P.O.D. Says It Is “Really Super Proud” of New Album Recorded With Will Yip

Summary

• P.O.D. says it is really super proud of its upcoming album, recorded with producer Will Yip.
• The band completed roughly 13 songs in 12 days, with Marcos Curiel using a seven-string guitar on much of the material.
• The record follows Veritas and is described as heavy, melodic and groove-driven, though no official release date has been announced.

P.O.D. has finished its next studio album, and guitarist Marcos Curiel and bassist Mark “Traa” Daniels sound unusually confident about where the band landed. Speaking in a recent interview with FemMetal, the musicians discussed the follow-up to 2024’s Veritas, their collaboration with producer Will Yip, and an album that appears set to push P.O.D. further into the heavier territory it has been exploring lately.

Band enthusiasm before an album release is hardly scarce. Nobody finishes months of writing and recording and announces, “Eh, it’s fine, I guess.” The interesting part here is the detail behind P.O.D.’s confidence.

The new material came together under unusual circumstances for the veteran San Diego group, including a move outside California, a compressed studio schedule and Curiel’s first substantial use of a seven-string guitar.

P.O.D. found a natural fit with producer Will Yip

The upcoming record was made with Will Yip at Memory Music Studios in South Philadelphia, marking the first time P.O.D. recorded a full studio album outside California. Yip’s résumé crosses several corners of alternative music, including hardcore, punk, indie rock and heavier material. His work includes Turnstile, Quicksand, Title Fight, Code Orange and Circa Survive.

Curiel explained that the collaboration did not begin as an attempt to chase Yip’s recent Grammy success with Turnstile. P.O.D. already liked his production work, while Yip had an existing appreciation for the band. The relationship developed through conversations before an opening in their respective schedules finally made the record possible.

That distinction matters. Hiring whatever producer happens to have a shiny award on the shelf can produce some painfully calculated rock records. P.O.D. apparently wanted someone who understood why its strange mixture of metal, hardcore, punk, hip-hop, reggae and groove has worked for more than three decades.

Curiel described the process as organic and said the band is “really super proud of it.”

Yip also appears to have avoided sanding away the characteristics that make P.O.D. recognizable. Curiel previously explained that the producer understood the group rather than trying to rebuild it into something fashionable. That could prove important for a band whose identity has always depended on genres colliding rather than fitting neatly into one of them.

The new album continues what P.O.D. started with Veritas

Listeners expecting P.O.D. to abandon the direction of Veritas probably should adjust those expectations.

Curiel told FemMetal that the next album contains threads that continue directly from the 2024 record, while describing the newer material as an evolution rather than a repeat. Daniels offered another useful clue. According to the bassist, Curiel developed a concept behind the album that should become clearer when people dig into the songs.

Daniels characterized the material as unmistakably P.O.D., although he suggested its ideas go deeper than the songs might initially reveal.

That comment makes the record more intriguing than another vague claim that “this one is heavier.” Every rock band is apparently contractually required to call its unreleased album heavier at least once.

In P.O.D.’s case, though, there is some actual evidence.

During an earlier Sick New World interview, vocalist Sonny Sandoval described the songs as both heavy and melodic. Curiel wrote roughly half of the album using a seven-string guitar, a first for him. The lower tuning naturally gives the riffs more weight, although Sandoval has stressed that the group was chasing depth and groove rather than simply turning the record into nonstop extreme metal.

Curiel has framed Veritas almost as the doorway into this new phase. Released in May 2024 through Mascot Records, the album reached the Top 10 of several Billboard genre charts and included tracks such as “Drop,” “Afraid to Die,” “I Got That” and “I Won’t Bow Down.” Randy Blythe of Lamb of God appeared on “Drop,” while Jinjer vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk contributed to “Afraid to Die.”

P.O.D. recorded the album remarkably fast

Preparation seems to have played a major role in how the sessions unfolded.

P.O.D. entered Yip’s Philadelphia studio expecting a relatively short recording window. Earlier interviews revealed that the group completed approximately 13 songs in about 12 days, recording guitars, bass, drums and vocals during long sessions. Sandoval had already completed vocal ideas for roughly nine songs before entering the studio.

The band had also been writing while touring, which helped turn what could have been a rushed studio booking into an unusually efficient session.

Recording away from home apparently helped too. Daniels previously noted that Philadelphia removed the everyday distractions that come with working in California near family and familiar surroundings. The musicians could spend ten or twelve hours working, return to their Airbnb and repeat the process the next day.

Curiel said the group walked roughly ten minutes through South Philadelphia each morning on the way to the studio, absorbing some of the neighborhood in the process.

For a band formed in San Diego in the early 1990s, changing the scenery after decades of recording could have been more useful than buying another expensive piece of studio equipment.

Sonny Sandoval thinks it could rank among P.O.D.’s best work

Curiel and Daniels are not alone in talking up the results.

Sandoval previously said the sessions exceeded the band’s expectations and singled out Yip for pushing him into unfamiliar vocal territory. The singer went further, suggesting that the finished material could rank as the best album P.O.D. has written.

That is a hefty claim considering the catalog includes The Fundamental Elements of Southtown, Satellite, Testify, Murdered Love and Veritas. Nobody should start engraving trophies before hearing the thing, naturally. Still, the comments coming from different members have remained surprisingly consistent across interviews.

The recurring description is heavy, melodic, groove-driven and recognizably P.O.D., with some new guitar textures and a stronger conceptual element underneath the songs.

That gives listeners considerably more information than the usual pre-release soup of “mature,” “raw” and “back to our roots.”

When will the new P.O.D. album be released?

P.O.D. has not announced a confirmed album title or release date yet.

Earlier this year, Curiel said the band expected to begin releasing new music ahead of the full record, with a longer rollout leading toward an album release sometime afterward. A May interview also pointed toward an initial single arriving around August, although a finalized release schedule was not confirmed at that stage.

The finished album will follow Veritas, P.O.D.’s eleventh studio LP.

The more interesting question is whether working with Yip can translate the band’s familiar ingredients into something that feels current without producing a suspiciously convenient Turnstile impersonation. Everything Curiel, Daniels and Sandoval have said suggests Yip understood that problem. His job was apparently to sharpen P.O.D.’s existing identity, not replace it.

Thirty-plus years into the band’s career, that may be the smarter move.

P.O.D. already knows how to sound like P.O.D. The upcoming album will have to show whether the group has found somewhere new to take that sound.

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