In a new interview with Shawn Ratches of Laughingmonkeymusic, guitarist Craig Locicero of reactivated San Francisco Bay Area metallers FORBIDDEN spoke about the progress of the recording sessions for the band’s long-awaited new studio album. FORBIDDEN‘s follow-up to 2010’s “Omega Wave” is being tracked at Sharkbite Studios in Oakland, California with engineer/co-producer Zack Ohren.

Craig said: “In the next week or so, the announcement’s gonna come out where our home is, what the (record) label is that we signed to. That all happened over the holidays, which never fucking happens. But that’s how seriously people were taking this. But I will say we just finished drums (for the album) this week. The next two weeks are tracking guitars, vocals, solos, all that bullshit. We have this (tour with VIO-LENCE and VENOM INC.) we’re doing (in early February) in South America. We’re gonna take a couple of weeks break, rehearse, go down there, then we immediately head back, probably hit up a couple of more solos, couple of more vocals, and we’ll start mixing as that period goes on.”

As for a possible release date for the new FORBIDDEN album, Craig said: “(It will be) second quarter (of 2026), for sure. Because what I’ve learned — at one point I was signed by American. I did (a MANMADE GOD) album with (executive producer) Rick Rubin, and it took forever to come out. But there was a big upheaval in labels. And they offered us a chance to push the album back to do proper promotion. We were, like, ‘No. We want it out when you said it was gonna come out.’ And that fucked us as fucking bad as anything I’ve ever done in my life. And I know now that you need to listen to your people that are working the record. As long as they need, as much work as they need to do, as much press as we need to do, we’ll let ’em do their jobs, ’cause there’s a lot riding on this for a lot of people and not just us.”