Megadeth‘s touring bassist James LoMenzo has shared behind-the-scenes images of the band rehearsing for their upcoming ‘Metal Tour Of The Year’.

LoMenzo was recently appointed as the replacement for Megadeth co-founder and former bassist David Ellefson, who parted ways with the group in May following allegations of grooming an underage girl (He previously denied the claims).

The new bassist first joined the band in 2006, contributing to the studio albums ‘United Abominations’ (2007) and ‘Endgame’ (2009).

Now, LoMenzo has taken to Instagram to give fans a sneak peek of Megadeth’s upcoming tour with Lamb Of God, which kicks off this Friday (August 20) and runs until October (the full schedule can be found here).

“I want to take a moment to sincerely thank all my friends and the amazing Megadeth fans who took the time to wish me well this week,” he captioned a trio of shots.

“Tour prep has been a blast, it’s great to be playing with Dave [Mustaine, frontman] again! I’m finding that with Kiko [Loureiro] and Dirk [Verbeuren], Megadeth feels like a Locomotive bearing down the tracks.”

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A post shared by James LoMenzo (@bassmonsterr)

He added: “I can’t wait to see you all out there on The Metal Tour of the Year!” You can see the post above.

Speaking in a statement last week, Mustaine said that he and the band “cannot wait to start crushing North America”. LoMenzo, meanwhile, told fans he was “super stoked” to be rejoining Megadeth.

Last month, Dave Mustaine announced the title of Megadeth’s 16th studio album: ‘The Sick, The Dying And The Dead’. He also shared a snippet of the title track. A release date for the record has not yet been confirmed.