What the Hell, man? I go on a short break for the holidays and first Lemmy from Motorhead dies and now I come back to find a press release announcing that one of the best metal bands in the world has basically called it quits.

Chicago’s Trials is among my very favorite bands of the current metal generation; I even went so far as to name their most recent album, This Ruined World, the number one album of last year in my Best Metal Albums Of 2015 article just a few weeks ago.

I don’t generally like to just cut and paste an entire press release, but I’m going to make an exception here so that you can draw your own conclusions about the situation. Meanwhile, I’ll just be over here devastated:

“As some of you may have already guessed by our lack of recent activity, for various reasons TRIALS is no longer an active band. All four of us remain friends and are proud of what we achieved together. We would like to thank everyone who supported us during the past eight years and three albums. Whether you were hearing our demo back in 2008 or blasting This Ruined World this past summer, it has been a privilege to make music for all of you.

Of course, none of us intend to stop making music entirely. Mark Sugar (vocals/guitar) has a new endeavor in the works called Black Sites (www.facebook.com/blacksites). Adam Kopecky (drums) will be releasing several projects of his own under the banner of Atomic Feast Unlimited (www.facebook.com/AtomicFeastUnlimited). Ryan Bruchert (guitar) and Usha Rajbhandari (bass) will be joining a new project called Nohmads (nohmadsland.com)”

TRIALS will keep its social media pages updated with info about all the members’ future musical endeavors.

While this news does absolutely suck, at least the band left us with three of the best albums of the decade, Witness to the Downfall (2011), In the Shadow of Swords (2013) and the aforementioned This Ruined World (2015). We here at GoD want to say “Thanks” to the band members and wish them all of the best in their new endeavors. We’ll keep you posted regarding any developments on that front.

Meanwhile, here’s a look back at one of Trials’ finest moments. From In the Shadow of Swords, this is “Believers In Black.”