 Following the hugely successful sold out Hard Rock Hell in 2007, Hard Rock Hell 2 in 2008 and this years Hammerfest festival the organizers are pleased to announce Hard Rock Hell III, to take place in December 2009 at Pontins, Prestatyn Sands, North Wales. Hard Rock Hell launched a new standard in UK metal and rock festivals. Taking place across 3 days at Butlins in Minehead, Somerset on November 9th, 10th and 11th 2007, the sold out festival was an enormous success. Bringing together acts such as Twisted Sister, Saxon, Cradle Of Filth, Turisas, My Dying Bride, Zodiac Mindwarp and Tesla in a unique setting. Last years relocated festival at Pontins, Prestatyn Sands saw Thin Lizzy and Black Label Society headline the sold out event alongside a host of wolrd class acts such as Clutch, The Wildhearts, Blackhole and Budgie. Taking up where last years festival left off, HRH II1 will span 4 decades over 6 arenas and feature 62 bands. This year’s rock ritual will feature all Lords of the Riff and turn it into, another 48 hour maelstrom of rock n metal. HRH II1’s selection of bands will not disappoint, with some incredible exclusives, rare appearances from the vault and even a trio of bands never witnessed on stage together to answer calls for all walks of metal and rock.
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KERRANG! AWARDS WEEK OF ROCK RETURNS FOR 2009 |
 | Kerrang! Magazine have today announced that their annual Kerrang! Awards ‘Week Of Rock’ shows are back for 2009! Running across five nights at the HMV Forum from 28 July – 1 August, the Week Of Rock has gained a reputation for delivering memorable live performances from the hottest rock acts around. Confirmed to play these exclusive shows are the recently reunited Nu Metal heroes Limp Bizkit, UK pop-punkers Youmeatsix, power metallers Dragonforce, LA rockers Buckcherry and finally, adding some glamour courtesy of Cristina Scabbia, Italian gothic metallers Lacuna Coil. Tickets go on sale Friday 19 June at 9am from www.aloud.com / 0844 848 8888 or www.hmv.com. Tickets priced at £20 adv apart from Limp Bizkit which is priced at £30 adv. |
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Susperia Vocalist Set To Return At Steinkjer Festival In Norway |
 Athera (Pål Mathiesen), vocalist with Norwegian thrashers SUSPERIA is set to return to the stage at the Steinkjer Festival www.steinkjerfestivalen.no in Norway on Friday 26 June 2009. The singer, who earlier this year suffered a heart attack which resulted in major open heart surgery, has made a rapid recovery and doctors have now given him the go ahead to make his comeback. Athera recently gave his first interview since the heart attack to Belgium's Metal Nose. Talking about his new perspective on life he said " I haven't seen the light or anything but things are certainly different. I would never ever dare to touch any kind of drugs anymore and I don`t understand now how people can pull smoke into their lungs and stuff like that, even though I used to love it. I guess you must go through something like this to realize the dangers and insanity of some of the bad things in life." Read the full interview at Metal Nose Susperia's fifth studio album 'Attitude' was released last month via Candlelight Records, entering the official Norwegian Album Charts at position No..28, whilst in the USA it was the No. 3 most added album on specialist Rock Radio Playlists. 'Attitude' is the bands debut for the Candlelight label and features guest appearances from Chuck Billy (Testament) and Shagrath (Dimmu Borgir). Recording took place at Strand Studio and Studio Cyrus, Norway, with the mix being completed at Studio Fredman in Sweden by Henrik Udd and Fredrik Nordstrom (Dimmu Borgir, Arch Enemy, Opeth) |
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Sonisphere Festival News: The Wildhearts And More Bands Announced |
| Summer is here, the sun is out and festival season has well and truly started! This weekend, Sonisphere kicks off this summer’s European tour in Holland, where METALLICA and SLIPKNOT will be playing. Look out on next week for reviews, photos and reaction from the first ever Sonisphere Festival. SLIPKNOT won two awards at the Golden Gods this week for best international band and best live act and as we know, members of the band will also be at Knebworth, with Corey Taylor’s first ever UK acoustic solo performance, as well as the UK debut of DIRTY LITTLE RABBITS. Seattle grunge icons ALICE IN CHAINS have announced today that they will be playing a small, intimate gig following their performance at Sonisphere Festival. This amazing gig will be at London’s Scala on Tuesday 4th August and with the first batch of tickets being offered exclusively to founder members club ticket holders. This is fans opportunity to witness Jerry Cantrell and the band on one of their first UK club dates with new vocalist William DuVall. This comes as the band announces the release of the new album Black Gives Way to Blue, due out in September. Great news for Sonisphere ticket holders, with news of four fantastic reinforcements to back up the already stellar cast. Gutsy rockers THE WILDHEARTS will join the bill on Saturday 1st August. |
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Download Festival Scoops ‘Event Of The Year’ At 2009 Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards |
