Progressive metallers Threshold have have won awards for best singer, best drummer and best album track at the Classic Rock Society awards in the UK.

- Best Vocalist: Damian Wilson (Threshold)
- Best Drummer: Johanne James (Threshold)
- Best Album Track: Pilot In The Sky Of Dreams (Threshold)

Johanne James won the best drummer award for the second consecutive year. Damian Wilson won the best vocalist award after returning to the band for last year's tour. The best album track award was won by Richard West's song Pilot In The Sky Of Dreams from Threshold's latest studio album Dead Reckoning.

Source:	thresh.net
Band profile:	Threshold

Austrian gothic metallers Darkwell have posted on their website that band now has a you tube channel that can be found at this location. On the channel, live clips of 2007 have been uploaded.

Today, the band will performing live P.M.K. Innsbruck, Austria.

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Source:	darkwell.org
Band profile:	Darkwell

Machine Head returns to the States after an Australian and European tour for a run of dates with HellYeah, beginning January 25th in New York. Immediately following that, the band head back to Dubai to play the Desert Rock festival, then to Israel and India, both for the first-time ever, followed by a string of headlining dates in Japan, to be confirmed soon.

01.23 - Flint, MI - The Machine Shop (Warm-Up, MH Headline)
01.25 - Clifton Park, NY - Northern Lights
01.26 - Sayreville, NJ - Starland Ballroom
01.27 - Richmond, VA - Toad's Place
01.29 - Charleston, SC - The Music Farm
01.30 - Charlotte, NC - Amos Southend
02.01 - Allentown, PA - Crocodile Rock
02.02 - Atlantic City, NJ - House of Blues
02.05 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
02.06 - Providence, RI - Lupo's
02.08 - Mokena, IL - The Pearl Room
02.12 - Green Bay, WI - Riverside Ballroom
02.13 - Lacrosse, WI - Lacrosse Center
02.15 - Davenport, IA - Sports Dome
02.16 - Milwaukee, WI - The Eagles Club
02.17 - Urbana, IL - Canopy Club
02.19 - Des Moines, IA - Val Air Ballroom
02.20 - Sioux Falls, SD - Ramkota Exhibit Hall
02.22 - Spokane, WA - The Big Easy
02.23 - Seattle, WA - El Corazon
02.24 - Portland, OR - Roseland Theater
02.26 - Anaheim, CA - The Grove
03.07 - Dubai, UAE - Desert Rock Festival
03.10 - Tel Aviv, ISR - Theatre Club (w/Betzefer)
03.14 - Bangalore, IND - Bangalore Rock Festival

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Source:	machinehead1.com
Band profile:	Machine Head

With the release of "Demon Entrails" on February 18, 2008 the days of numerous sub-standard bootlegs of the classic Hellhammer demos "Death Fiend", "Triumph of Death" and "Satanic Rites" are finally over! Currently also working on a book dealing with the history of Hellhammer, founder Tom Gabriel Fischer points out the importance of this release:

"The release of these demos is very significant to both Martin Eric Ain and me. No matter how one looks at Hellhammer, this was our first recorded music so many years ago, and it represents the radicalness of our own lives at the time. These demos became the foundation to everything we later created in Celtic Frost. Hell reigned on earth."

Demon Entrails has been specially re-mastered from copies of the original master tapes under the supervision of Tom Gabriel Fischer, and the demos now represent Hellhammer exactly as the band sounded when recording these songs in June and December of 1983. Drawing from a wealth of previously unknown historical liner-notes, material and artwork, as well as plenty of unreleased Hellhammer photos from 1982 to 1984, "Demon Entrails" features all lyrics and essays detailing the individual demo recording sessions.

