Arsis has completed work on their upcoming album, "We Are The Nightmare." Produced by Zeuss (Agnostic Front, Hatebreed) at Planet Z Studios in Massachusetts and mastered by Alan Douches (Kataklysm, Unearth), the tracklisting for the album, due out in North America in early-2008 through Nuclear Blast Records, is as follows:

01. We Are The Nightmare
02. Shattering The Spell
03. Sightless Wisdom
04. Servants To The Night
05. Failing Winds Of Hopeless Greed
06. Overthrown
07. Progressive Entrapment
08. A Feast For The Liar's Tongue
09. My Oath To Madness
10. Failure's Conquest

Guitarist and vocalist Jim Malone comments:

"I can honestly say that this was the best recording experience that I have had in my years with Arsis. Not only was Zeuss great to work with, but Ryan , Darren , and Noah all did an outstanding job. We all worked together to create what I feel is the most accomplished Arsis album to date. It's been a few weeks since we finished recording and I can still listen to the songs; that's a good sign."

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Source:	myspace.com
Band profile:	Arsis

The following update was posted on Omnium Gatherum's official website:

"We´re sad to inform that our long-time bass player for 10 years Janne Markkanen has decided to step aside from OG crew due to his lack of time and motivation for this type of music. There´s none bad blood between us and of course we wish him best of luck for whatever he is doing from now on.

Good news are that we have new fresh motivated blood in the crew as Eerik Purdon is our new bassist from now on and he´ll be looking after to create some demonic bottom pulse and groove to our noise. Eerik have been our good friend for some time and he also helped us and played bass on Omnium Gatherum's Summer Blast Fest Spain / Portugal -tour in June 2007 when Janne was unavailable to do the shows and the dude really showed his infernal talents and Omnium Gatherum attitude there! Eerik also plays in Crystal Blaze and he was acting session bassist in Amoral for their latest Finnish shows."

Janne's statement: "Thanks to everybody, Omnium Gatherum-dudes, other bands and fans for great times during these years. I really felt that it was time for me to step aside, and let someone with more enthusiasm to take my place. Eerik is a real bad-ass player and great dude, so be prepared for some major ass-kicking Omnium Gatherum material!"

Source:	omniumgatherum.org
Band profile:	Omnium Gatherum

AFM Records press release:

"The new Helstar album "Sins Of The Past" will be released on November, 23! The guys around singer James Rivera re-recorded some of the old classics from the first Helstar records to put them on this album. This is for sure not just another best of album! All the old songs will come with an outstanding new sound and the album will also include 2 brandnew Helstar tracks! The first edition of "Sins Of The Past" will come in a special CD layout. Furthermore, a limited picture vinyl version will be available."

Here is the tracklist of "Sins Of The Past" cover]:

01. Burning Star
02. Suicidal Nightmare
03. The King Is Dead
04. Evil Reign
05. Baptised In Blood
06. Witch´s Eye
07. Tyrannicide
08. Harker´s Tale
09. Angel Of Deathe
10. Dracula´s Castle
11. Face The Wicked One
12. Tormentor (new song!)
13. Caress Of The Dead (new song!)

+ addition video material with 1 hour playing time!

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Source:	afm-records.de
Band profile:	Helstar

The following message was posted on the Italian Doom Metal band's website:

"The time has finally come: "Obscura Arcana Mortis: The Demo Years" is out!! This CD includes the remastered reissue of the now-classic debut Demo-MCD of the band "Obscura Arcana Mortis" (originally recorded in 1999 and released during 2000 in a strictly-limited edition of 215 copies) plus 2 lenghty and exclusive Live bonus-tracks (recorded in 2004 at Waking The Dead Fest, The Netherlands).
The CD is completed with fully renewed graphix and liner notes by Herr Morbid, including never-seen-before pictures taken between 1998 and 2000. A must to have for all the true FT fanatics worldwide!! The CD is limited to 1000 hand-numbered copies and it has been released by italian label Eerie Art Records (www.eerieartrecords.com). A cold, dark and monumental piece of pure old-fashioned Black Metal that every fan of this music should have in his collection. Fast, uncompromising and with a killer-sound too, no lo-fi bullshit here! You can order it from Eerie Art Records or directly from the band or by visiting the Merchandise page of our website."

