According to www.Bravewords.com, Candlelight Records have set a June 28th release for the reissue of EMPEROR's live DVD, "Emperial Live Ceremony". It's been remastered for better sound, and includes new material such as a photo gallery.

Band profile:

Emperor

Norway's BORKNAGAR have set a June 29 European release date through Century Media Records for their sixth album, "Epic".

The follow-up to 2001's "Empiricism" was recorded and mixed at Toproom and Fagerborg Studios with producer Borge Finstad (MAYHEM, SOLEFALD). "Musically the album will take off and expand from where 'Empiricism' ended, and for those of you who liked our previous material: the new album will rock you by the root!" the band write on their web site.

"Epic" track listing:

01. Future Reminiscence (5:26)
02. Traveller (5:03)
03. Origin (4:58)
04. Sealed Chambers of Electricity (4:12)
05. The Weight of Wind (3:58)
06. Resonance (4:28)
07. Relate (Dialogue)(4:28)
08. Cyclus (5:25)
09. Circled (4:45)
10. Inner Ocean Hypothesis (5:10)
11. Quintessence (5:31)
12. The Wonder (4:16)

Total running time: (57:55)

Band profile:

Borknagar

French metallers HEAVENLY have parted ways with guitarist Frédéric Leclercq, bassist Pierre-Emmanuel Pelisson and drummer Maxence Pilo. The split, which leaves vocalist Benjamin Sotto and guitarist Charley Corbiaux as the sole remaining members of the group, is being attributed to "musical and professional" differences.

According to a posting on the band's official web site, three new musicians (whose names will be revealed "soon") are already working with the band on the material for their next studio album, which they will record before the end of the year. Several live appearances in the fall are planned as well.

HEAVENLY's third album, "Dust To Dust", was released in January through Sanctuary/Noise Records. The follow-up to 2001's "Sign Of The Winner" was mixed by Sascha Paeth (ANGRA, RHAPSODY, KAMELOT) and was described by the group as "more heavy metal and more symphonic" than the band's previous efforts.

Band profile:

Heavenly

A recording of EVERGREY's April 18 performance at Lava Room Recording Studios in Cleveland, Ohio as part of "The Metal Show"'s (92.3 FM WXTM) "Unleashed" live metal series will be available on the Internet for fans to listen to this week. The performance will air in its entirety on Saturday, May 1 at 8:30 p.m. EST exclusively at www.themetalshow.com. There is no charge to listen to the audio streams of this performance.

Band profile:

Evergrey

Polish SOULFLY fan site www.soulfly2004.prv.pl has uploaded an audio recording of the group's entire March 13, 2004 headlining appearance in Katowice, Poland. Download it here: http://www.kuba.sup.pl/kamil/probka.htm

SOULFLY's fourth full-length album, "Prophecy" was released on March 30 through Roadrunner Records. The album was produced by mainman Max Cavalera at The Saltmine Studio Oasis in Mesa, Arizona and was mixed by Terry Date (DEFTONES, PANTERA) at Studio X in Seattle, Washington.

Maximum Metal (www.maximummetal.com) recently spoke with Rob Cavestany Of DEATH ANGEL about the new CD "The Art of Dying" which will hit the stores on April 27, 2004 (Europe, South America) and May 4, 2004 (United States, Australia).

Rob says the band will tour, but no U.S. dates have been set up as of yet. It was also noted that Ryko will release more Death Angel material in the future and that a new video has been completed:

"It will be the 'Kill As One' demo and 'The Ultra Violence' and some additional artwork added as well. Some old pics and flyers with it as well. At the same time will be the reissue of 'Frolic Through The Park' with three unreleased older songs on that plus additional art to that. Then there will be an eleven song CD of Death Angel material that was never released, then all three will be available in a box-set with a DVD of videos of that era, with older rare footage of shows and us messing around and stuff."

We just did a video for "Thicker Than Blood" and sent that over to Nuclear Blast to do whatever they need to do to get that on the air. Nuclear Blast is in contact with MTV2 to get it on there."

Rob even commented on bands like The Darkness bringing back the 80s:

"...they are bringing back the poser shit that I was never into back then. There is no old substance musically to me. If you are bringing back Van Halen you better bring back some riffs, some big Van Halen guitar boy."

