Thrash metal pioneers Exodus recently unleashed “3111,” a crushing new track pulled from their latest studio album, Goliath. However, when the band attempted to drop the accompanying music video, they immediately hit a massive roadblock with YouTube due to the clip’s violent visual themes.
During a recent appearance on Full Metal Jackie‘s weekend radio show, guitarist Gary Holt explained his intense frustration with the tech giant’s double standards. He noted that much of the disturbing research and footage used to create the video actually originated from YouTube itself.
The song, co-written musically by guitarist Lee Altus, features lyrics penned by Gary Holt and frontman Rob Dukes that tackle the horrific nar*o ki**ings in Juarez, Mexico.
“Our director, Jim Louveau, he said from the beginning, ‘I think this might get flagged by YouTube.’ You know, all right,” Gary Holt explained (via Loudwire). “Most of this stuff came from YouTube, which are parent companies and it’s okay to host these photos and stuff on your websites, but not with us on your same website. That makes no sense. Once again, I’m arguing with myself ’cause I don’t have anyone there to argue with. But YouTube flagged it and they flagged it again and flagged it to the point that in the final warning they threatened to take away our channel entirely.”
Faced with the very real threat of losing their entire channel, the group was forced to upload a heavily edited, censored version to the platform.
“Like ‘We’ll delete you.’ We don’t want that. So we did an edited version. The original version’s on a X account and because they banned it, which it wasn’t so bad, you know, I decided to make one that was really bad. So we found some really, really, truly horrific photos and stuff. Once again, check out exodus3111.com to see that version of the video.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the legendary riff-writer highlighted another standout track from Goliath called “The Changing Me.” The song features a massive guest vocal appearance from Hypocrisy mastermind Peter Tägtgren.
“That’s another one of Lee‘s songs and it was Lee‘s vision all along. Peter‘s one of our best friends since we first toured together I think back in 2006 and I did a solo on a Hypocrisy song, the song ‘Scrutinized,’ way back when and he did some background vocals on ‘Exhibit B‘ on The Sun Is My Destroyer.”
“Lee knew what he wanted. It was his vision. He wanted these clean vocals on the chorus, and Peter sent back several tracks. It’s just lush and beautiful. And Tom Hunting also contributed cleans. And Peter and Rob are having the screaming fest at the end and that was entirely Lee‘s vision. It’s one of my favorite songs. It’s so sick. And Peter just put it over the top, made it just rad.”
Finally, Holt touched on the band’s incredibly productive recording sessions. Because the group tracked 18 songs in total, they actually have a massive head start on their next studio album.
“Well we recorded 18 songs. We came two songs shy of our stated goal of finishing the follow-up so that we could have a break,” he revealed.
“It was a hard decision to pick the songs for this album. The other ones, they’re not throwaways. I have full-on anxiety attacks about which songs we chose because some of my favorite stuff is on this next album.”
Taking complete creative control, Exodus produced the new album themselves. To dial in the crushing sound, the band enlisted Mark Lewis (known for his work with Whitechapel, Nile, and Undeath) to handle mixing and mastering duties. The final result strikes a perfect balance between modern precision and the raw, aggressive intensity that has defined the group since their groundbreaking 1985 debut, Bonded By Blood.
Celebrating the release across their social media platforms today, the band shared a statement detailing the deeply collaborative nature of the writing process and their immense pride in the finished product.
“Are we excited for this record? That’s an understatement. We put everything we had into this record (and it’s 80 percent complete follow up, but we’ll save that conversation for another day!) and it’s one of our proudest accomplishments. Wildly collaborative, the most band centric album to date with four songs written by Lee, lyrics by Gary, Rob, Lee and Tom, and just killer all the way around. The time to let the monster loose is coming! Bow Down!”
Goliath Official Tracklist:
- “3111”
- “Hostis Humani Generis”
- “The Changing Me” (feat. Peter Tägtgren)
- “Promise You This”
- “Goliath” (feat. Katie Jacoby)
- “Beyond The Event Horizon”
- “2 Minutes Hate”
- “Violence Works”
- “Summon Of The God Unknown”
- “The Dirtiest Of The Dozen”
