Kelly Shaefer is doing it again. With his new band TILL THE DIRT and their debut album Outside The Spiral, the legendary Floridian death metal revolutionary is set to inject a much-needed dose of fresh blood into this aging, saturated and self-referential thing that the style has morphed into over the decades. 

Everything in the genre of death metal basically rests on two pillars: extreme musical force and insane technicality – or in short, variations of more of the same that satisfies die-hard followers of this scene, but offers a rather limited artistic range. Now, Kelly and his co-conspirators in and around TILL THE DIRT have put all the fun back into extreme music by deliberately straying from the very formula that the Floridian guitarist unleashed onto the world as one of its leading proponents. One of the privileges of being a living legend is the freedom to do whatever you like without the need to prove anything to anybody. And this is exactly what happens on Outside The Spiral. Never shy in denying his death metal roots, Shaefer takes the liberty to amalgamate any musical influence into his songs as long as they fit. Don’t be surprised to find grunge, black metal, jazz, rock, dark wave, a dash of classic pop, and many other stylistic colors fused into tracks that range from relaxed malice to vitriolic face-ripping. 

A fly on the wall would have witnessed Kelly frantically composing night after night, only putting his guitar down to contact friends around the globe and sending them demos looking for feedback to either affirm his gut - feeling that his new material was going into interesting places or to put a stop to this fountain of creativity. Yet, one by one his friends were at least as excited about those tracks as the composer. A new metal juggernaut had started to roll and there was no stopping. Kelly recruited enlisted young musicians full of raw energy and passion to the cause of TILL THE DIRT and most importantly one of his first listeners offered his invaluable services: Scott Burns. 

There is hardly a way to overstress the importance that this acclaimed producer and his place of work, the famous Morrisound Studios had in the formation and creation of American death metal with Tampa, Florida long its undisputed capital. With ATHEIST, DEATH, OBITUARY, CANNIBAL CORPSE, CYNIC, MALEVOLENT CREATION, SUFFOCATION, and many more, his production credits read like a who is who of the death metal scene's A-listers. There can be no doubt that Scott Burns shaped the early sound of this genre like no other producer and those albums remain the points of reference until today. 

Let's put theory into practice. Now that Outside The Spiral has arrived, crank up the volume and let TILL THE DIRT take you on a surprise-filled tour de force that will redefine the extreme metal genre in at least as many ways as ATHEIST did more than 30 years ago. Don't take our word for it, trust your ears!