Are you a fan of the prog metal band Dream Theater or the more straight-ahead metal of Avenged Sevenfold? According to Mike Portnoy, the longtime drummer of Dream Theater and the fill-in drummer for A7X’s Nightmare, neither of those were metal bands. We’re sure he means differently, but apparently, he’s playing something that’s straight-up metal, at least according to a Facebook post he made yesterday. “I just layed down the most brutal drum performance of my career! Picture Angel of Death meets Dyers Eve… I FINALLY have my metal outlet! \m/” the post says.

In addition to having him so psyched he can’t spell “laid,” it certainly sounds like something that’s heavy. It’s kind of a diss to Dream Theater, Avenged Sevenfold and Adrenaline Mob to say that they’re not metal, however. But hearing Portnoy play beats approximating classic Slayer and Metallica has us pretty psyched. He hasn’t said much more about what project this would be, except to state that he planted some clues on December 14th. Some internet sleuths saw that Alex Skolnick and David Ellefson tweeted the same thing, so apparently they’re in the same project together. It’ll be interesting to see a) just how metal it is and b) how many more people are in it.