Music website Rock Edition recently conducted an interview with HATE ETERNAL frontman Erik Rutan. In the interview Rutan talks about the band’s new album Phoenix Amongst The Ashes and more. Excerpts from the interview are below:

Rock Edition: You mentioned that the new album is something you need to listen to from beginning to end. Why do you say that?

Erik Rutan: “Every song has a different vibe and different feel. I thought long and hard on the tracklisting. For months I thought about how the songs were going to be arranged so that someone could listen to it and get a story for 41 minutes. If you like heavy extreme death metal, it’s worth the 41 minutes of someone’s life to listen to this record from beginning to end. I think it won’t be the only 41 minutes they spend listening to it, because they’re going to really like it.”

Rock Edition: Is producing your favorite thing to do in the studio?

Erik Rutan: “Yeah, certainly producing. I mean, I enjoy doing it all, but if there’s one thing that I feel like I love doing, (it's) getting my hands dirty. I’m not the kind of guy who sits on the back couch and tells people what to do. I’m a hands-on kind of guy. Getting the tones, and getting people’s performances out of them — it’s just acknowledging people’s talents, and that’s where I feel like I do really well. I think that’s something that through technology has been lost: the art of producing. You can hear it in the stale productions that are coming out, where everything sounds the same, has the same drum samples and is fixed to sound like inhuman performances. I think that’s what’s stripped out the character of recording. What made older records so amazing is the minor flaws and inconsistencies. That’s what made it so incredible. With recording, if you fix everything to sound exactly perfectly, and then you see the band live, you’ll be like, “What the hell is this? This doesn’t sound anything like the record.” Who does that impress? Nobody. Capturing performances with its imperfections is what makes it perfect. When you force it to make it perfect through technology, then it loses some kind of vibe to me. That’s why I can go back decades and decades of years and listen to records of all genres. You can pop on THE TEMPTATIONS 40 years later and know that these guys were recording this live with everybody in one room. Listen to those performances. Or listen to THE BEATLES, BOSTON, KANSAS, or METALLICA’s Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets — two of the best metal records of all time — and they have stood the test of time for 25 years plus. What I wonder about some of the new modern technique-sounding records, will they stand the test of time? That I don’t have an answer for. My producing style is an acquired taste — some people love what I do, some people hate what I do, some people love to hate what I do. But that’s okay, we’re all entitled to our own opinions. I’ve always kept true to myself and my gut instincts on things.”

Read the entire interview here.

Hate Eternal’s new album Phoenix Amongst the Ashes was released today, May 10th.

The band recorded the album, their fifth, at Rutan's own Mana Recording Studios in St. Petersburg, FL with mastering handled by Alan Douches of West West Side. J.J. Hrubovcak has been added as the band's bassist, alongside the devastating combo of Erik Rutan on guitar and Jade Simonetto on drums.

Phoenix Amongst The Ashes tracklisting:

'Rebirth'

'The Eternal Ruler'

'Thorns of Acacia'

'Haunting Abound'

'The Art of Redemption'

'Phoenix Amongst the Ashes'

'Deathveil'

'Hatesworn'

'Lake Ablaze'

'The Fire of Resurrection'

Hate Eternal will be heading out this summer in support of Phoenix Amongst The Ashes with fellow death metal greats ORIGIN, VITAL REMAINS and ABYSMAL DAWN.

Tour dates are as follows:

June

15 - Emo's – Austin, TX
16 - Sorority House – Amarillo, TX
17 - The Marquis Theatre – Denver, CO
19 - The Clubhouse – Tempe, AZ
20 - The Key Club – Hollywood, CA
21 - Slim's – San Francisco, CA
22 - The Alley – Sparks, NV
24 - Studio Seven – Seattle, WA
25 - Rickshaw Theater – Vancouver, BC
26 - Lake City Bowl – Kelowna, BC
27 - The Distillery – Calgary, AB
28 - Pawn Shop – Edmonton, AB
30 - The Exchange – Regina, SK

July

1 - Royal Albert Arms – Winnipeg, MB
2 - Station 4 – St. Paul, MN
3 - The Annex – Madison, WI
5 - Reggie's Rock Club – Chicago, IL
6 - Peabody's – Cleveland, OH
7 - Wreck Room – Toronto, ON
8 - Les Foufounes Electriques – Montreal, QC
9 - The Palladium – Worcester, MA
10 - Santo's Party House – New York, NY
13 - The Oasis – Charleston, SC
14 - Firestone Live – Orlando, FL