Five Finger Death Punch have a big year ahead of them, with the Revolver Golden Gods taking place tomorrow (May 2) and a co-headlining stint on Mayhem Fest coming this summer. And it’s all prep work for a new album. Correction: make that two new albums.

The group announced today that they will be releasing their fourth and fifth studio albums in two installments. Volume 1 of the as-yet-titled album is due out on July 23 via Prospect Park, while Vol. 2 is slated for a fall release. Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Zoltan Bathory gave the following explanation behind releasing two albums instead of one:

“We came off the road after a couple of great years of touring and were really amped up to write the 4th record. Everybody was in the right headspace and the band tighter than ever so it was a perfect storm. We jumped in head first and found ourselves 12-13 songs deep fairly quick but were still coming up with better and better material so we looked at each other and said…. ok why stop there ?… let’s keep going. Once we passed the 24th song we knew we’re going to have to do a double album. We had this massive amount of music that’s very dear to us, possibly the best material this band has ever created. At that point there was no way to decide which songs to leave off the album. So we made the decision to release them all.”

Granted, releasing two albums within a year timespan is not a new concept at all (Stone Sour and Coheed And Cambria are a few recent examples). But if FFDP match the same success their last two albums had, they might end up with two albums that spend a long time in the top 200 at the same time as each other.

FFDP will premiere a new song called “Lift Me Up” during their performance at the Revolver Golden Gods tomorrow. The band also promised that they will be joined by a “very special surprise guest” for the song’s live debut. Who this guest will end up being is anyone’s guess, but you can watch live by watching on AXS TV and through Xbox LIVE and Facebook stream. If you haven’t yet, check out an audio snippet of a new song called “Here To Die” in the tour reel below.

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