Swedish metallers SOILWORK will enter the studio in January to begin recording their new album for a late spring release via Nuclear Blast Records. The long-awaited follow-up to 2007's "Sworn To A Great Divide" will be produced by guitarist Peter Wichers and mixed by Jens Bogren (OPETH, KATATONIA, PARADISE LOST, BLOODBATH). Drums will be tracked at Echo Mountain in Asheville, North Carolina while the rest of the recording is set to take place in Tampa, Florida and the mix at Fascination Street in Örebro, Sweden.

SOILWORK's as-yet-untitled eighth album will be the first to feature Wichers since his return to the band in 2008, as well as the studio debut with guitarist Sylvain Coudret (SCARVE), who also joined last year.

Wichers sat out some of the band's festival shows in Europe this past June because he and his wife were expecting a little baby boy. His temporary replacement for the concerts at the Sweden Rock and Sauna Open Air festivals was David Andersson.

In an interview with SuicideGirls.com, Wichers spoke about what direction the band might take musically with its next album. "We talked about maybe taking a little bit of a different approach for the next record," he said. "Having me and Sylvain back in the band, I think that we're probably going to try to do stuff that might be a little more technical. We want to keep the element of the catchy chorus but at the same time maybe have bit more guitar solos than on "Sworn to a Great Divide" and also let Dirk [Verbeuren, drums] get more space on the record for drumming. That was one of the things I think that "Sworn to a Great Divide" was lacking a little bit. It's a good record but I think that with such talented musicians the next album definitely needs to have more performance."

HardTimes.ca conducted an interview with SOILWORK when the band played Foufounes Électriques in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on February 16, 2009. Watch the 17-minute chat below.