Source:	forgottentomb.com
Band profile:	Forgotten Tomb

Finnish metallers Children of Bodom have just entered Petrax Studio in Hollola, Finland to begin recording their as-yet-untitled sixth album. The follow-up to 2005's "Are You Dead Yet?" is being produced by Mikko Karmila and will feature a guest appearance by Peter Tägtgren of Hypocrisy and Pain fame. An April 2008 release is expected.

The band posted the following message on their website: "Children Of Bodom entered the studio and started to record their sixth studio album which is scheduled to be released on April 2nd in 2008. Henkka wrote the first part of a studio diary that will regularly inform you about the recording process.

You can find the first part of it at this location. Stay tuned for the next parts!"

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Source:	metalfromfinland.com
Band profile:	Children Of Bodom

The following was posted at November's Doom's offical home page :

''A third and final show has been added in Europe this November. This performance will be held on November 12th at Rockconcern De Rots, Antwerp Belgium. To build off the special evening of November 10th, where the band will shoot their first ever live DVD in Vosselaar, the show in Antwerp will be entirely acoustic, also a first for the band."

"There's always a list of songs in our catalog people ask to hear live, and we decided to try something a bit different, and play a different sort of set for the band," comments singer Paul Kuhr. "We will be performing the entire set, acoustically, and playing a large amount of songs we have never performed live before. We wanted to make our short trip to Europe a special one, and with all the focus being on the DVD shoot, this acoustic evening will be a great time for us, also giving the fans something unique from the band."

Source:	novembersdoom.com
Band profile:	Novembers Doom
Event:	Dark Metal Fest

Brainstorm are proud to announce the title of our upcoming album "Downburst".

Guitarist Torsten Ihlenfeld had the following to say in a statement on their website: "Final coverart will be revealed soon, all I say yet is that it looks very impressing by now. Further, here are the tracks that will most likely appear on the album, not in final order of appearance yet.

Falling Spiral Down
Fire Walk With Me
Stained With Sin
Frozen
End In Sorrow
Redemption In Your Eyes
How Do You Feel
All Alone
Surrounding Walls
Crawling In Chains
Protect Me From Myself

We have spared neither trouble nor expense to deliver you the best sounding, state of the art Brainstorm album to date, can't wait to let you hear because this one will leave you with your jaw dropped, I'm sure! We are almost done with the mix and all I can say is that everything sounds f*#%ing amazing.

Also, we have added some more live shows to our touring schedule. Brainstorm will play the ProgPower UK Festival in Bristol, UK on Saturday, March 29th 2008 and the Metal Camp Festival July 5th 2008 in Tolmin, Slovenia. We really look forward to returning to the UK and Slovenia. See the tourdates for the complete schedule."

In other news, Brainstorm will release a new single, "Fire Walk with Me" (cover artwork), on October 19 in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy and October 22 in the rest of the world via Metal Blade Records.

"Fire Walk with Me" single tracklisting:

01. Fire Walk With Me (single version)
02. Breathe
03. Worlds Are Coming Through (live)
04. Painside (live)
05. Fire Walk With Me (Firestarter mix)

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Source:	truemetal.org
Band profile:	Brainstorm

The following message was posted on the band's website:

''Hello Everybody

Looks like we had left this space a bit forgotten for a while?

But there is a good reason for that, and it is that we have been locked in our rehearsal room writing and arranging new music for our upcoming album. Besides that we hadn't that much to tell you ? it is such a paradox that the most exciting part of being a band (the process of giving shape to the new songs) is the one you have the less to talk about.

It would have been no fun to make news updates such as "well, this week we have been rehearsing", and then, the week after something like "ok, this week we have been also rehearsing", so we preferred just to stay quiet and concentrate on the music.

We have also dumped some new songs as always, so the process is not a quick one for us ? in other words, it seems like we always have to take a couple centuries to write a damn album ? hoho.

We stopped our live activities for some time due to Claudio becoming a father (Congratulations to him and Ivania for their beautiful daughter Beatriz) so, for obvious reasons, he wanted to be at home as much as possible.

However, we'll be hitting the stages again next week, as we will be playing with the great band Twilight Mist, who are releasing their demo. The gig will take place in Santiago (Oxido Bar) this Saturday (May, 26). For further details check the "Gigs" section of this site.''

Source:	poemaarcanus.cl
Band profile:	Poema Arcanus

Following the completion of their new album "Cannibalised" Biomechanical have also completed their line up, with the addition of ex-DragonForce bassist Adrian Lambert.

