In a new interview with Altars Of Metal, DARK ANGEL drummer Gene Hoglan spoke about the reunited California thrash metal pioneers’ upcoming first new album in 34 years, “Extinction Level Event”, which is due later in 2025 via Reversed Records. Asked what his and his bandmates’ expectations are for the follow-up to 1991’s “Time Does Not Heal”, Gene said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Well, our expectations — I always have pretty high expectations. What I suppose I expect is just for people to listen to the record, just check it out. I have no expectations of whether people are gonna like it or dislike it. I love it. I think it’s awesome, man. I’m stoked to be a part of it. I’m stoked to be a part of the writing of it. I’m stoked for this to be a DARK ANGEL album. I’m stoked for this being an album being released right now in this state of metal. I’m ready to bring it to everybody. And like I say, if people like it, cool. If they don’t like it, whatever. Check it out. That’s the only thing I ask of anybody. Check the whole record out. I think the album is, like 48 minutes long. Everybody has 48 minutes to make… I have a feeling you can give each song the ten-second test and you’ll be, like, ‘Oh, yeah.’ Give the entire album a four-minute — test each song for 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds. You’re gonna be into it.
“This is written for me, for us, for DARK ANGEL, but we’re all pretty avid metal fans and we all pretty much know what’s a kick-ass metal approach, and I think we definitely have that with this record,” Hoglan continued. “I’m really excited about all aspects of this album, and I just cannot wait for people to hear it. I’m stoked for this. So I have zero trepidation whatsoever. And I never do. I never [think], ‘Oh, I wonder if people are gonna like our music or like stuff I do.’ I never have that. So here it is, right in your face. I’m excited for everybody to hear it, and I’m excited for anybody’s opinion on it. Like I say, good, bad, whatever. Just check it out, give it that chance, and I’m really confident. So there you go. That’s where I stand.”
Asked “how much” of late DARK ANGEL guitarist Jim Durkin fans are going to hear on “Extinction Level Event” as far as the songwriting is concerned, Hoglan said: “The title track, ‘Extinction Level Event’, that is absolutely Jim‘s song from top to bottom. I wrote the lyrics in the vocals for it, but musically that’s Jim. And I know we have another song where Jim was able to… Jim got together with Eric [Meyer, DARK ANGEL guitarist] and they wrote some stuff. Jim has a couple of songs that are going on to this record. And this song, ‘Extinction Level Event’, that’s one that Jim and I have worked on a little bit together.
“When Jim came to me after we had done a few… We had done a number of rehearsals and maybe we had played a show or two, back in 2014 when we got back together,” Gene continued. “Jim took me aside one time when I was at his place or something like that, and he was, like, ‘I have a song that I wrote, and I wrote it for DARK ANGEL. I wrote it for anything, if we were ever to record anything ever again, or if we were able to get back together and play some more shows. And here it is.’ And it happened to be this song, ‘Extinction Level Event’. It had a different title at the time, and like I say, it was just an instrumental, but I was blown away by it. I thought it was so DARK ANGEL. I thought it was so Jim Durkin, that it has both stamps all over it. And so I just got super excited. And I’m pretty sure at whatever my next interview was later that week, ’cause I was, like, ‘Jim, we’re gonna write new songs. Let’s write all this stuff.’ And I remember turning over a disc of all the material that we had written back in 1991 and in ’92 for what was going to be the next DARK ANGEL album, which was gonna be called ‘Atrocity Exhibition’. I had all that in just demo form. I had it on the CD, and I handed it over to Jim, and Jim was, like, This is our next album. Holy crap. We’ve got an entire album written already. Every song on here, let’s release these.’ And I was, like, ‘That’s really cool and all that. That’s good to know. However, I love what you are writing right now, Jim. What you just brought to the table here is really exciting to me. And what I know that I can bring to the table. These songs [for what was supposed to be ‘Atrocity Exhibition’], at this time, were 20, 22 years old at that time, I was, like, ‘That’s good that we have that in the can somewhere, if we need to pull some riffs out, pull a song out. I say let’s start writing together and see where that goes.’ And time permitting, Jim and I got together as much as we both could, ’cause we were both pretty busy dudes and we got together as much as we could. And when I was reaching out to Jim, when I knew that I was gonna have some time available to start recording… ‘The pandemic’s over. We can get back together and start getting all of our ideas together,’ that’s when Jim‘s communication, he kind of went AWOL a little bit, MIA — missing in action. And we were used to that from Jim. We were used to that because there are many times when Jim would disappear from the text threads and the e-mail threads and all. He would disappear for months at a time, and we never worried about it. But I was having a hard time getting a hold of Jim just to say, ‘Hey, man, I’ll come up to L.A.,’ ’cause I live in San Diego two, three hours away from Jim. But I was going up there as much as I could. When I was reaching out to Jim saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got a big block of time available. Let’s get together and solidify all these ideas,’ Jim was rather challenging to get ahold of. We did not know at that time what he was going through, health-wise. But the fact that he had gone missing, I guess, from our communication, like I said, that wasn’t a big surprise. It wasn’t anything alarming at that point. So I just thought, ‘Well, let’s just keep on moving forward.’ And I’m constantly reaching out to Jim, like, ‘Hey, man, I’ve got this song.’ I just kept working on material. Laura Christine, our new guitarist, who was Jim‘s selection to replace him, she’d hear me writing and she would toss in a riff here and there. And I guess, other than my own writing style, there’s a lot of Jim Durkin on here and there’s also a lot of Laura Christine on this record, because Jim was my first guitar hero. I learned how to play guitar by jamming with Jim so much when I was really, really young, when I was still a teenager. And since Laura Christine and I have worked together so much over the last 15, 16 years, her style I’ve absorbed quite a bit. And that stands to reason.
