DEVOLVED: First Demo Track Featuring New Vocalist, Guitarist Posted Online

A demo version of "Collateral Damage", a brand new song from Australian/Los Angeles tech-metal masters DEVOLVED, can be streamed using the ReverbNation TuneWidget below. The track will be featured on the band's next album, to be released in 2012. All music was written and performed by John Sankey and Mark Hawkins, with lyrics and arrangement by John Sankey. The vocals were performed by DEVOLVED's new lead singer, Mark Haggblad (UNVEIL THE STRENGTH),following the recent departure of Kyle Zemanek (DEADSETT).

Sankey previously stated about DEVOLVED's new material, "After the recording of the last DEVOLVED album, 'Oblivion', guitarist Brett Noordin took some time off back in our homeland of Australia and will not be returning to Los Angeles to continue as part of DEVOLVED. . . I have since been working on brand new DEVOLVED material with guitarist Mark Hawkins from Florida-based band ROBOTS PULLING LEVERS. Mark is an exceptional guitar player who definitely enables us to take the band's sound far beyond anything we have done before. He and I already have a number of new tracks completed which are easily the most intense and technically proficient DEVOLVED material to date.

"My vision for the next album is to make it as brutal as possible and return to a more death metal-orientated sound.

"The songwriting process for DEVOLVED has always been based around drum patterns, which I write first, then we build guitars and vocals around the drum arrangement.

"I had a lot of drum parts written for the 'Oblivion' sessions that were not used because I felt they were too extreme to fit with the concept and style of that album.

"We really wanted to expand the band's sound on 'Oblivion' and experiment with new ideas, which we hadn't yet incorporated on our previous CDs.

"I'm extremely proud of 'Oblivion' — it is a very diverse album while still being very dark and heavy — but this time around I want to focus more on making a far more brutal and in-your-face album, and working with Mark has definitely allowed me to do that!"

"Oblivion" was released on May 24 via Unique Leader Records.

John Sankey is the founding member of DEVOLVED and was also the original drummer for DIVINE HERESY but was forced to leave the position due to visa issues. He and DIVINE HERESY guitarist Dino Cazares co-wrote tracks on the band's debut album, "Bleed The Fifth". Sankey also collaborated with Cazares on the song "Designing The Enemy", which appears on the latest FEAR FACTORY release, "Mechanize", and the song "No Mas Control", recorded with ILL NIÑO vocalist Cristian Machado for the "Roadrunner All-Stars" album.