METAL CHURCH have announced their thirteenth studio album, "Dead To Rights," due April 10 via Rat Pak Records. The album marks the first release from the band's dramatically revamped lineup featuring founding guitarist and mastermind Kurdt Vanderhoof alongside bass icon David Ellefson, formerly of MEGADETH, powerhouse drummer Ken Mary, and vocalist Brian Allen of VICIOUS RUMORS fame.
The new formation came together organically after the passing of beloved frontman Mike Howe in 2021, which left the band's future in serious doubt. Vanderhoof, who has steered METAL CHURCH through numerous lineup changes since forming the group in 1980, found renewed creative energy when Ellefson reached out about a potential collaboration. The two veteran musicians discovered an immediate chemistry that sparked intensive songwriting sessions throughout late 2024 and early 2025.
Produced by Vanderhoof himself and mixed by veteran engineer Chris "Zeuss" Harris — whose credits include work with HATEBREED, CROWBAR, and MUNICIPAL WASTE — the album began taking shape around the initial single "F.A.F.O." That blistering track immediately energized the new formation, with Allen's powerful vocal delivery and Ellefson's thunderous bass work providing the foundation for what Vanderhoof describes as the heaviest METAL CHURCH material in years. The creative momentum was so strong that the band wrote and recorded an entire album in a matter of months.
"Dead To Rights" arrives at a pivotal moment for the band. METAL CHURCH have always been respected as one of the great underrated acts in American power metal, and the combination of Vanderhoof's razor-sharp riffing with Ellefson's pedigree and Allen's soaring vocals suggests this latest incarnation may finally bring them the wider recognition they have long deserved.