Thrash metal giants Megadeth announced the band’s forthcoming studio album will be their last, followed by a global farewell tour next year.

“There’s so many musicians that have come to the end of their career, whether accidental or intentional,” Megadeth founder and frontman Dave Mustaine said in a statement on Thursday released on the band’s website. “Most of them don’t get to go out on their own terms on top, and that’s where I’m at in my life right now.”

The new album, reportedly titled “The End Is Near,” is set to be released early next year. Pre-orders for the album will begin on Sept. 26, according to a countdown clock on the website.

The farewell tour will also kick off in 2026, though exact dates have not been announced.

While Mustaine said the hardest part will be “saying goodbye” to the millions of fans who have supported the band over more than 40 years, he knows the time is right to call it quits.

“Don’t be mad, don’t be sad, be happy for us all, come celebrate with me these next few years,” he wrote in the statement. “We have done something together that’s truly wonderful and will probably never happen again. We started a musical style, we started a revolution … and we changed the world.”

Mustaine started Megadeth in 1983 after he was fired by Metallica, another band he co-founded. Megadeth has since released nearly 20 studio albums, most recently with 2022’s “The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!”

Mustaine has been the only consistent member of Megadeth since the group’s inception. The band currently consists of guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari, bassist James LoMenzo and drummer Dirk Verbeuren.

Along with announcing the final album and farewell tour, Mustaine also said he’d be releasing a memoir sometime next year, the details of which will be revealed in the coming months.

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