Here is the tracklisting information for the CD format of the release:

Disc 1 "Satanic Rites" Demo:

01. Intro
02. Messiah
03. The Third Of The Storms (Evoked Damnation)
04. Buried And Forgotten
05. Maniac
06. Eurynomos
07. Triumph Of Death
08. Revelations Of Doom
09. Reaper
10. Satanic Rites
11. Crucifixion
12. Outro

Disc 2 "Death Fiend & Triumph Of Death" Demos:

01. Crucifixion
02. Maniac
03. (Execution) When Hell's Near
04. Decapitator
05. Blood Insanity
06. Power Of Satan
07. Reaper
08. Death Fiend
09. Triumph Of Death
10. Metallic Storm
11. Ready For Slaughter
12. Dark Warriors
13. Hammerhead
14. Angel Of Destruction
15. Bloody Pussies
16. Chainsaw
17. Sweet Torment

Demon Entrail" will be available as an opulent oversized double CD media-book packaging and as a gatefold triple vinyl album. Click here to view each version. Both versions will feature a lavish booklet and a poster. There will also be a third, bare-bones lower-priced CD version.

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Source:	celticfrost.com
Band profile:	Hellhammer

Finnish metallers Kalamh have announced the For The Revolution Tour dates in Canada:

23 April - Toronto
24 April - Hamilton
25 April - Sudbury
26 April - Rouyn
27 April - Sag/Lac
28 April - Quebec
29 April - Montreal
30 April - Saint-Hyacinthe

Venues to be announced soon. This will be the band's first time to tour Canada.

Source:	kalmah.com
Band profile:	Kalmah

Stormwarrior's album "Heading Northe" will be released on 22 February, which will coincide with the band's 10 year anniversary. The release party of the album will be at the Ballroom in Hamburg where Stormwarrior will also be joined by ex-members of the band.

Tracklisting of the album:

01. And The Horde Calleth For Oden
02. Heading Northe
03. Metal Legacy
04. The Holy Cross
05. Iron Gods
06. Ragnarök
07. The Revenge Of Asa Lande
08. Remember The Oathe
09. Lion Of The Northe
10. Into The Battle

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Source:	stormwarrior.de
Band profile:	Stormwarrior

Finnish metallers Kiuas have announced that their upcoming album entitled "The New Dark Age" will be released on 5 March in Finland (TBA in other countries).

Tracklisting for the album is as follows:

01. The Decaying Doctrine
02. Conqueror
03. Kiuas War Anthem
04. The New Dark Age
05. To Excel And Ascend
06. Black Rose Withered
07. After The Storm
08. Of Sacrifice, Loss And Reward
09. The Summoning
10. The Wanderer's Lamentation
11. Towards The Hidden Sanctum

The cover art is the product of the visionary artist/musician Niklas Sundin The picture is an original drawing in the style of renaissance woodcut illustrations, and portrays the members of Kiuas as the four - or in this case five - horsemen of the Apocalypse with a dismal landscape that combines ancient and modern times.

The song "Of Sacrifice, Loss and Reward" will also be released as a Single in Finland in February. The single will feature two other songs as well including the Japan bonus track which won't be otherwise available to fans in Finland.

A video for the song "Conqueror" will be shot on the 18th of February. Owe Lingwall is responsible for the script and direction of the video.

Kiuas will tour Finland intensively in March and April. The tour dates will be announced soon.

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Source:	kiuas.net
Band profile:	Kiuas

Cilice has posted some updates on their MySpace:

The 2008 CILICE album 'Deranged Headtrip' will be released soon... Listen to the first track, "God Of Lies" on the Cilice official MySpace."

For promotion of the album, they also have announced a tour through Europe with the Brazilian Torture Squad (thrashband, metalbash winner WACKEN OPEN AIR 2007). The Hellbound Tour will be in May and June, updates will follow.

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Source:

myspace.com

*Detonation to headline Avalanche festival in Delhi, INDIA*

Dutch melodic thrashers Detonation are proud to announce headlining the Avalanche festival in Delhi, India on the 22nd of Februari. Avalanche festival is the heavy music part of the 4-day cultural Moksha festival (http://moksha08.com/), a yearly event organised at the Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (N.S.I.T.).

