ANAAL NATHRAKH HAVE A NEW ALBUM COMING OUT?

I know I’m not the lone inhabitant of the MS Mansion greatly anticipating the next Anaal Nathrakh album; 2009’s In the Constellation of the Black Widow was a firey storm of intense, raging, non-corpsepaint black metal that topped several MS writers’ year-end lists and ended up as #2 in our Readers’ Poll. Despite having been around for over a decade and having released six prior albums, Anaal Nathrakh saw their profile greatly elevated by Black Widow, morphing them from underground faves to trumpeted victorious underdogs. The album even saw them garner a ton of visibility in the mainstream metal press.

So I was surprised to learn via a tip from MS reader Drew G. that Anaal Nathrakh have a new album coming out very soon… yet no one is talking about it.

The band announced via a MySpace blog in January that the album was “100% complete.” Various sources corroborate that Passion is the album’s title, but there’s much disagreement about the exact release date. Drew claims a release date of May 23rd via Candlelight Records, backed up by the oft-dubious Wikipedia. Metal-Archives.com also cites May 23rd as a release date, but neither site lists a source. A little Googling landed me on the site of Earsplit PR, the company that handles Candlelight’s press; an update posted there on February 3rd about several Candlelight bands lists May 17th as the release date for Passion.

I’m gonna go with the official source and bet that the album is coming out on Tuesday, May 17th. May 23rd being a Monday, it could just be that that’s the release date in Europe (where records generally are released on Mondays instead of Tuesdays). Either way, one thing is certain: new Anaal Nathrakh in May. Hooray!

Those attending the Scion Rock Fest in Pomona, CA on March 5th can catch Anaal Nathrakh live. Lucky ducks.

-VN