Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Exodus guitarist Gary Holt discussed the band’s recently finished follow-up to 2021’s “Persona Non Grata” album with Robb Chavez of Robbs MetalWorks on November 16, 2025, at the San Antonio Fear Fest in San Antonio, Texas. This is what he stated, as reported by blabbermouth.net.
It’s fucking awesome. It’ll be out next March, I think — March 20 — and it’s fucking awesome. I mean, it’s so awesome. We’re so proud of this record.
Holt claims that during the most recent recording sessions, Exodus finished approximately two albums’ worth of material with the goal of releasing the second collection of songs when the first touring cycle is over.
80 percent of the follow-up [to Exodus’s next album] is done already. We just kept working. We never stopped. We were in the studio for two months. And we tend to record by… We all live together in a house, or sometimes we build a studio in a house, and it’s like heavy metal summer camp. But we like each other enough to live together still. A lot of bands — that’s a rarity. And so we write the whole process. When we started recording, we only had four songs done and a million ideas. And Lee [Altus, longtime Exodus guitarist] wrote a ton of stuff; he wrote four out of 10 songs on the new album.
Gary also discussed Rob Dukes, the singer from Exodus who took Steve “Zetro” Souza’s place in January.
It’s fucking been amazing. When you hear [Rob’s] vocals on this new record, you’re gonna shit your pants.
So… what can we expect from this?
The new album is so killer, dude. And everybody says that — I know that — but, dude, this album’s so good. Me and Tom Hunting call each other and [I tell him], when I listen to it, it makes me wanna cry, it’s so good. It’s that fucking good. We made something special.
What about it is so good?
It’s just the songs, dude. It’s all about the songs. I mean, it’s crushing, but it’s all anthems. And it’s so varied, this record. So many different aspects of Exodus are in there, from the blinding speed to the slowest, heaviest shit we’ve ever done. And Rob’s vocals are, like, at the top of the pyramid on this shit.
Gary provided an update on the state of the second batch of brand-new songs that Exodus had composed during the most recent sessions.
We still gotta record a little bit more to complete it. Our goal, we fell a little bit short. We have eight songs done. It was hard picking which ones go on this, ’cause I still, to this day, I have panic attacks, like, ‘I should have put that one on it. That song is so sick.’ But you’re trying to balance a record. And we just picked what we thought were the best ones for this album.