A blog posted on the band's MySpace page goes as follows:

"We are very happy to announce that the Biomechanical line-up is now complete with the addition of bassist Adrian Lambert! Adrian also plays with Son of Science and has also played for Dragonforce and Intense. His fast and furious bass style is exactly what the band was looking for! The band will get together soon and will get ready for touring the new Biomechanical album Cannibalised (out Feb 2008)."

Biomechanical frontman John K commented the following:

"Its no secret that its a bit of a bitch to find good bass players and I was thrilled when Adrian contacted me. I also had people from Europe and the UK applying for the job and some of them were of very high standards . But after checking Adrian's playing I realized the logical next step would be to welcome him to the band!"

Adrian stated:

"Its really exciting to be playing with a world-class act like Biomechanical. I've been into the band since I got The Empires of the Worlds album back when I was still playing in DragonForce, so it's quite incredible for me to be playing with Biomechanical now. John K's assembled an insanely talented new line-up - he's had to get the best because of the complexity and scope of the new album Cannibalised."

Commenting further on the band's third album, which is set for a February 2008 release date, Adrian states:

"You've got the bombastic film score stuff, you've got the crushing extreme metal riffs and solos? Hell, you've even got some heart-breaking vocal melodies in there as well as John's trademark screams! I think there's more of a groove to this album than 'Eight Moons' and 'Empires?.' but it's also even more extreme and brutal than previous releases. I feel that Biomechanical are breaking a lot of boundaries with Cannibalised and I'm proud to be a part of the team taking this album out on the road".

You can check out an advance track here.

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Source:	blog.myspace.com
Band profile:	Biomechanical

Exclusive news was posted on the Italian Doom Metal band's website:

Herr Morbid entered the german Dark Metal legends Bethlehem as the new guitar player!! This is the announcement, directly from the Official Bethlehem MySpace: "We proudly present our new guitarist known as "Herr Morbid" of Forgotten Tomb. Bartsch and Morbid soon will start writing a new Bethlehem longplayer for 2008 which more will follow the dark path again, containing some more sick and disturbing ideas like once done on the 90s albums. All other informations who else will play on this record are given to a later date and arent relevant yet. First we have to collect some song ideas, so please dont bother bout possible vocal rumours or other useless things spred around in the underground at the moment. Thank you." Be prepared!!!

After the successful gigs in Finland, the band is ready to hit the road again. October the 13th will see the 4 bastards invading Spain for the first time, headlining the second day of the "Satan Lives Fest II" (see flyer on the right). Spanish fanatics, don't miss this gig!! Visit the Tour-section for more details.

New album of the band will be tentatively titled "Under Saturn Retrograde", and it will include something like 7 or 8 songs. As recently reported by Herr Morbid, 5 songs have been already written, and the general sound of the album has been defined "Extremely obscure and uncompromising. The people who talked shit about us because of 'Negative Megalomania' will have to eat their shit back, 100% guaranteed." . The album should be recorded in Spring 2008, and released in Summer/Autumn 2008, most probably still on Avantgarde Music.

The band is still organizing gigs all around Europe, so if you're a professional organizer and you want to book the band for 1 or more gigs, now you can write at this new address: NOSPAMbooking@forgottentomb.com (remove NOSPAM before writing).

1 new gig confirmed for January 2008. The band will join Hate-Grindcore legends Cripple Bastards for a special show in Torino, Italy. More details in the Tour section.

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Source:	forgottentomb.com
Band profile:	Forgotten Tomb

Janne Pennanen and Ville Skön from Finnish metal band Shiver have posted the following lengthy message on the band's MySpace page:

"Music and creating music are usually pleasant and joyful things, but unfortunately this is not always true. The joy was killed for us last spring, when a series of downhearting events occurred.
But let us start from the beginning, so you all will know exactly what happened.

In the beginning of the year 2006, we were searching for a vocalist for our band, and got numerous inquiries from many people. One of these people was Rick Altzi from Sweden. He was one of the noteworthy candidates, but was not chosen for the job.

We sent one of our songs to each of those who contacted us, so they could make their own interpretations of the lyrics and the vocal melody. Rick went through this procedure like everyone else. The song was called Shiver even before the search for a vocalist began.

When Rick found out he was not chosen, he told us he had already played the song to Olaf Lenk, guitarist of At Vance. Olaf asked for our permission to play the song Shiver for the record company of At Vance.

We did not grant permission for this, but told them they were allowed to play the version recorded with our chosen new vocalist.

