In a new video uploaded to his Zetro’s Toxic Vault YouTube channel, EXODUS frontman Steve “Zetro” Souza offered an update on the songwriting sessions for the band’s follow-up to 2021’s “Persona Non Grata” album. He said: “Tentatively, new EXODUS record next year. Probably recording March, April-ish. Speaking to Gary [Holt, EXODUS guitarist and main songwriter]… You can’t hammer it in stone because creative — the writing has to go how the writing goes; you can’t force it. Probably, March, April we’ll start recording, and I’d say, September you’ll see a new record; you’ll get a new record by September.

“When we’re at the festivals next year, and we have some lined up — I think we’re at Wacken in Germany… We’re at a few of ’em next year anyway. Alcatraz in Belgium. The record will be out the next month,” he continued. “But we will be playing… I was told that we’re gonna go ahead and play some tracks from it before it’s released. We’ve never done that before. So that will be a different thing that we’re gonna do.

“We are with Napalm Records now, and we are really excited to be with Napalm Records,” Zetro added. “We wanna get them a record. We signed the deal at the end of 2022… and we’re with them now and we want to give them their record. So, I know Gary‘s writing right now.”

EXODUS‘s fall 2023 tour with FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY, DARKEST HOUR and UNDEATH will kick off on November 15 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and conclude on December 10 in New Kensington, Pennsylvania.

During a question-and-answer session on July 27 at Diablo Guitars in Renton, Washington, where he was holding a guitar clinic, Holt was asked about EXODUS‘s recent switch from Nuclear Blast Records to Napalm Records. He responded: “It’s just one of those things. We were with Nuclear Blast for a long time — since 2003 — but sometimes, you know, change is good. There was a ton of change at Nuclear Blast and I kind of knew one person there anymore and I used to know everybody. And this might be my last record deal. I’m 59 years old, so I wanted to make sure it was right. I hope so. But I’m pretty confident. They’re all 100 percent behind this band.”

This past May, EXODUS canceled its previously announced summer 2023 European tour so that Holt could “tend to his family” after his brother was hospitalized in Italy.

Holt joined EXODUS in 1981, shortly after the band’s formation, and has been the group’s main songwriter ever since. Holt has performed on every EXODUS album, and is considered highly influential in the world of thrash metal.

Holt began filling in for SLAYER guitarist Jeff Hanneman at live shows in 2011, and became the band’s full-time co-guitarist as of 2013, while remaining a member of EXODUS. Holt played on SLAYER‘s final album, “Repentless”, which came out in 2015.

“Persona Non Grata” came out in November 2021 via Nuclear Blast Records. The LP was recorded at a studio in Lake Almanor, California and was engineered by Steve Lagudi and EXODUS. It was produced by EXODUS and was mixed by Andy Sneap. For the third time in the band’s history, they returned to Swedish artist Pär Olofsson to create the album artwork.

“Persona Non Grata” was the follow-up to 2014’s “Blood In Blood Out”, which was the San Francisco Bay Area thrashers’ first release since the departure of the group’s lead singer of nine years, Rob Dukes, and the return of Souza, who previously fronted EXODUS from 1986 to 1993 and from 2002 to 2004.