Guitarist Gary Holt of San Francisco Bay Area thrash metal veterans EXODUS has released the following statement: "As a band, we all had to make a very difficult choice to part ways with [singer] Rob Dukes. We have nothing but love and admiration for him and the deepest gratitude for the hard work he has put in and the great work on some killer records. But at this time, Tom [Hunting, drums], Lee [Altus, guitar], Jack [Gibson, bass] and myself thought a change was necessary and the unanimous choice going forward was to welcome back Steve Souza [pictured] to the fold!"Adds Souza: "I spent a great part of my life with EXODUS. That blood flows through me, even not being in the band for the past 10 years, you can't erase that chemistry. I'm very excited!"Dukes joined EXODUS in January 2005 as the replacement for Souza, who was fired from the group in September 2004. Rob has appeared on four studio albums with EXODUS "Shovel Headed Kill Machine" (2005), "The Atrocity Exhibition... Exhibit A" (2007), "Let There Be Blood" (2008, a re-recording of EXODUS' classic 1985 LP, "Bonded By Blood") and "Exhibit B: The Human Condition" (2010) and has released two studio albums with his GENERATION KILL project, 2011's "Red White And Blood" and 2013's "We're All Gonna Die".Back in March of this year, EXODUS entered a studio in Northern California with producer Andy Sneap (MEGADETH, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, ARCH ENEMY, NEVERMORE) to record its tenth studio album. A month later, Dukes told Patch.com about the material that was slated to appear on the CD: "This album is very fast and has more of a punk rock feel to it, whereas I think the last few EXODUS albums were metal epics, with longer songs. These songs are shorter and a little faster. It has a really different feel to it. It sounds great."EXODUS last month played six shows as direct support to SLAYER (with openers SUICIDAL TENDENCIES) before joining GUNS N' ROSES, AVENGED SEVENFOLD and KID ROCK at this year's Rock On The Range festival. EXODUS' next live appearance is scheduled for July 11 at the Bang Your Head!!! festival in Balingen, Germany.Zetro left EXODUS in September 2004 on the eve of the band's South American headlining tour over what was described as long-standing business and personal differences. Holt subsequently issued a statement calling Souza "human crap" for pulling out the trek "only about twenty-four hours before were ready to leave." He added, "Yes, he did a killer job on the new album [2004's 'Tempo Of The Damned'], but mainly because we did not allow him to fuck everything up with his stupid Bon Scott impersonations anymore. We made him sing more like [previous vocalist Paul] Baloff. I tried to make it work. More than you can imagine. But he was (is) the most miserable pile of crap to be around."
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