D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N.

Schmier counted the celebration of 25 years of Destruction among the reasons for making a new album, adding that the band had never gone into a recording so well prepared. The sessions took place at Hansen Studios in Ribe, Denmark, in April and May 2008, with Jacob Hansen, who had mixed Thrash Anthems, as producer; the credits share the production between him and the band, and Hansen mixed and mastered the record as well. Schmier played bass and sang, Mike Sifringer played guitar and Marc Reign the drums, and every song is credited to Schmier and Sifringer. It is an album of visiting guitarists. Vinnie Moore of UFO plays solos on the title track, "D.evolution", and on "U.rge (The Greed of Gain)" Gary Holt of Exodus and Jeff Waters of Annihilator join in; as Schmier laid it out, Holt takes the first solo, Sifringer the second and Waters the long third. The credits add former Destruction guitarist Harry Wilkens and V.O. Pulver on "E.levator to Hell", Hansen on "L.ast Desperate Scream" and "O.dyssey of Frustration", and Flemming C. Lund on "O.dyssey of Frustration" too. Read down the running order and the first letters of the ten titles spell the album's name. The third song, printed as "V.icious Circle - The 7 Seven Deadly Sins", was the one given a video, and the enhanced part of the CD carries a making-of film of the clip. AFM Records released the album on 29 August 2008 as a standard CD, a digipak and a double LP, with a cover painted by the Hungarian artist Gyula Havancsák. It spent one week on the German albums chart, at No. 65, and a Japanese edition followed in September.