Speaking with Death Angel guitarist Ted Aguilar as part of the ongoing "Alive & Streaming" YouTube series, Exodus / ex-Slayer guitarist Gary Holt offered his thoughts on Metallica and the band's legacy.

Holt: "I love 'em to death, and I'll always support 'em and always give them all credit where credit's due. I consider Master Of Puppets the greatest metal album ever made. Nobody's ever come up with anything close to it. Maybe close would be Judas Priest's Stained Class, but I give them all respect. Even with St. Anger, I always said, yeah, if they made it sound right it wouldn't be so bad. On YouTube, some guy re-recorded the whole album but did it with a proper drum sound and guitar sound, and the songs are killer. I never listened to Lulu because I don't want it to sully my opinion of the band I admire so much." 

Exodus frontman Steve "Zetro" Souza recently posted the latest installment of Zetro's Toxic Vault, offering up some details on the band's forthcoming album, Persona Non Grata. Check out the full stream below.

Souza: "Exodus fans are not gonna be disappointed. It's fucking heavy as shit, it's fast, it's brutal, it's violent. The lyrical content is very deep and very heavy. Gary Holt (guitars) wrote some really great compositions on this, and the whole band performed really well on this. It seemed like we were all hungry again going after it. We were so excited to be together for some reason."

Persona Non Grata, engineered by Steve Lagudi and the band, is expected in summer 2021 via Nuclear Blast Records. Guitarist Gary Holt narrowed down the release date in a December 6th live virtual panel with Headbanger Con, saying the record would be released in June 2021. Check out the interview below.