on the Billboard 200, giving them their second highest chart position. They toured for two-and-a-half years in support of the album, opening for Slayer on their Repentless tour in North America, Testament on their Brotherhood of the Snake tour in Europe, and Sepultura on their Machine Messiah tour in Australia, as well as taking part in the 2018 edition of the MTV Headbangers Ball European tour, also featuring Exodus, Sodom and Suicidal Angels. The band began the recording sessions of their ninth studio album in mid-2018, again teaming up with producer Jason Suecof who they had worked with since Relentless Retribution. The resulting album Humanicide was released on May 31, 2019. Prior to the album's release, they (along with Mothership) toured North America by supporting Overkill on their Wings of War tour. The band also toured Europe that summer, opening for bands such as Arch Enemy, Testament and Anthrax on selected dates as well as headlining their own shows, and was one of the performers on Megadeth's first-ever MegaCruise in October. In November 2019 the title track to Humanicide was nominated for the Grammy Award for "Best Metal Performance", becoming Death Angel's first ever Grammy nomination. The award ultimately went to Tool for their song "7empest". Death Angel continued touring into 2020 in support of Humanicide, including taking part in The Bay Strikes Back European tour with Testament and Exodus in February–March. Will Carroll's illness and upcoming tenth album (2020–present) Following the conclusion of the Bay Strikes Back tour, which took place as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to spread around the world, drummer Will Carroll contracted COVID-19 and was admitted to an intensive care unit at a Northern California hospital. Gary Holt of Exodus and Testament members Chuck Billy and Steve Di Giorgio also fell ill after returning from the tour, as did various members of their crews. On April 2, 2020, after nearly two weeks on a ventilator, Carroll posted a lengthy update on his condition, thanking his family and friends for supporting him, and revealed that he had been "getting some new files from Mr. Rob Cavestany which will eventually be DA's 10th record." By mid-2020, Carroll had fully recovered from COVID, and confirmed in an interview with Rock Immortal in August that he and Cavestany were already working on new material for the next Death Angel album. In December 2021, Osegueda stated that the band had