Born to Perish

To replace Vaaver behind the kit, Destruction took on Randy Black, known from Annihilator and Primal Fear, first on probation through a long run of shows and then officially in July 2018; his debut as a full member was Wacken Open Air on 3 August. Black had already stood in for Vaaver years earlier on an American tour with Sepultura, when Vaaver became a father again. On 28 February 2019 the band announced a second guitarist, Damir Eskić, a Swiss player of Bosnian descent who works as a guitar teacher, studied with Tommy Vetterli of Coroner and had played three solos on the 2016 album Under Attack. Schmier said the new album had been written and recorded for two guitars from the start; the band had last had two guitarists in the late 1980s and through much of the 1990s. The album was recorded in January and February 2019 with V.O. Pulver at Little Creek Studios in Switzerland. The band and Pulver share the production credit, and Pulver also mixed and mastered it at Little Creek. Schmier put the whole process, from writing through recording to mixing, at three months, and said the new members brought more shredding lead guitar with them. Black has said he also took part in the songwriting, and Pulver plays the second guitar solo on "Fatal Flight 17". The cover is by the Hungarian artist Gyula Havancsák, who had made earlier Destruction covers; this time he worked in ink rather than paint. Schmier called the record the return of a four-piece Destruction. Nuclear Blast released the album on 9 August 2019. The album proper holds ten songs; the limited digipak adds Tygers of Pan Tang's "Hellbound" as an eleventh, and the Japanese edition from Ward Records (GQCS-90736), out the same day, adds instead Riot's "Fire Down Under" as a bonus track exclusive to Japan. The album spent one week on the German albums chart, at 26. It was also the last studio album with founding guitarist Mike Sifringer, who left the band in 2021.