Obituary's Donald Tardy Says New Album is Complete

Obituary drummer Donald Tardy recently told Finland's Chaoszine the band has finished their new studio album, but it's far from being released. You can watch the full interview below.

In the interview, Tardy says the band won't release the album until the pandemic settles down and allows Europe to open back up so the band can tour there. "The only thing that albums are good for now —and some people won't agree with this, especially fans— is that it's there to get people talking about the band so when we get ready to go tour, we can make a living," Tardy explains (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). "Because nobody —and I don't mean nobody as in zero percent— but the percentage of people actually walking to a Best Buy or walking to a store and physically buying one of my albums compared to 18 years ago, as you can imagine, is nil. So we have to wait for the prime opportunity to release this thing so everybody wants to go and get it. And the prime opportunity is when Europe is open, when America is open, we can release it and we can be in Europe and we can go bust our asses and hope that people go and buy the new album."

He also noted that even though fans can listen to the album on streaming services like Spotify, it doesn't do the band any good because they don't get royalties from those companies.

"The reality is we haven't been to Europe in four years and they're deserving of it as well," he continues. "So we're gonna wait so all of us around the whole world can celebrate this album with us properly where we can go do a world tour and promote it. So, you guys are gonna have to have patience. We're gonna wait until Europe opens up."

As for the musical direction of the album itself, Tardy assures fans it "fucking awesome."

"It is Obituary, absolutely 100 percent, meat and potatoes, but with Ken [Andrews]'s influence and him being able to write a few songs with me on this one, he brings a much more old-school thrash metal feel."

Although it's unclear when Obituary will release their album, the band will head out on the RedNeck Run III with Gruesome and 200 Stab Wounds in March. You can check out all the tour dates and grab tickets here.