As stated by the band: "Up to now, India hasn't been the most obvious choice for metal bands to tour. Past few years however, the Indian metal scene has been growing rapidly with a new breed a quality metal bands emerging, and with renown international acts as Megadeth, Iron Maiden and Sepultura announcing tours to India. We're very excited to be among the first wave of international metal acts to play Indian and very proud to be the first heavy dutch act ever to do so".

Band profile:

Detonation

Progressive metallers Dream Theater have posted the following on their website:

After recently celebrating the band's 20-year anniversary, Dream Theater returns with its first-ever best-of collection. Spanning 1991-2005, the two-disc set contains rare single edits, B-sides and a trio of new remixes that spotlight that band's nonpareil musicianship, complex arrangements and amazing songwriting. Dream Theater's Greatest Hit (...& 21 other pretty cool songs) will be available from Rhino on April 1 at all physical retail outlets for a suggested retail price of $19.98 and at all digital retail outlets for a suggested retail price of $12.99.

Referring to Dream Theater's first and only major radio hit, "Pull Me Under," the compilation's tongue-in-cheek title is a testament not only to the band's sense of humor but also highlights the acclaimed New York-based quintet's ability to make music and cultivate a legion of fans on its own terms, without help from radio or MTV. The collection features more than two hours of progressive hard rock from James LaBrie (vocals), John Myung (bass), John Petrucci (guitar/vocals), Mike Portnoy (drums/vocals) and Jordan Rudess (keyboards).

The collection contains three newly remixed versions of tracks from Dream Theater's breakout 1992 album, Images And Words: the aforementioned "Pull Me Under" as well as "Take The Time" and "Another Day." Portnoy says this album presented the perfect opportunity to give the songs a bit of a facelift. "The original mixes always sounded a bit '80s' to me, so we had our good friend and longtime mixer Kevin Shirley give the tracks a bit of an update to sound more like the rest of the Dream Theater catalog. The songs remain the same (no pun intended-Kevin just mixed that album as well), but there are little nuances in the tracks that I forgot were originally there, and it's very cool to hear them again."

The collection's 22 songs are split evenly between two discs, which are divided into "The Dark Side" (the metallic) and "The Light Side" (the melodic). Filled with some of the band's most sinister sounds, the first disc lives up to the billing of "The Dark Side." Longtime fans will appreciate the abundance of alternative versions of classic tracks, including single edits of "Lie," "Home," and "Misunderstood." Disc One concludes with two tracks from the band's 2005 album Octavarium: "The Root Of All Evil" and "Sacrificed Sons."

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Source:	dreamtheater.net
Band profile:	Dream Theater

Children Of Bodom has posted the tracklisting for their upcoming album Blooddrunk:

01. Hellhounds On My Trail
02. Blooddrunk
03. LoBodomy
04. One Day You Will Cry
05. Smile Pretty For The Devil
06. Tie My Rope
07. Done With Everything, Die For Nothing
08. Banned From Heaven
09. Roadkill Morning

Blooddrunk was recorded and produced by Mikko Karmila, in Petrax and Finnvox Studios, Finland, during October, November and December 2007, except vocals recorded by Peter Tägtren and keyboards recorded by Janne Wirman in Petrax Studios, Finland, during October, November and December 2007. Mixed at Finnvox by Mikko Karmila in November 2007, Mastered at Finnvox by Mika Jussila in December 2007. The album will be released in April 2008.

Source:	cobhc.com
Band profile:	Children Of Bodom

Finnish metallers Norther have posted a new song, entitled 'We Rock' on their MySpace page at this location.
The track comes off the group's new album, "N", which will be released through Century Media Records on the following dates:

Feb. 13 - Finland.
Feb. 22 - Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, BeNeLux.
Feb. 25 - UK, France, Denmark, Greece, Norway.
Feb. 26 - Spain, Portugal.
Feb. 29 - Sweden, Hungary.

