Muhammed Suiçmez, the German-Turkish guitarist and sole permanent member of technical death metal institution NECROPHAGIST, has provided the most concrete and optimistic update on the status of the long-awaited follow-up to their 2004 album "Epitaph" in a brief but significant interview with the YouTube channel "Death Metal Archaeology." Asked directly about the album's progress, Suiçmez stated plainly: "The new album is 90% done. I know people have heard things like this before. But this time it is different. This time it is real."
"Epitaph" — NECROPHAGIST's second and most recent studio album — is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most technically demanding albums in death metal history, a record of astonishing compositional complexity, guitar virtuosity, and sheer musical intelligence that has influenced an entire generation of technical death metal musicians. The two decades since its release without a follow-up have made the as-yet-untitled third album one of the most anticipated records in extreme metal, with fans and journalists asking about its progress at virtually every public appearance Suiçmez has made.
In the interview, Suiçmez also confirmed that the new material is "significantly more complex" than "Epitaph" — a statement that will simultaneously thrill and terrify fans familiar with the original's already nearly impossible guitar passages. He declined to confirm a label deal, release timeline, or the identity of the musicians who will record the album with him, saying only that "when it is ready, you will know." The brief but definitive nature of the update has generated enormous excitement in the technical death metal community, with many considering the prospect of a new NECROPHAGIST album the single most anticipated event in the genre.