| The Download Festival 2009 has been named ‘Event Of The Year’ at this year’s prestigious Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards. The ceremony took place at the Indigo2 at London’s 02 Dome, just 24 hours after Def Leppard closed the Download Festival with a momentous performance on the Main Stage. Download Festival Promoter Andy Copping jointly accepted the award with Sunset Strip legends Steel Panther, who completely owned the Tuborg Stage on Sunday at Download with a crowd 50 deep clamouring to get inside the already rammed tent. Voted for by Metal Hammer, this award comes hot off the back of what has been described as Download’s best ever year. 80,000 die hard rock fans per day descended onto Donington Park throughout the weekend of 12-14 June to catch headliners Faith No More, Slipknot and Def Leppard top off what has been an extraordinary three days of music, with non stop sunshine to boot! The weekend was monumental and confirms that Download has firmly established itself as the world’s premier rock festival,“ commented Andy Copping last night. “80,000 people a day says it all. Even the good Lord has been converted to being a rock fan as once again he gave us three days of sunshine! Without doubt the greatest three days of my life...see you next year!” |
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ANATHEMA, WOLF and ARTHEMIS CONFIRMED FOR BLOODSTOCK 2009 |
 With a line up boasting the cream of the truly metal crop, it is with great pleasure we can confirm two more awesome bands for this year’s Bloodstock Open Air festival. First up, legendary doomsters and pioneers ANATHEMA, one of the three British bands who popularised Doom-death in the early nineties. Having since diversified, ANATHEMA now boast some fine melodic but dark metal in their repertoire, with their latest material adopting a serene, ambient and atmospheric tone. The band are very pleased to be part of this year’s Bloodstock and have promised fans a performance to remember. Next up, Swedish Metal-heads WOLF are making a long awaited return to this year’s Bloodstock Open Air. Their new album “Ravenous” has been getting rave reviews from the music press including Bloodstock’s official media partners Metal Hammer, who gave the band an 8/10 score. WOLF will no doubt have every head banging furiously from the front to the back, and every pair of horns raised high in the air, with their pure, undiluted metal attack. Finally, BLOODSTOCK OPEN AIR is proud to confirm melodic power-metallers ARTHEMIS will be joining the line up. Having previously played with names such as Slayer, Anthrax, Yngwie Malmsteen and Hammerfall, The Italian’ss mix of uplifting power metal with thrash tinged riffing, pounding drums and blazing vocals is bound to be met enthusiastically by the BLOODSTOCK crowd. In other news, this year there will be a new place to drink at BOA. We all have our favourite local drinking hole, So we thought why not bring that local pub feel to your favourite metal festival, and with mead in hand who needs a juke box to pick your favourite metal songs from when you have 3 stages showcasing an awesome array of full on Brutal Metal acts supported by a 10,000 strong hoard of metal heads to sing along with – what a site to behold. Therefore we are pleased to announce that following an overwhelming response from Bloodstock attendees with suggestions on what we should call the Bloodstock festival bar this year we have decided to settle on ‘Bloodstock Arms’. Bloodstock organiser ‘Paul’ has even put brush to canvass with this one and designed an official pub swing sign to be hung outside the main bar – we hope you like it.
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Five Finger Death Punch and Behemoth Scoop Golden Gods Awards |
 FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH were declared ‘Best New Band’ at this year’s Metal Hammer Awards ceremony at the O2 Arena in London on June 15th. Voted for by readers of the magazine, the award was presented by Metal Hammer editor Alexander Milas and Dez Fafara of Devildriver fame. Commented Milas, “This award goes out to a band that has emerged in the past 12 months, and kicked all of our asses!”. “They pulled one of the most insane crowds of the weekend at Download and they’ve been the band that you’ve given the most love to over the course of the past 12 months.”. Other nominees in the category included Black Tide, Sylosis, Malefice, Trigger The Bloodshed and Alestorm. Five Finger Death Punch recently announced that the title of their second studio album would be ‘War Is The Answer’. Co-produced by Kevin Churko and currently being mixed by Randy Staub, the eleven track outing is scheduled for a September ’09 release via Spinefarm Records UK. ‘War Is The Answer’ will be available on a number of different formats, including double vinyl; the latter will be housed in a sleeve exclusive to the UK market. EHEMOTH STEAL BEST UNDERGROUND BAND TITLE BEHEMOTH beat Architects, Annotations Of An Autopsy, Kylesa, Beneath The Massacre and Legion Of The Damned to scoop the award for “Best Underground Band”. Frontman Nergal collected the award from Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta in person at the event, thanking fans and supporters for voting them winners of their first award in a 19 year career. The highly anticipated new album “Evangelion” is released via Nuclear Blast on August 10th 2009
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DEAD BY APRIL: Lacuna Coil Kerrang! Awards Support Show Announced |
