Speaking about whether fans can expect to hear the traditional MEGADETH sound on the upcoming LP or if there will be some surprises, Ellefson said: “There’s a saying, you have your whole life to write your first record, and then you have about a year to write your second one. And once you put the first one out, the die is cast — now there is sort of a sound that people expect when they hear the next record. And if album two is too much of a departure, people go, ‘Eh, this is kind of weird. I like the first one better.’ And I think with MEGADETH, this is album sixteen, so we have a lot of experience doing this. We’ve been able to expand and try a lot of different things.”

Ellefson added: “Look, there’s been some missteps — of course — but you have to also, in our opinion, be bold and be adventurous and try some new things. If you just do what you always did, it’s, like, why put out another album? Everybody can just go buy the previous one. You’re dealing with the creative. Yeah, there’s business and there’s marketing and all this stuff. But [it’s called the] music business. We’re dealing with music; the business always comes after the music. So I think for us, what we find is that when we’re in a room and we’re playing something, and if we’re all going, ‘Yeah, that’s freaking awesome,’ if we like it, chances are you’re all gonna like it.”

The early sessions for MEGADETH‘s new LP took place last year with co-producer Chris Rakestraw, who previously worked on “Dystopia”.

MEGADETH‘s new effort will be the first to feature Verbeuren (ex-SOILWORK), who joined the band almost four years ago.