Day of Reckoning

Marc Reign left Destruction in 2010. The band's statement put it down to personal and musical differences brought on by the strain of touring, and he went off to concentrate on his rock project Volcano. His successor, Vaaver, came from Indukti and had been in Unsun; a Polish-Canadian, he had studied music at McGill University in Montreal. He had already played that summer's festivals with the band before his arrival was announced in November, and Day of Reckoning is his first album with them. Schmier claimed that no earlier Destruction record had matched its speed, its precision or its double-bass and fill work. The work was split between Germany and Denmark. According to the booklet credits, Martin Buchwalter engineered the drums and recorded all the vocals and the additional guitars at Gernhart Studio in Germany, while Jacob Hansen mixed and mastered the album at Hansen Studios in Ribe. All eleven songs are credited to Schmier and Mike Sifringer, and in the label's notes Schmier said they had aimed for a pure, fresh sound. Ol Drake of Evile, who had stood in for Sifringer the year before when the guitarist broke two fingers on his left hand, was invited to add leads, and Olof Mörck, guitarist of Amaranthe, Dragonland and Nightrage, recorded a solo on "Devil's Advocate". The album marked the band's return to Nuclear Blast, the label behind All Hell Breaks Loose, The Antichrist and Metal Discharge. Its cover leaves the familiar butcher off the front in favour of the last man on earth facing the end of the world, a story carried on through the booklet in art by the Hungarian painter Gyula Havancsák. The first limited pressing has no band logo on the booklet, while the vinyl and the second CD pressing carry it in red. Released in Europe on 18 February 2011 and in North America on 8 March, it spent one week on the German albums chart at No. 95; in the United States it sold around 800 copies in its first week and entered the Heatseekers chart at No. 58.