Through the Eyes of the Dead’s Malice was one of my favorite albums of 2007 – so I’m more than a little bummed to find out that two of the band’s five members have quit just this month alone. First Carnage Inc. reported on January 7 that drummer Josh Kulick has quit the band, and now Blabbermouth tells us that vocalist Nate Johnson – who had only joined the band in the middle of the Malice recording sessions – has split to join metalcore act Since the Flood. Johnson said of his quitting “it was not because I thought anyone in the band was an asshole, or I had suspicions of anyone stealing money. It just wasn’t my thing. Yes, I am a big fan of death metal… Fast forward 6-7 months later, and I just basically lost interest. I didn’t really enjoy being a death metal vocalist as much as I thought I would.”

This is a real shame, because a) Johnson’s awesome vocals were part of what made Malice so enjoyable, and b) Since the Flood suck (check out their MySpace page if you don’t believe me.) Still, Johnson didn’t even really know TTEOTD when he joined – the story goes that producer Erik Rutan recommended him after the band showed up for the Malice sessions without a vocalist – so I guess the lesson here is that it’s probably best to actually audition and hang out with any potential band members before recording with them.

Mostly, though I hope that TTEOTD can find a new singer and drummer and persevere. It would suck to see a young up and coming band like this torn apart so suddenly and early in their career.

Here’s the band’s David Brodsky-directed, heavily George Romero-influenced video for “Failure in the Flesh” from Malice.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://lads.myspace.com/videos/vplayer.swf" width="430" height="346" fvars="m=13905684;type=video" wmode="transparent" /]

-AR