ANTHRAX is strongly rumored to have recruited former DEVILSIZE and ME, MY ENEMY singer Dan Nelson (photo) as the replacement for Joey Belladonna, who left the band earlier in the year. The news was first reported yesterday by the Metal-Blast.com web site and has since been corroborated to BLABBERMOUTH.NET by a source close to ME, MY ENEMY, which is based in Lindenhurst, New York.

Although there are currently no audio samples available of either DEVILSIZE or ME, MY ENEMY, a cached Google snapshot of the DEVILSIZE MySpace profile includes a photo of the 31-year-old Dan as well as a link to his Meez.com profile (a new free avatar site which allows users to create, customize and export avatars to other sites), where his registered username is "danthrax76" and which includes an animated picture of a singer in front of the ANTHRAX logo. (UPDATE #1: Since this news story was first published earlier today, Dan has deleted his Meez.com account.)

UPDATE #2: Photos of DEVILSIZE with Dan Nelson can be found at this location (Nelson is believed to be the only long-haired member of the group in these pictures).

In an October 2007 interview with MTV.com, ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian said that he, drummer Charlie Benante and bassist Frank Bello have spent most of this year writing and fine-tuning a batch of new songs, which Ian said are along the lines of the band's critically acclaimed 2003 album, "We've Come for You All". "We know that we want to make a proper follow-up to 'We've Come for You All', which we all loved," he said. "But we want it to be even better: heavier, faster, hookier. As songwriters, you try to improve on your craft. And fortunately, we've got the time to make that happen. We have no deadline at all because we've got no label deal, so my attitude is, 'Let's make the most metal record we've ever made in our lives,' and I would have to say that's coming to fruition."

If all goes as scheduled, ANTHRAX hopes to finish writing early next year, so they can have the new album out by late spring or early summer.

"We would like nothing more than to have something out in time to play the European festivals next year," Ian told MTV.com. "But in the meantime, we don't have a deadline, so we can take our time writing these songs and making them the best stuff that we possibly can."

Scott Ian declined to comment on ANTHRAX's current singer situation when contacted by BLABBERMOUTH.NET on Thursday (December 6).