Heavy metal saviours Pänzer will release their sophomore album, Fatal Command, on October 6th via Nuclear Blast. Pre-order the album here, and watch a first album trailer, discussing the artwork, below.

"We pay tribute to our early days and the era of NWOBHM," comments Schmier. "The new songs are faster, heavier, catchy and even more melodic, without being commercial at all. We wanna keep the old and original metal spirit alive.”

Fatal Command lives and breathes heavy metal like a few other albums of recent years do. It is a monolith of a record on which the tempestuous music, the provocative artwork and Schmier's social-criticism come together under a metallic and indestructible hide, courtesy of Little Creek Studio in Basel, Switzerland. One thing, however, is setting Fatal Command apart from the perfect heavy metal record: "There's no ballad! But as the singer, I wanted to spare mankind," he laughs.

Consequently, Pänzer prefer to hit the throttle and concentrate on kicking as much ass as possible. Fatal Command proudly wears the insignia that so many current bands are lacking, a bold statement against wimps and posers. Pänzer swear a solemn oath on Fatal Command: They will be true to heavy metal in good as well as in bad times, in sickness and in health. They will love it and honour it all the days of their lives until death does them part. Amen!

After the departure of Herman Frank (Accept), Pänzer recruited Pontus Norgren of Hammerfall to aid their warfare, as well as V.O. Pulver (G.U.R.D., Poltergeist) on guitar, who already helped out for their latest live shows and now became a full-time member of Pänzer.

"After producing the debut with Pänzer, the guys asked me to help them out live to provide the double axe-attack on stage," remembers V.O. Pulver. "Of course I took the chance to rock out with my buddies. And when the opportunity came up to join them permanently, I didn't hesitate to accept and now I can't wait to play the sound of my youth!"

Also Pontus was just as excited to join the heavy metal war machine: "It was not a hard decision when I got asked to join Pänzer, it was a straight YES! To be able to create music with good friends is the most important thing in my world and in this band, having fun when making music, is number one."

Tracklisting:

“Satan's Hollow”
“Fatal Command”
“We Can Not Be Silenced”
“I'll Bring You The Night”
“Scorn And Hate”
“Afflicted”
“Skullbreaker”
“Bleeding Allies”
“The Decline (…And The Downfall)”
“Mistaken”
“Promised Land”

Trailer #1:

“Satan's Hollow”:

“We Can Not Be Silenced” lyric video:

The special lyric video for "We Can Not Be Silenced" features several fellow musicians in the form of mugshots.

Schmier stated: "It is a hot topic: How much of your personal freedom are you willing to sacrifice for our safety? When I dived into this subject and the whole Edward Snowden story, it has really caught me and I had to write a song about it. Is he a hero or a traitor? He is a very smart man for sure, that showed the world the truth about the monitored surveillance system worldwide. The idea to bring fellow friends & musicians into the lyric video was very exciting - we are all free minds and global citizens of this world, I hate to see all we have achieved drifting apart again. The song itself is a really catchy powerful smasher with my fave solo from Pontus of the whole record. I hope people enjoy the music and the topic itself is something worth reading about. I have a lot of respect for free spirits and mankind needs them to NOT drift into chaos & war again. I know many metalheads don't wanna deal with politics but this affects all of us in the end!"