The next Darkest Hour album is gonna be something of a turning point for the band, regardless of how it’s ultimately received — it’s their first away from Victory Records since 2000′s The Mark of the Judas, and guitarist/all-around awesome d00d Mike “Lonestar” Carrigan is no longer “the new guy,” so I suspect that his shredtastic powers will be even further exploited than they were on The Eternal Return (and to the band’s credit, my understanding is that they welcomed Carrigan as a songwriter from the get-go, and never really treated him like “the new guy”). Also, it’s a new Darkest Hour album. That’s just reason to be happy right there.

And now there’s reason to be even happier: the band has announced that Soilwork’s Peter Wichers will produce the still-to-be-titled effort. Of course, Swedish melodic death metal has been a HUGE influence on Darkest Hour’s sound; it’s hard to think of anyone better suited to said sound than Wichers, who is Swedish melodeath royalty.

This album was always gonna be one of my most-anticipated of 2011, but now my desire to hear it has grown exponentially. Obviously, there’s no word on a release date from E1 yet, but we’ll keep you up to speed…

-AR