“In DARK ANGEL‘s evolution, we’ve never had two albums sound the same,” Hoglan added. “‘Darkness Descends’ did not sound like ‘We Have Arrived’, and ‘Leave Scars’ did not sound like ‘Darkness Descends’, and so on. We didn’t want it to sound — because that’s what everybody was asking me, like, ‘Is it gonna sound like ‘Darkness Descends’?’ ‘Is it gonna sound like ‘Time Does Not Heal’ or ‘We Have Arrived’?’ What’s it gonna sound like? And I’m just, like, it’s gonna sound like DARK ANGEL here and today. So we took the approach of, what if DARK ANGEL never took a hiatus? What if we just kept writing songs, writing albums, putting out records? Where would we be at right now? But, yeah, that was how that went. We just [approached it as], what would we sound like today if we wrote music, like we never stopped writing music, what would our music sound like these days currently? And that’s why I’m really stoked. It’s, like, no matter what, it might not sound just like ‘Darkness Descends’ or ‘Time Does Not Heal’ or anything, but it definitely sounds like DARK ANGEL. We’re channeling a lot of the old DARK ANGEL energy and stuff like that. So there’s a lot of that. And I think people are gonna hear it and they’re gonna go, ‘Yeah, I definitely hear that it’s DARK ANGEL. No doubt of that.’ So that’s pretty good.”
Asked what the feedback has been so far to the first two singles he and his DARK ANGEL bandmates have released, “Circular Firing Squad” and the “Extinction Level Event” title track, Gene said: “Well, I’ve gotta admit I don’t pay attention to anything from anybody. I’m never online. I do not go online, so I get reports from friends. All I know is my friends text me and they go, ‘We love the new songs.’ When we released the album cover, [they told me], ‘Hey, man, great album cover. We love the artwork.’ My management, the manager or whoever, or anybody else in the band, if they pay attention to what the world says, then they do. But I hear things from those who pay attention to that sort of thing, and I only hear the good. If the world is saying, ‘Oh, boo to DARK ANGEL,’ I never hear it, because I’m sitting here going, ‘Yay, DARK ANGEL.’ So it never gets to me.
“I’ve never done one thing ever in my career that has paid attention to what the outside world thinks. That’s how I’m able to maintain a real good tunnel vision to where it’s, like, the entire world could be telling me, ‘This is not the good way to go,’ but I’ll never know until I try it myself and win or fail at it, because I don’t listen to anything but this thing right here [points to his heart]. That’s the only thing I listen to. So there you go. But I think people are digging it. And if they’re not, hey, man — that’s why I say, give the entire album a chance. Give it a shot. Listen to it. And if you don’t like it after listening to the record, then hey, that’s my fault. Then I will take full responsibility for that. But I have a feeling people are gonna be going, like, ‘God, Lord almighty. This album’s killer.’ That’s the way I feel about it. So there you go.”
The “Extinction Level Event” title track was written by Durkin long before he suffered from severe liver disease, and, to the surprise of everyone, passed away on March 8, 2023 at the age of 58. It was recorded and mixed at the Armoury Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, executive produced by Hoglan, produced and engineered by Rob Shallcross and mixed by Mike Fraser.
An original member of DARK ANGEL, Durkin played on the band’s first three albums — 1985’s “We Have Arrived”, 1986’s “Darkness Descends” and 1989’s “Leave Scars” — before departing the group in 1989. He was part of DARK ANGEL‘s lineup when the band reformed in 2013, and had been playing with them, on and off, ever since.
Prior to his death, Durkin had been sitting out some of DARK ANGEL‘s gigs. He was replaced at the shows by Hoglan‘s wife Laura Christine, who has since joined DARK ANGEL as a permanent member.
The “Extinction Level Event” artwork and layout was designed by Cain Gillis, with concepts by Hoglan.
DARK ANGEL released two albums with Don Doty on vocals — the aforementioned “We Have Arrived” and “Darkness Descends” — before he exited the group and was replaced by Ron Rinehart (after a brief stint with Jim Drabos in 1987). The band issued two more studio LPs — “Leave Scars” and “Time Does Not Heal” — before calling it quits in 1992.
