of The Wings of War in 2020, including touring the US with Exhorder and Hydraform, and appearing at a handful of metal-related festivals in Europe. In June 2019, it was reported that Overkill was expected to start writing new material for their 20th studio album by the beginning of 2020. In an interview with Metal Exhumator in October 2019, Ellsworth said, "We just sat down and talked about starting to write in the spring. Maybe late spring, early summer, just say maybe we should just schedule some time to do it. But there's been no ideas with regard to where it's going to go." Bittner revealed in an April 2020 interview with Metal Pilgrim that Verni had written nine songs for their new album, but added that plans to enter the studio were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic: "So our plan was to start working on new material, but considering the fact that we have to stay in our spaces right now, we're just kind of doing things electronically and it's just given D.D. some more time to write. Because we were kind of on a little bit of a timeline, 'cause we — well, all right, I'll say we had a plan, but everybody had a plan before last month." He also mentioned that a European tour in March 2021 to support the album was in the works: "We have no idea if that's gonna even be a possibility right now, because timelines that we had for the record label and whatnot are no longer those anymore, because the record label is shut down and nobody is doing any business right this very second." Ellsworth stated in an interview with A&P Reacts in June 2020 that the new Overkill album was expected to be released in April 2021, with a tour supporting it to follow; Bittner later revealed that the band had recorded 11 demos for the album, and added, "I think right now, the last time I talked to D.D., our idea is to try to start getting drums done, like, September-ish, depending on what happens. The problem is that we really can't do our regular pre-production right now, because we all don't live in the same state." On September 5, 2020, Bitter announced on his Facebook profile that Overkill would enter the studio on September 14 to begin recording their new album. Drum tracks had been