime probably early 2020 is my thought that that’s probably when the record will be ready to come out.”
While we may have to wait longer for new music from the band, Megadeth’s fans have enough to keep them busy, like last month’s release of the career-spanning compilation Warheads on Foreheads, and the forthcoming release of the companion graphic novel Death by Design. As well, Ellefson just recently announced Sleeping Giants, his first ever solo album that combines new tunes, demos and other rarities. Ellefson is also a part of Altitudes & Attitude, his project with Anthrax bassist Frank Bello, which released its first full-length album earlier this year.