 DEAD BY APRIL – the ‘modern melodic metallers’ from Gothenburg, Sweden – have been confirmed to appear with Lacuna Coil and Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan of Slipknot fame’s side project Dirty Little Rabbits at the July 31st Kerrang! show at the London HMV Forum in Kentish Town. The event is part of a series of shows leading up to the Kerrang! Awards. Other acts set to perform include Limp Bizkit, Dragonforce, Glamour Of The Kill, Youmeatsix and Buckcherry. Tickets for the Dead By April/ Dirty Little Rabbits/ Lacuna Coil show go on sale on Friday, June 19th at 9am from http://www.aloud.com (0844 848 8888) or http://www.hmv.com, and are priced at £20 advance. The Kerrang! Awards themselves will take place at a top secret location in London on Monday, August 3rd. Following this July 31st date, Dead By April – who topped the Swedish charts for a number of weeks with their debut single ‘Losing You’ - will be playing at the inaugural Sonisphere Festival, set to take place on August 1st & 2nd at Knebworth in Hertfordshire. The Swedes will be appearing on the newly announced Bohemia stage, with performance times to be revealed shortly. The headliners for the event are Metallica and Linkin Park, with the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Alice In Chains, Lamb Of God, Thin Lizzy, Mastodon, Avenged Sevenfold and many more rounding out the bill. The self-titled Dead By April album (which recently hit the #2 spot in Sweden) will be released in the UK on August 3rd. |
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CHTHONIC - ‘MIRROR OF RETRIBUTION’ |
 Taiwanese Extreme Metallers confirm new studio album for August 10th release via Spinefarm Records UK…
TAIWAN IS a country where history and folklore work very much hand in hand, and both of these elements are central to the latest studio album from that country’s premier metal outfit, Chthonic (pronounced ‘Thonic’). Formed in 1995, five-piece set-up Chthonic (a name deriving from a Greek word signifying spirits of the underworld) have delivered an 11-track body of work that touches on both the spirit and mortal worlds, with loss of national identity and the sometimes turbulent history of their homeland recurring themes. With Anthrax guitarist Rob Caggiano at the production & mixing helm, ‘Mirror Of Retribution’ sees the award-winning musicians further developing a style that started with the ’99 album ‘Where The Ancestors’ Souls Gathered’, blending full-on metal of the darker persuasion with traditional Taiwanese instruments such as two-string violin, the hena. The story behind this album combines true historical fact with an ancient myth of hell,” explains bassist and band spokesperson Doris Yeh. “Amongst other things, we make reference to the famous ‘228 Massacre’, which was the biggest ever massacre in Taiwanese history. Tens of thousands of Taiwanese were killed by the Chinese army. The final battle of the event occurred in the middle of Taiwan, where 40 local militia attempted to resist 2,500 soldiers from the Chinese army. In the end, the militia lost their lives near the Sing-Ling Temple. Musically, we tried to move the band to a whole new level,” continues Doris. “In the past, we’ve been described in various ways, as ‘symphonic black metal’ or ‘melodic death’, the word ‘folk’ has also been applied at times, but this was our chance to establish a new place for ourselves in the extreme metal genre…” Never ones to shy away from a just cause, Chthonic – in particular frontman Freddy Lim – have been consistently active on the political front at home, whilst away from their hometown of Taipei they have appeared at the Wacken Festival in Germany and toured as part of the Ozzfest in the US, the first Asian extreme metal band to make such a mark.
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 ARCHITECTS, DESPISED ICON & IWRESTLEDABEARONCE confirmed to play Imperial Never Say Die! Tour 2009 Each year the hottest bands in the field of modern extreme music team up for the ‘Never Say Die!’ Club Tour (Avocado Booking), this time around the tour will be sponsored by Imperial Clothing and features none less than three Century Media acts! The UK's very own ARCHITECTS will be headlining the UK leg of the tour melting faces with tracks from their critically acclaimed current album “Hollow Crown” and look forward to be featured on the tour once again: "We're stoked to be part of ‘Never Say Die!’ again! Last year was arguably the best tour we've ever been part of so to do it all again as co-headliners is truly awesome. We won't have played a headline show in the UK for 9 months by the time the tour comes around, so we hope to see some familiar faces out at the shows, and Europe is always amazing for us too. We can't wait!" Architects will be also playing Download Festival on Saturday. Canadian extremists DESPISED ICON will headline the shows on the European mainland and will use this opportunity to present you their brand-new album, which will be released in September 2009, the band states: "We’re excited to be coming back to Europe on this year’s ‘Never Say Die!’ tour. We're finally going to play a few new tracks for you guys, we'll be sharing the stage with some awesome bands. We can't wait to be a part of this tour!" |
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Maylene and The Sons Of Disaster Premiere Two New Tracks |
 Premiere Two new tracks off Upcoming Album, III, out July 6th on Ferret Music! We're never going to be as fierce as southern metalcore wizards Maylene and The Sons of Disaster, but we're going to try by giving you a new song to stream exclusively, "Harvest Moon Hanging," on their AP.net Profile. The track is off the band's upcoming July 6th release titled III. You might want to hold on. - Absolutepunk Maylene and The Sons Of Disaster have made two more tracks abvailable from their upcoming new album, "III," out on July 6th on Ferret Music. “Step Up (I’m On It)” "Harvest Moon Hanging" Needless to say, the kids are psyched! |
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SYLOSIS – Live clip from DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL available |
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