Later on, Rick mentioned that they had not played the song to other people, respecting our wish.

A year passed peacefully, until a bomb dropped. Rick Altzi had joined At Vance as their vocalist, and they were releasing a new album.

Ville, a current member of our band Shiver, heard a familiar chorus as he was listening to the radio one day. This launched a series of unfortunate events, and we still don't know how it all will end.

The chorus played on the radio was from an At Vance song, titled Shiver. The song was almost the same we had sent to vocalist applicants in early 2006. It had gone through some changes by At Vance, but the song structure as well as the chord progressions are exactly the same as in the song Shiver we wrote in 2005.

The vocal melodies and lyrics used by Rick are exactly the same than those he recorded for us when applying for a vocalist. He naturally has the right to use these, but this only shows both of the songs are the same.

We contacted At Vance's record company via e-mail and told them what had happened. Their reply told us that At Vance is responsible for their own material, as dictated by their record deal.

The next thing to do was contacting the musicians in At Vance directly. We didn't need much imagination to guess their reply. At Vance naturally denied every connection between the two songs, and claimed that the guitarist/composer Olaf had never even heard the original song by us. Quite miraculously he could compose a song similar to ours, based on just the vocal melody. Even the solo and it's backing are almost identical to our original song. And all this based on just the vocal melody. Wonders never cease.

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Source:	myspace.com
Band profile:	At Vance

Cadaveria has scheduled a new music video for the song "Anagram". The track comes off the band's new album "In Your Blood", recently released by Season of Mist.
The shootings will start on September 30, 2007. Cadaveria (herself) revealed "the images will be disquieting and sick".

The band has recently posted on its official website a summary of Cadaveria and Marçelo Santos apparition on Rock TV Sky Channel, presenting the new CD. Go to this link to see what happened.

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Source:	cadaveria.com
Band profile:	Cadaveria

12th September - Fan Release

Østen, on behalf of the band, has written a statement to the fans, with some details regarding the present and the future of Tristania.

The link can be followed through the band's official website or through the following link:
http://www.tristania.com/main_pages/news/120907.htm

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Source:	tristania.com
Band profile:	Tristania

The following message was posted on Flowing Tears' official website:

"It's time to reveal some more details about the upcoming live album. "Invanity - Live in Berlin" will be released on October 29 and will contain the following tracks:

01. Swallow
02. Undying
03. Portsall (Departure Song)
04. Lovesong For A Dead Child
05. The Marching Sane
06. Merlin
07. Pitch Black Water
08. Dead Skin Mask (Slayer cover)
09. The Weeping Song (Nick Cave cover with Johan Edlund on guest vocals)

Cover artwork here.

The album will be released as a splendid digipack version with a huge photobooklet and liner notes. Apart from that we're looking forward to our return on stages at Metal Female Voices Fest in October ? see you all there!"

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Source:	flowingtears.de
Band profile:	Flowing Tears

Bassist Henkka T. Blacksmith issued a small album update to the official Children Of Bodom fansite Scythes Of Bodom. The update goes as follows:

"Up to now, the band has seven finished songs and they will enter a studio in the second week in October to record the album. The plan is to record nine songs for the album and maybe even a tenth if the guys are satisfied with another song that is currently in the works. Most likely "Tie My Rope" will be re-recorded and the band is planning to record three or four cover songs which are already confirmed. This doesn't mean that all of them will be featured on one album, but these songs will be used as bonus tracks for different areas and markets such as Japan for example.

Henkka also revealed a few working titles of the songs. The band uses simple working titles like 1. "Eka", 2. "Bläkkis", 3. "Trioli", 4. "Trabant", 5. "Uusin" (in English: 1. "First", 2. "Blacky", 3. "Triplet", 4. "Trabant", 5. "Newest") during the songwriting process. Of course they shouldn't be taken seriously. It wasn't easy for Henkka to say how the songs sound like but he kept saying that he is very excited about the new material.

In addition he said that nobody should expect the second part of COB TV anytime soon because footage of the recording sessions in October will also be featured in it (of course only the lesser serious part of it). In reply to my question if the four recorded demo tracks, that the band recorded in May at Sonic Pump Studios, could be used as bonus tracks, Henkka answered that there are no plans for that. However, after thinking about it, he said that it wouldn't be a bad idea to use them for that if they sound much different than the final album versions."

To read more, click here.

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Source:	endlesswar.net
Band profile:	Children Of Bodom