As previously reported, Poland's BEHEMOTH are officially confirmed for the USA Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival tour, which is scheduled to kick off July 10th in Sacramento, CA. Acts on the bill include: Hot Topic Stage - WHITECHAPEL, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, JOB FOR A COWBOY, BEHEMOTH and CANNIBAL CORPSE; Jägermeister Stage - GOD FORBID, ALL THAT REMAINS and TRIVIUM; Main Stage - BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE, SLAYER and MARILYN MANSON.

Behemoth will also play with Slayer on their 3-week pre-Mayhem Festival tour. That tour will include a dates in "B-markets" - smaller cities

which the Mayhem Festival will not reach. We will update you with the dates and more information real soon.

Here's what Nergal said about Behemoth being part of the USA Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival tour: "I cannot find words to express the enthusiasm that literally blows us up! It’s a great ennoblement to be accompanied by Slayer and Marilyn Manson. This is the best reward that we could ever get after a dozen of years of hard work and wandering on various venues all over the world. I can promise that Behemoth will be at it’s best. We will play a cross-sectional set with some new material included!”

Dates include:

July

10 - Sacramento, CA
11 - San Francisco, CA
12 - San Bernardino, CA
14 - Seattle, WA
17 - Phoenix, AZ
18 - Albuquerque, NM
19 - Denver, CO
21 - Kansas City
22 - St. Louis, MO
24 - Atlanta, GA
25 - Indianapolis, IN
26 - Chicago, IL
28 - Toronto, ON
29 - Scranton, PA
31 - Cleveland, OH

August

1 - Pittsburgh, PA
2 - Detroit, MI
4 - Boston, MA
6 - Virginia Beach, VA
7 - Camden, NJ
8 - Hartford, CT
9 - Washington, DC
11 - Tampa, FL
12 - West Palm Beach, FL
14 - Dallas, TX
15 - Houston, TX
16 - San Antonio, TX

Behemoth been hard at work on their upcoming, yet untitled album. The record is tentatively expected sometime in the fall via Metal Blade (US), Nuclear Blast (Europe).

The band have just posted the first of a series of episodes documenting the new album. Check it out below...

Nergal and Co. are planning to enter the studio in the middle of February. The band’s mainman has issued a following report:

“As I write this, we have seven songs that are completely written and arranged though there’s still leads missing in some of them. It all sounds tight as fuck and very fresh! There are two more songs under working so after New Year break we should start working on it. I want this album to be very consistent, intense and catchy at the same time. Judging by what what’s been composed so far, that’s exactly where we are with this new material.

Last year was a very productive year for all of us… we’ve toured US, Australia and New Zealand, covered most of prestigious festivals in Europe and invaded virgin markets in Asia: Japan, China, Taiwan, Indonesia and Thailand. It was also the first time since ages that I managed to take two months off from any band activity. I travelled a lot, recharged my batteries and decompressed myself. I’ve been collecting ideas, riffs and pieces of lyrics throughout the whole 2008 but it was in October where I seriously kicked my ass and started full on work on the album. It went pretty rough in the very first stages but the more stuff was written the smoother it went.

I must confess that I’m way more excited about this record than I was for The Apostasy. It’s probably the whole label situation that we had to deal back then, Inferno’s injury that caused crazy deadlines that completely drained the energy out of my system… I even started treating that album as unwanted child. Weird, because from time perspective it’s a great one. This time though everything was planned much in advanced. I found time to live my life, get some energy back, get inspired and so on…when we met in October it was obvious that all of us were really hungry for making new music. It’s definitely 100% Behemoth. I would risk saying that we do have our own style but it’s still improving, evolving in different directions every time we approach new project. Most of the songs are the really fast, technical and intense, at the same time there’s a lot of diversity. There’s even a very slow, massive song that’s probably the most epic tracks in Behemoth’s history. Everything sounds more serious and…dangerous (I love that word, ha ha). There’s probably more sinister vibe in our music this time too. I’m completely stoked and I just can’t wait until we enter the studio!”

More rehearsal photos by Krzysztof “Sado” Sadowski can be viewed here.