US metal titans Iced Earth spoke to Hammer Editor Alexander Milas on the Metal Hammer Magazine Show on Team Rock Radio this week. Stopping off during their European tour as main support to Danish riffabillies Volbeat, guitarist and founder Jon Schaffer and vocalist Stu Block proclaimed their love of zombies and explained the creative process behind forthcoming new album Plagues Of Babylon, which hits the streets on January 7 via Century Media.

“Stu’s a zombie freak!” says guitarist and founder Jon Schaffer. “We talked about just doing a single track [about zombies] but I started mulling over it and once the wheels started turning I started thinking that we could really tell the zombie apocalypse story in a deeper, cooler way, and if it was applied to the Something Wicked universe then it can be really twisted and have a lot of real world stuff in there, with the sci-fi and horror, and make kind of a cocktail of something heavy and dark and theatrical. So that’s what the first six songs [on the album] are and the rest are stand alone tracks. It’s an emotional rollercoaster ride.”

Thought Iced Earth were getting back on track after their last album, but hearing the new track (Plagues of Babylon) and now this news is making me worried. The Something Wicked saga sucked, and they need to get away from it.