Drummer Steve "Penguin" Flynn of reactivated seminal technical metal pioneers ATHEIST has commented on the band's upcoming North American tour with THE FACELESS, PSYOPUS, THE AGONIST and GNOSTIC, which is scheduled to kick off on July 8 in Atlanta, Georgia. He said, "We're absolutely thrilled to be doing this tour with such an incredible lineup of brutal technical bands. This bill is going to just peel your face off. Not only are all the bands insanely technical and heavy, but the lineup also covers a broad spectrum of style - from the almost avant-garde sound of PSYOPUS to the straight up technical death metal sounds of GNOSTIC and ATHEIST. Then you throw in the more modern break-neck technicality, unrivaled musicianship and speed of THE FACELESS, and the brutality of THE AGONIST, and you've got yourself one hell of a night. This will also be somewhat experimental in the world of technical death metal, as three of us (me on drums, Chris Baker on guitars, and Jonathan Thompson on bass [in GNOSTIC] and guitars [in ATHEIST]) are in two bands and playing TWO shows per night. I can't recall a similar situation in technical death metal. It will be a marathon-esque physical and mental exercise. This tour will also be GNOSTIC's debut to the world as we're supporting our first release via Season of Mist: 'Engineering the Rule' in July."

ATHEIST North American tour dates with support from THE FACELESS, PSYOPUS, THE AGONIST and GNOSTIC:

July 08 - Atlanta, GA, Masquerade
July 09 - Raleigh, NC, Volume 11
July 10 - Springfield, VA, Jaxx
July 11 - Allentown, PA, The Sterling Hotel
July 12 - New York, NY, B.B. King Blues Club
July 13 - Cleveland, OH, Peabody's
July 14 - Mokena, IL, The Pearl Room
July 15 - Nashville, TN, The Muse

ATHEIST recently finished mixing a recording of the band's appearance at the 2006 installment of the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany at LedBelly Sound Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. According to vocalist Kelly Shaefer, "It's a very stripped-down, no-overdubs live recording from our appearance at Wacken Open Air in 2006 as part of the reunion dates we did. This was only the fourth show on what would become many. So why record the fourth show? Well, we did not actually ever intend on it, but we found out that Wacken had raw tracks that could be remixed, whereas most recordings we get are from soundboards, and you cannot turn up guitars, vocals etc on those type of recordings. So... we obtained the raw tracks and have now mixed eight tunes with Matt (MASTODON, GNOSTIC) at LedBelly studios here in the Atlanta. The results? A very, very live (mistakes and all) and raw set of tracks from the 'Piece of Time' and 'Unquestionable Presence' era of ATHEIST. It sounds suprisingly warm, and for those who were there in Germany that afternoon to see ATHEIST on what was probably one of the more 'magical' performances we have ever had as a band, it was really the first time we had played for people who had been around back in the early days of the band, and were now writers, or owned record companies, plus all of the new fans of this strange technical metal genre of music... this will encapsulate that experience for us, you and as well as those who were not there that day... It was a great day!"

In January 2006, Kelly Shaefer reassembled much of what was widely considered ATHEIST's classic recording lineup (Shaefer, bassist Tony Choy, and drummer Steven Flynn) to perform a select number of one-off shows to celebrate the re-issue of their wildly-influential catalog (1988's "Piece of Time", 1993's "Elements", and the 1991's legendary "Unquestionable Presence"). Among those shows were performances at such legendary festivals such as Germany's Wacken Open Air, Norway's Hole In The Sky, Italy's Evolution, England's Bloodstock Open Air, and the Los Angeles' Murderfest.