[UPDATED] EXCLUSIVE: HE IS LEGEND IN STUDIO (SOON), TO TOUR THIS YEAR, ALBUM INFO!

1:30 PM ET HUGE UPDATE after the jump! Line-up news! First tour dates! Album info!

It was only 16 months ago that we started to fear the worst about Wilmington, North Carolina awesomecore quartet He Is Legend, authors of the brain-hammering super-classic 2009 album It Hates You. At that point, they were well into a second year of the lengthy hiatus (except for one hometown show at the end of 2010) that followed a totally not-lengthy promo cycle for Hates, but HiL management talked us down from total despair with forecasts of an eventual return.

And boom in January, He Is Legend announced a string of shows and vows for a 2012 creation and release of the follow-up to Hates. And now it gets even better: On Friday, official word reached MetalSucks that He Is Legend is currently in the studio (which was rumored as early as October) where “things are going very well,” and a tour is being assembled for “late Fall/early Winter.”

We expect more info soon so watch for updates. But for now: NEW HE IS LEGEND RECORD SOON FUCK YEAH x BONERZ. Holy cheesestix it’s like dude, what great fortune have we to be enjoying monster new hook-packed mega-albums from Torche and now Baroness, and yet He Is Legend is still to come. Now I wonder if it’d be helpful for fans to tirelessly inter-nag their local venues to book HiL? Does that work?

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UPDATE 1:30 PM ET It’s not quite accurate to state that He Is Legend is in the studio; a source close to the band indicates that they are “currently writing material and doing pre-production work. They will be entering Warrior Sound studios in Chapel Hill, North Carolina by mid-September.”

Also, we can report that He Is Legend is again a five-piece: “Guitarist Worth Weaver has returned to the band and will be co-engineering the album.”

Also also, we can hail the return of It Hates You producers Al Jacobs and Mitchell Marlowe (guitarist of Filter). The as-yet untitled fourth album is slated for “a late Fall/early Winter release date, so December or January.” SWEET.

We also got some rad details on that Fall-Winter tour! An email from tour booker Ryan Ingerick of Sick Heretic Entertainment, our very awesome source for all above info, states that “the tour looks to be running from New England down the East Coast to Atlanta and then across the South into Texas” and based on interest from promoters may stretch to “two plus weeks” in addition to some weekend jaunts. Dates so far include August 24 in Asheville NC, August 25 in Richmond VA, September 28 in Dayton OH, and two more dates on that following weekend.

Now go internet the HiL guys here and here! It’s a celebration brahz!

-ADF