BraveWords.com caught up with NEVERMORE bassist Jim Sheppard this weekend at Germany's Wacken Open Air Festival and he provided the following exclusive update about his health and the band's forthcoming album, The Obsidian Conspiracy.

"It's pretty much been created," Sheppard says about the follow-up to 2005's This Godless Endeavor. "In the last few years Nevermore experienced some down time due to my health (Sheppard underwent a procedure for Crohn's disease which he has suffered from for over 15 years) and I think it had a lot of impact on some of the song-writing. I don't know about musically, but Jeff (Loomis) has completed the record and has delivered to Warrel (Dane - vocals) to work on the lyrics and the vocals. I'm actually blown away. I feel like an outsider coming back into Nevermore after what I've been through, the health issues and stuff. But listening to it, it sounds so inspiring, it sound fresh and it sounds new. We're out touring now becoming a band again. We played the Zwarte Cross Festival in Holland and then we went to Tel Aviv and I can't say enough about the fans in Israel. Of course Wacken - brilliant.

And now we are going to go home in two weeks and record the drums in Seattle for the new record. And then we'll fly out to North Carolina. Peter Wichers from SOILWORK is going to produce, and he's rented a cabin on a lake in North Carolina close to Asheville. We're going to take more time than we ever to work out he vocals, guitars, bass. Everyone is going to be busy. Jeff is going to go out and some guitar clinics with Schecter Guitars. And we also going to go to England with Andy Sneap (MEGADETH, ARCH ENEMY, EXODUS) who's going to do the mixing and mastering. I'm going to go home and get my health on line and get my bass chops up, practice with Van (Williams - drums). And we're looking at a release date of January, 2010.

By then we'll be a full-on machine. I've had three surgeries over the last three years, been laid up for a long time. For me to get back to Nevermore and appreciate the opportunity we have as a band. The longevity we've had - we've been doing this for 13 years now. I'm excited and we're going to take anything for granted. Playing Wacken here is a blessing. But more and more, were telling our management and our record company to work us, work us! Tour non-stop, do videos, do festivals. We'll be touring the States as early as next spring."

Professionally filmed video footage of Nevermore performing at this year's Wacken Open Air festival can be viewed below: