Pro-Rainforest Supergroup Savage Lands Announce Their Debut Album Army of the Trees

For the past year, the band Savage Lands has been proving that metal may be about death and destruction, but not of trees. The band, founded by Megadeth drummer Dirk Verbeuren and and also featuring Sylvain Dermercastel, is an outgrowth of Verbeuren’s 501(c)3 non-profit of the same name that was established in 2022 to raise money for reforestation efforts. With only a handful of singles released so far, they’ve done a lot of good, having used the proceeds from their debut single “The Last Howl” to save a chunk of rainforest in Costa Rica, and having scored a €1,000,000 donation from Hellfest to contribute to their efforts. Now the project is stepping up from singles to their first full-length album, which is coming out in February.

The band’s debut will be called Army of the Trees, which immediately evokes Lord of the Rings imagery from that scene where the ents join the battle against Sauron. Due out on February 15, 2025 on Season of Mist, the upcoming record features a host of guest appearances including Alissa White-Gluz of Arch Enemy, Andreas Kisser of Sepultura, John Tardy and Kenny Andrews of Obituary, and Maria Franz and Kai Uwe Faust of Heilung just to name a few.

Alongside the announcement of the album, the band released the title track as a single, which features a guest appearance from vocalist Julian Truchan of French deathgrind band Benighted. The video features the band playing the song superimposed over images of dead and burning trees. It’s like a snuff film for vegetation.

Pre-orders of Army of the Trees are already up at Season of Mist, with the vinyl copies being on BioVinyl, a non-fossil record material that’s better for the environment. The Season of Mist site promises that 100% of royalties for the album go to support reforestation.