Band profile:

Death Angel

Here is the setlist from DREAM THEATER's show in Budokan, Japan on April 26th which was filmed for a DVD release:

band history video (intro tape)
As I Am
This Dying Soul
Beyond This Life
Hollow Years
War Inside My Head/
The Test That Stumped Them All
Endless Sacrifice
Instrumedley
Trial Of Tears
~~~intermission~~~
New Millennium
piano solo
Only A Matter Of Time
Goodnight Kiss/
Solitary Shell
Stream of Consciousness
Disappear
Pull Me Under
~~~encore~~~
In The Name Of God

Band profile:

Dream Theater

The North American release date of DESTRUCTION's "Live Discharge - 20 Years Of Total Destruction" DVD has been pushed back to May 18. No reason was given for the delay.

As previously reported, the DVD features four and a half hours of live, backstage and historical footage and the Japan-only CD release "Alive Devastation". The collectors' digipack will be limited to 666 copies. Preview clips of two tracks are currently available online: "Live Without Sense" (recorded at the Z7 Club in Pratteln, Switzerland, .MPG, Windows Media), "Machinery Of Lies" (.MPG, Windows Media).

Band profile:

Destruction

Multi-talented Swedish musician/producer Dan Swanö (NIGHTINGALE, UNICORN, EDGE OF SANITY, INFESTDEAD, ODYSSEY, PAN-THY-MONIUM) has posted the following message on his discussion forum:

"What's happening???

"It's been a while since I updated you on the current development of the records I am about to make with my friends in NIGHTINGALE, BLOODBATH and SECOND SKY. So here we go.

"I am currently preparing the NIGHTINGALE pre-productions for mix and as soon as my brother finishes his guitar solos and a few synthesizer tracks, we're all set for destruction. Then I will send this to the engineer at Studio Underground and we'll use it to listen and learn from our own (mis)takes or just rock-out to. The material is extremely varied everything from metal (Brother Nouga goes chugga-chugga in 'A Raincheck For My Demise') to the fusion/grunge (!!!) of 'Worlds Apart'. My fave this far is the doom-laden 'Stalingrad' which can take the happiness out of any living creature...There's something for every taste...and since my music taste is the weirdest ever, I love them all!! The cover is in preparation, I have received some promising suggestions from the guy that did the 'Shadowman' and 'Shadowland Serenade' picture from the AA booklet, Mr. Guyla or Hungary fame. Nothing is 100% yet, but I have got a good feeling that he's the man to visualize the lyrics to 'Invisible'.

"With BLOODBATH things are looking cool. We enter the studio Kuling the 4th of May and have booked the place for 14 days. I will not be able to spend too much time there since I am working at the music store most of the times. So will record my parts at home and also lock up Mr. Tägtgren in my own vocal booth to sing on the tracks that I have written. My tracks are pretty standard Swanö-death songs with no bigger surprises, apart from being very good, of course. The titles are 'Stillborn Savior', 'Eaten', 'Brave New Hell' and 'The Ascension'. The album will be called 'Nightmares Made Flesh' and Century Media will release it during the autumn....The drums for SECOND SKY will be record in a little cottage out in the countryside just outside Örebro. I have always dreamt of doing an 'in-house' recording and it feels suitable to do it now when the stakes are higher than ever...This album will not be ready for release until the end of 2005. So there will be more updates on this one in the future."

German industrial metallers RAMMSTEIN have set a June 14 release date for their new single, entitled "Mein Teil". "Mein Teil" comes off the group's long-awaited follow-up to 2001's "Mutter", tentatively due this summer.

The recording sessions for the new RAMMSTEIN album took place in Spain while additional recordings were made in a session with strings and a choir in Berlin. Production duties on the upcoming CD are being handled by Jacob Hellner, who worked with the group on "Mutter". No further information is currently available.

Band profile:

Rammstein

FOR MY PAIN?, the Finnish "gothic metal" band featuring Tuomas Holopainen (NIGHTWISH) on keyboards, Altti Veteläinen (ex-ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW) on bass, Lauri Tuohimaa (EMBRAZE) on guitar, Olli-Pekka Törrö (ex-ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW) on guitar, Juha Kylmänen (REFLEXION) on vocals, and Petri Sankala (ex-ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW) on drums, have set a June 16 release date through Spinefarm Records for their new single, "Killing Romance". The CD, which was recorded at Tico Tico studio in Kemi, Finland, will contain two brand-new original songs plus an as-yet-undisclosed cover which the band promise "will be quite surprising in many ways."

"Killing Romance" (view cover here) track listing:

01. Killing Romance
02.
03. Too Sad to Live

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Swedish black metallers LORD BELIAL have set a June 20 European release date through Regain Records for their fifth album, "The Seal Of Belial".

