Anglo-Chilean thrash masters CRIMINAL have issued the following update:

"Been pretty busy lately, so I haven't had much time to post on here, but I guess I should, since the album release is just around the corner.

First of all, I want to thank all of our Chilean fans for making our last tour such a memorable experience!

It started off with our appearance at the Cumbre del Rock Chileno festival (Summit of Chilean Rock), but I almost didn't make it in time! On the day I was supposed to travel the Madrid Airport was closed down due to snow and all flights were cancelled. I was travelling from San Sebastián in Northern Spain, so I just had to go back home and wait for the next day. I flew into Madrid on Saturday and it was utter chaos there. Hour-long queues for the customer service desks, pissed-off travellers everywhere, and riot police wandering around just so no one would get any crazy ideas. A pretty tense situation, I tell you. In the evening, around the time my flight was due to depart, I still didn't know if I actually had a seat or not. Meanwhile, the other guys, who had travelled from London and were already in Santiago, were deliberating on what to do. There was even talk of playing the gig with several guest singers, which I would have paid to see myself! Anyway, we didn't reach that point as I was allowed to embark and arrived in Santiago on the day of the show.

The gig itself was awesome, despite some minor glitches which I attribute to the heat and the jet-lag (and the beer!). People had been standing in the sun for the whole day, but we were able to raise their energy level again and it was a fucking blast. We should be able to post some video footage of the show pretty soon.

Kudos also to the organization, as it all ran really smoothly. Nice atmosphere, loads of old and new friends, couldn't have been better.

The rest of the tour was a bit of a hit-and-miss affair, as always in Chile when you tour secondary markets, but the fans more than made up for it with their crazy behaviour during the shows. We even premiered a track off the new album, “21st Century Paranoia”, and while the moshing stopped as people tried to actually listen to it, I feel it went down really well and is probably bound to be in our setlist for a long, long time.

So now we're back in Europe, gearing up for the album release. Our new friend Fran has already finished the artwork and it looks awesome. We didn't really have to tell him what to do, he just kept coming up with cool stuff, so it was quite a relaxed process, despite the tight deadline we were on. He truly is a master of the Photoshop!

Promos have already gone out to the press, and the comments on the album have been great so far. Not many reviews have come in yet, but we were already told “White Hell” landed on #5 of the monthly writer's chart in the German Rock Hard magazine, which is amazing! We're really looking forward to all of you being able to hear it, as we think it is our best piece of work ever. And I know everybody says this, but, the more I listen to the album, the more I like it!

Leading up to the release date we want to ask you, our fans, to give us a hand supporting the release and making this our biggest album yet. We want to make the week prior to the release Criminal Week, and we ask you to add us to your favourites on MySpace, add the new songs to your profiles, email your friends about the album, post banners, and whatever else you can think of!

The track “21st Century Paranoia” is well over the 10,000 plays mark on MySpace, so I guess we're on the right track!

Last but not least, everyone out there with a Facebook profile can now become a fan of Criminal here."

Criminal's White Hell will be released on February 27th via Massacre Records. The album will be available in a limited edition including a bonus DVD, the contents of which will be announced shortly.

For more info and audio samples click here.