According to SLAYER singer Tom Araya’s wife’s Facebook page, his mother passed away on Thursday, April 2nd.

Sandra Araya writes; “Today is a sad day for our family. Tom's mom Tina passed away yesterday. We appreciate all the calls, text and messages. My handsome and children have taken the news hard. She was a wonderful woman full of love and life. You will be missed deeply.”

The Araya family emigrated from Chile to Southern California in 1966, when Tom was five years old. As he revealed in a 2012 interview, being close with his mother helped him keep in touch with his Latino roots. “I always speak to my mom in Spanish even though she is fluent in English and she speaks it to my kids in hopes that they pick it up,” he told NBC Latino.

“My wife is always telling me you need to teach them so they can communicate with her.”

'When The Stillness Comes,' the first new track from SLAYER in nearly a year, will be available as part of Record Store Day on April 18th, it is announced today by SLAYER and Nuclear Blast.

The song, accompanied by a live recording of 'Black Magic', from the band's 1983 album Show No Mercy and recorded live at the 2014 Wacken Open Air Festival, will be available as a limited-edition (only 5000 copies worldwide), 7” vinyl picture disc exclusively at all participating independent record stories worldwide.

SLAYER - Tom Araya, Kerry King and Paul Bostaph - recorded 'When The Stillness Comes' last year in Los Angeles with producer Terry Date. Currently, the band (rounded off by Exodus guitarist Gary Holt) is in the final stages of recording what will be its first new album since 2009's Grammy-nominated World Painted Blood which is expected out later this year.