Everything about this story is just a little bit weird.

According to Noisecreep, Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo, Exodus guitarist (and seemingly-forever-ongoing touring guitarist for Slayer) have launched a new, yet-to-be-named band with former Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri and Amen’s Casey Chaos (and Rob Trujillo may lay down some shit, too, but that’s not confirmed yet). Which seems like kind of an odd assemblage of musicians — I mean, the Lombardo-Holt-Trujillo thing obviously makes sense, but Oliveri and especially Chaos seem pretty outta place. Which might be because the band is actually kinda-sorta the brainchild of Ross Robinson, the producer of Korn and Limp Bizkit fame and the focus of some recent pseudo-fan-drama surrounding the new Behemoth album. From the Noisecreep article:

“Robinson divulges that director Dean Karr (best known for his landmark videos for Marilyn Manson) and producer Sean E. Demott approached Robinson to provide music for a documentary film about, House of Shock, the infamous New Orleans haunted house attraction founded in 1992 by one Phil Anselmo. ‘The first thing I wanted to do was tap into this energy between Gary and Dave,’ says Ross of the unnamed project. ‘And Casey has this amazing ability to do these amazing choruses and be so violent and ruthless at it.’ “‘I miss thrash so much,’ says Ross. ‘When I saw Gary play way back in the ’80s when I was playing guitar [for LA thrashers Détente], I wish I was able to do what he did and the riffs were always so fucking good. And I never dreamed I would get to meet Dave Lombardo and here he is in my house!’”

So yeah having a bunch of dudes thrown into a room by a producer — especially one with a track record as shady as Ross’ — is not all that encouraging.

But I’m choosing to remain optimistic about this one for now, and here’s why: the only member of the band whose prior work I outright dislike is Chaos, and apparently, all the music was written by Holt and Lombardo during downtime in the middle of Slayer soundchecks. And the video Noisecreep posted of Lombardo recording suggests that nothing here is gonna sound like Amen. So this might end up being cool after all.

I guess we’ll find out the hard way! In the meantime, go here to watch the aforementioned clip of Lombardo doing his thing in the studio. They have some more photos for you to ogle, too.