Last week, rumors started to circulate that legendary and longtime Suffocation drummer Mike Smith had left the band. After posting a statement on his official Facebook page regarding his sadness with the state of his relationship with the members of Suffocation. Now, the band has confirmed that Smith is no longer a part of the band.

Suffocation addressed the situation in an email interview with Russian site HitKiller.com. “We want to keep this respectful, so without going into much detail, Mike and the rest of us had serious differences of opinions. Mike did formally resign from the band, and he has since been replaced with Dave Culross who had played and recorded on ‘Despise the Sun.’”

The band also wrote about Decrepit Birth frontman Bill Robinson filling in for Frank Mullen on vocal duties. “Dave is a permanent member now. Bill is just filling in for Frank on this run only due to the fact that Frank has responsibilities to his job and family. However, Frank will be performing at Neurotic Deathfest with us. As the saying goes, the show must go on for our fans and we will not disappoint! We would like to thank Bill for performing with us on this run to come. But other then that, nothing has changed.”

Suffocation also took the opportunity to squash rumors that the band are breaking up. “For all the people who think the band is splitting up, it’s NOT, except for the one change we already mentioned above. As far as our next move, the new CD is in the pre-production stage and it kills! We would say some of the best material to date. The band right now as a whole can’t wait to get this out to our fans.”

Suffocation are currently working on their seventh studio album, which the band expects to release in 2012.

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