The self-produced effort was engineered by Nicklas Rudolfsson and Andy La Rocque (KING DIAMOND) at Los Angered Recording studios in Gothenburg, Sweden and was mixed by Andy.

LORD BELIAL were recently rejoined by original drummer Micke Backelin following the departure of Daniel Moilanen (half-brother of former SHOTGUN MESSIAH guitarist Harry K. Cody) last October.

Upcoming LORD BELIAL shows:

Apr. 10 - Club Nocturnal - Gothenburg, SWE
May 01 - Club Adrian/Hvitfelt - Uddevalla, SWE
May 07 - Belsepub - Gothenburg, SWE
May 29 - Körpehölsfestivalen - Uddevalla, SWE

Band profile:

Lord Belial

DEICIDE have reportedly dropped off the SUPERJOINT RITUAL U.S. trek for reasons that are not entirely clear. Although no official statement has yet been released on the matter, one attendee at SUPERJOINT's show in Huntington, West Virginia Tuesday night (April 6) has told BLABBERMOUTH.NET that SUPERJOINT frontman Phil Anselmo was heard announcing from the stage that "stupid fuckin' DEICIDE have been kicked off the tour." Adding fuel to the reports is a posting on the web site of Annies Entertainment Complex in Cincinnati confirming that SUPERJOINT's show there Wednesday night (April 7) will not include an appearance by DEICIDE. Furthermore, DEICIDE's official web site, www.deicide.com, has removed all references to the SUPERJOINT tour, with no U.S. dates currently listed for the group prior to the start of their European jaunt in early June. More information is expected soon.

Band profile:

Deicide

Frontman Dave Mustaine of MEGADETH has checked in with an update to the band's official website:

"What's done is done.

Droogies!
Today I officially finished the last song of MEGADETH and am on to the MD.45 record.
The news is that excluding Risk which will only have two, every other record is going to have four bonus tracks. I enjoyed watching all of the ring pieces say that I was holding onto songs for later release for the money.

Boy don't you look stoopid now. Yes, you do.

There are Randy Burns mixes, Paul Lani mixes, RIP demos with Chris Poland, with Marty Friedman, and just with me as guitarist before I started interviewing anyone. There are Countdown and Youth demos, Cryptic demos, alternate mixes of Cryptic and Risk and then there are unreleased tracks. And I know none of you have these suckas!
One track that I know none of you have or have ever even heard was the track that MEGADETH did for the KISS - Kiss my Ass record. Well, you will.
I am honored to have performed for all of you, and I am very proud of what has been accomplished here in the last couple of months. I hope you know, this has never been done before where a person re-mixed his enitre catalogue for re-release in this short amount of time, AND it not sounding like ca-ca!

And let me close by sayng that the MD.45 record is hella kewl! I was worried about not being able to do justice to the vocal parts that Lee did, but I just remembered that I sang some of them to him when we were in the studio anyways, and I got over it.

I know Lee would rather I re-sang this record AND have our music get out to the masses, then it just remain in a vault somewhere, unheard of.
BTW - The surprise that I said I was working on hasn't been mentioned in this or any post made by me yet.

Now go get a tissue; you're dribblin'!

MSGD!"

Band profile:

Megadeth

Ex-STRATOVARIUS singer Timo Kotipelto was asked by Skipmag.de last month if he has any intentions of performing with his former bandmates at their scheduled appearance at Germany's Rock Hard festival in late May. "Let me put it like this," Timo replied. " One and a half weeks ago I played a festival in Spain. I really tried to give my best to the fans and to sing as good as possible. Jörg did the same. But the other guys, especially Tolkki and Johansson, messed up the whole show. That really pissed me off! I don't know if you've already read it somewhere but after the first song Mr. Boss left the stage and return later really drunk. And then Johansson did something that really shouldn't be done on stage (Johansson urinated on Tolkki's leg during the song "Forever" ? Ed.). That's simply not fair. I try to give my best for those people who paid all that money for their tickets. And I really don't want all this shit to happen on the stage. That really sucks! It was already hard enough for me to go to the rehearsals and then on stage with those people. If they do such shit then, it's not fair. At the moment I'm really not interested in playing another show with these people. But this can change within one month. I also think that these shows will take place, though I heard that Tolkki has in mind to dissolve the band. But I think there are many fans that want to see us live and also people that want to see me sing live and never saw us live or missed the last tour. I think we should try to do all this professional . I don't have to talk to these people after the show and they don't have to talk to me, but I think if these gigs take place, that every one of us should play as good as possible instead of doing all this shit."

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Band profile:

Stratovarius