Metal Blade Records report that SHAI HULUD are finally back with their new album Misanthropy Pure.

Recorded at Silver Bullet Media in CT and mixed by Eric Rachel at Trax East, Misanthropy Pure is the band’s first offering in over five years.

According to founding member Matt Fox, “It’s faster, slower, more metal, less metal, more rock, more progressive, and less progressive than anything we’ve ever done.”

Don’t call it a comeback. It’s not a reunion. It’s an emergence from a hibernation that included plenty of activity. Shai Hulud have returned to the forefront of a scene they helped create. While the current “metalcore” climate has a blueprint that was co-authored by Shai Hulud, the band isn’t content to rest on past triumphs.

When the metalcore sound was in its infancy, there were four bands that every band was copying and those bands were THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, CONVERGE, POISON THE WELL, and Shai Hulud.

Musically, the album combines hardcore, thrash, punk and metal, and siphons influence from diverse sources, ranging from METALLICA to BURN to TESTAMENT to DEAD KENNEDYS to CIRCLE JERKS.

“We were influenced by Youth Of Today and Testament from day one,” Fox says proudly of the days before the term “metalcore” even existed.

He admits they up the ante, refusing to adhere to trends or to cash in on some musical renaissance.

“It’s like that movie Deep Blue Sea,” Fox says. “The tagline on the DVD box is ‘Bigger. Faster. Smarter. Meaner.’ That’s how this record is. Is it the best thing we’ve ever done? I don’t know. We’ll leave that to those who listen.”

Misanthropy Pure was written and recorded by Matt Fox (guitars), Matt Fletcher (bass), Matt Mazzali (vocals), Andrew Gormley (drums).

Tracklisting: 'Venomspreader', 'The Creation Ruin', 'Misanthropy Pure', 'We Who Finish Last', 'Chorus Of The Dissimilar', 'In The Mind And Marrow', 'To Bear The Brunt Of Many Blades', 'Four Earths', 'Set You Body Ablaze', 'Be Winged', 'Cold Lord Quietus', 'They Congregate To Mourn', 'The Persecution Of Every Next Breath', 'Go Forth To Life'.

Misanthropy Pure will be released May 30th (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy), May 26th (rest of Europe).