Exodus released Persona Non Grata on November 19, 2021, through Nuclear Blast. Their first studio album since 2014’s Blood In, Blood Out grew out of sessions at drummer Tom Hunting’s mountain home. Guitarist Gary Holt and Hunting began with a half stack and a drum kit, calling their working arrangement “jam camp.” The band built three recording studios there and produced the record themselves, with songwriting continuing between rehearsals and recording sessions.
Holt told Guitar World that the setup let him experiment with as many speaker cabinets as he wanted, recovering some of the possibilities of an expensive studio session without booking one. “We were under no time constraints,” he said. That mattered for the lead playing: he could start with an idea, develop it and keep refining it until he was satisfied. For his rhythm tracks, he used a 1983 Yamaha SBG-3000, with Marshall Jubilee reissues providing the amplification. Overdrive and boost pedals helped him shape the midrange. He singled out “The Fires of Division” as his favorite solo on the album. The song received an official music video in March 2022.
The recording setup also left room for music that didn’t require an amplifier. Holt told Loudwire that acoustic guitars were within reach throughout the sessions, and he kept playing after the band’s louder work was finished. Hunting took to one of those pieces and nicknamed it “Swamp Thing.” Holt used his phone to translate the name into Spanish, giving the instrumental “Cosa Del Pantano” its title. Placed immediately before “Lunatic-Liar-Lord,” it carried something from their off-hours playing into the finished record.
That relaxed working environment produced an album with plenty to be angry about. The title referred to an unwanted person, but Holt wanted listeners to decide for themselves who fit that description. In his comments accompanying the album, he stressed that the songs weren’t intended to prescribe a single reading. The band could share a rehearsal space and a friendship without sharing every political opinion, a distinction he also made in the Loudwire interview. “The Beatings Will Continue (Until Morale Improves)” aimed its sarcasm at the idea that beating people during unrest could somehow improve their attitude. At roughly three minutes, it made that point quickly. “Clickbait” turned toward a different source of conflict: headlines that distorted a story to provoke a reaction and generate traffic. Holt’s complaints extended to metal coverage as well as political news.
Hunting approached another kind of loss in “The Years of Death and Dying.” In comments released by Nuclear Blast, he explained that the song began as a poem narrated by Death, imagined as an entity watching for opportunities to claim people. The deaths of musicians he admired helped start the idea; losses among family and friends brought it closer to home. Holt helped him develop the phrasing, and the poem became a song. Hunting was still adding to it as more musicians died during the recording process, continuing to write while the vocals were being recorded.
