Death metal supergroup Sinsaenum, who formerly featured late Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison, have announced their return.
The band – composed of members of Kreator, Mayhem and more – will release their first studio album in seven years, In Devastation, via earMUSIC on August 8.
Guitarist and bandleader Frédéric Leclercq (Kreator, ex-Dragonforce) calls the album a tribute to both Jordison, who died in his sleep aged 46 in July 2021, and his own late father.
Lead single In Devastation is now streaming. Have a listen below.
Leclercq comments: “I was devastated, hence the title of this album, but we knew we had to carry on. This record is our tribute to my father, to Joey, and to anyone who’s ever had to find strength in their darkest moments.”
Sinsaenum return with all of their surviving members still in the fold: vocalists Attila Csihar (Mayhem) and Sean Zatorsky (Dååth), guitarists Leclercq and Stéphane Buriez (Loudblast), and bassist Heimoth (Seth). Replacing Jordison behind the kit is the ex-Slipknot sticksman’s previous tech, Andre Joyzi.
Sinsaenum call Joyzi “a trusted member of the band’s touring family: chosen not only for his skills, but for the emotional connection he brings to continuing Jordison’s legacy”.
Sinsaenum emerged in 2016 with their self-titled EP and released their full-length debut, Echoes Of The Tortured, later that year. The Ashes EP followed in 2017, with second album Repulsion For Humanity coming out in 2018.
In a 2016 Metal Hammer interview, Leclercq (then still part of Dragonforce) said that Sinsaenum let him make music more in line with the extreme metal he listened to growing up.
He told us: “It’s hard to explain because people see you in one dimension and think, ‘Oh, he’s the bassist for Dragonforce and nothing else,’ but I grew up listening to Morbid Angel, Pestilence, Bolt Thrower and I guess you can hear all that in Sinsaenum.”
He also said that a “catalyst” for the band starting was a conversation between himself and Jordison: “That’s how it started, just as with the others, we’re all friends – well, they are all my friends – and that’s what I wanted to do. People will think, ‘Oh, he’s just choosing these famous guys,’ but they just happened to be famous musicians, more importantly I had a real friendship with these guys.”
Jordison was dismissed from Slipknot in 2013 and later attributed his exit to the effects of neurological condition acute transverse myelitis, which impacted his playing. From 2013 to 2016, he drummed in Scar The Martyr. Following that band’s dissolution, he committed himself to a number of projects, including Sinsaenum and melodic metal outfit Vimic.
The cause of Jordison’s death in 2021 still hasn’t been disclosed.
Last month, the drummer’s family launched a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of posthumously putting out Vimic’s debut album, Open Your Omen. Its planned release was halted after producer Kato Khandwala died in a motorcycle accident in 2018.
