Avant-garde extreme metal outfit COBALT has completed work on its highly anticipated new album. The eerily-titled Gin will drop on March 17, 2009 via vanguard record label Profound Lore.

According to a press release, the follow up to the Colorado-based band’s critically acclaimed LP, Eater of Birds, Gin sees COBALT forge a markedly darker and rougher edged path, carving out a surreal outburst of intense sound that pushes American underground metal into new and uncharted realms. A veritable cornucopia of post-apocalyptic riffing, tribal battle rhythms and cadaverous atmosphere, the album builds upon a framework of subject matter that has both physically and emotionally affected its creators, touching on all too real themes of violence, death, despair and destruction. With its ill tempered spirit and depth of substance, Gin is an opus that comes off as the diseased, outcast cousin to output from weighty acts such as SWANS, NEUROSIS, KILLING JOKE and NACHTMYSTIUM (the band to whom the act is most commonly juxtaposed).

Recorded at Colorado’s Flatline Audio Studios with Producer Dave Otero, Gin is a coal black monolith of nihilism that seethes with intensity. COBALT members Erik Wunder (who doubles as Jarboe’s touring drummer) and Phil McSorley (currently deployed in Iraq) have dedicated Gin to the writings of literary masters Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson. The album once again features a guest appearance from Jarboe as the ex-SWANS chanteuse contributes otherworldly vocals to the twisted tracks 'A Clean, Well Lighted Place' and 'Pregnant Insect'.

The complete tracklisting for Gin is as follows: 'Gin', 'Dry Body', 'Arsonry', 'Throat', 'Stomach', 'A Clean, Well Lighted Place', 'Pregnant Insect', 'Two Thumbed Fist', 'The Old Man Who Lied His Entire Life', 'A Starved Horror'.

An advance listen as to what Gin holds in store is available now - 'Arsonry” has been posted online at this location.