American thrash metal legends and genre originators EXODUS are gearing up for a huge 2025, kicking things off with the announcement of two very special “Bonded By Blood” 40th-anniversary shows, falling upon late original vocalist Paul Baloff’s birthday weekend (April 25).Taking place in Berkeley, California on Friday, April 25 at UC Theatre and Anaheim, California on Saturday, April 26 at House of Blues, the shows will feature EXODUS performing “Bonded By Blood” in its entirety, plus more hits, and each show will feature direct support from DEATH ANGEL. BLIND ILLUSION and NUKEM will open the Berkeley date, and HIRAX and NUKEM will open the Anaheim date. Special-edition “Bonded By Blood” merchandise will also be available.Tickets will go on sale this Friday, January 24 at 10:00 a.m. local time, with individual artist and local pre-sales beginning tomorrow, January 23. Visit exodusattack.com for tickets, and EXODUS VIP information can be found at www.national-acts.com/exodusEXODUS guitarist Gary Holt says: “EXODUS could not be more excited for this show announcement! The 40th anniversary of our debut only happens once, and to fall on Paul Baloff’s birthday, on a Friday, we KNEW we had to crush the Bay Area. ‘Bonded By Blood’. Played in its entirety. Only Baloff-era songs. Once-in-a-lifetime moment for us. So killer that we added a second show in Southern California to show our appreciation to both regions. Joining us are some dear friends, especially DEATH ANGEL. Don’t miss this. Posers must die!”Commenting on the upcoming shows, DEATH ANGEL lead vocalist Mark Osegueda says: “DEATH ANGEL are so proud to have been asked to be a part of the EXODUS ‘Bonded By Blood’ 40th-anniversary shows in April. A record that changed and inspired the entire thrash metal scene and community! And us in the biggest way!”I expect both shows to be nothing less than an extreme outpouring of violent celebratory energy from all of the bands and fans to honor an album that absolutely defined and still does the genre known as thrash metal!”You don’t want to miss these shows! Forever heavier than time!”The dates are as follows:April 25 – Berkeley, CA – UC TheatreApril 26 – Anaheim, CA – House of BluesEarlier this month, EXODUS parted ways with singer Steve “Zetro” Souza and welcomed back Rob Dukes.Dukes originally joined EXODUS in January 2005 and appeared on four of the band’s studio albums — “Shovel Headed Kill Machine” (2005),”The Atrocity Exhibition… Exhibit A” (2007),”Let There Be Blood” (2008, a re-recording of EXODUS’s classic 1985 LP, “Bonded By Blood”) and “Exhibit B: The Human Condition” (2010).The thrash metal legends in June 2014 announced the departure of Dukes and the return of his predecessor, Souza, who previously fronted EXODUS from 1986 to 1993 and from 2002 to 2004.Three years after he was fired from EXODUS, Dukes performed with the band during a July 2017 concert in San Francisco, California. He sang several songs with the group on the second of EXODUS’s two-night stint at The Chapel in what marked the band’s first headlining Bay Area club shows since late 2013.Although EXODUS rarely gets mentioned alongside the so-called “Big Four” of 1980s thrash metal — METALLICA, MEGADETH, SLAYER and ANTHRAX — the aforementioned “Bonded By Blood” LP inspired the likes of TESTAMENT, DEATH ANGEL, VIO-LENCE and many others to launch their careers and is considered one of the most influential thrash metal albums of all time.In 2014, METALLICA guitarist Kirk Hammett was asked by U.K.’s Metal Hammer magazine if it’s strange to him how much METALLICA has eclipsed the other “Big Four” bands in terms of commercial popularity. “I try not to spend too much time thinking about stuff like that because whatever I think of is still not going to be a satisfying enough explanation,” he replied. “It’s just the way things are and how the chips fell.”EXODUS in the ’80s had some bona fide problems, but I think their first album [‘Bonded By Blood’] is just as good as [METALLICA’s debut] ‘Kill ‘Em All’. We were just playing the music we wanted to hear because no one else was playing it and it wasn’t being played on the radio. It was only a small group of people who knew about it and it was almost elitist in that ‘No posers allowed!’ thing.”