Also the band adds:
"We're also pleased to announce that we're gonna do a full European tour in March/April 2008 with our label mates Turisas. The first two weeks cover the UK and central Europe will follow afterwards. It's great to get back on the road and with Turisas we'll form an excellent & diverse team for the tour! Be there or be lame!"
Dates are as follows:

01.03.2008 - Soundhaus - Northampton (UK)
02.03.2008 - Corporation -Sheffield (UK)
03.03.2008 - Moshulu - Aberdeen (UK)
04.03.2008 - Studio 24 - Edinburgh (UK)
05.03.2008 - Academy 2 - Liverpool (UK)
06.03.2008 - Waterfront - Norwich (UK)
07.03.2008 - Park - Peterborough (UK)
08.03.2008 - Cocpit - Leeds (UK)
10.03.2008 - Cavern - Exeter (UK)
11.03.2008 - Clwb Ifor Bach - Cardiff (UK)
12.03.2008 - The Brook - Southampton (UK)
13.03.2008 - Electric Ballroom - London (UK)
14.03.2008 - Concorde 2 - Brighton (UK)
15.03.2008 - Patronaat -Haarlem (NL)
16.03.2008 - Doornroosje - Nijmegen (NL)
18.03.2008 - Marx - Hamburg (D)
19.03.2008 - Substage - Karlsruhe (D)
20.03.2008 - Metropolis - Munich (D)
21.03.2008 - Salzhaus - Winterthur (CH)
22.03.2008 - Matrix - Bochum (D)
23.03.2008 - Kato - Berlin (D)
25.03.2008 - Planet Music - Vienna (A)
26.03.2008 - Randal - Bratislava (SVK)
27.03.2008 - Rock Café - Prague (CZ)
28.03.2008 - Ragnarök Festival - Lichtenfels (D)
29.03.2008 - Tomahawk Festival - Osnabrueck (D)
30.03.2008 - KB - Malmö (SE)
01.04.2008 - Musikens Hus - Gothenburg (SE)
02.04.2008 - The Rock - Copenhagen (DK)
03.04.2008 - John Dee - Oslo (N)
04.04.2008 - Klubben - Stockholm (SE)

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Source:	norther.net
Band profile:	Norther
Event:	Turisas + Norther: European Tour

An announcement on the official Benemoth website that:

"Behemoth has inked a North American deal with Metal Blade Records and with Nuclear Blast for European territory."

"The band recently finished up an extremely successful year which saw the band as direct support to headliners Hatebreed on the infamous second stage at Ozzfest and a co-headlining spot on the Radio Rebellion with Job for a Cowboy. Behemoth played over 160 shows in 2007 and has no plans on slowing down for 2008. Expect to see a new release in the form of an EP out in the summer/fall of 2008 along with more touring on both continents."

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Source:	behemoth.pl
Band profile:	Behemoth

A four minute preview of the upcoming Ayreon album called 01011001 has been posted on Arjen A. Lucassen's MySpace and features a glimpse into the studio and previews of the songs.

The preview, created by D'iMages, also features all singers (like Jonas Renkse - Katatonia, Hansi Kursch - Blind Guardian, Floor Jansen - After Forever, Jorn Lande, Anneke van Giersbergen, Tom Englund - Evergrey, Daniel Gildenlow - Pain Of Salvation) and instrumentalists and album art.

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Source:	myspace.com
Band profile:	Ayreon

The following news was posted on Withered's homepage:

Prosthetic Records is proud to announce Atlanta's Withered as the latest addition to the label's ranks. The band's upcoming effort, 'Folie Circulaire,' is scheduled for a late-spring release and will be produced by Phillip Cope (Kylesa, Baroness, Black Tusk) through Prosthetic. "We're very excited to start this new chapter for Withered by joining the Prosthetic Records family," guitarist/vocalist Mike Thompson says. "We've put a lot of time and consideration into deciding which label we wanted to work with for our next album and Prosthetic have really proven their commitment to Withered's music and metal in general. It can be difficult to find a label that understands your band AND has the resources to help cultivate your music without compromising it. This is a natural step for Withered and we are quite eager to contaminate and disgrace everything Prosthetic Records has to offer."

Source:	withered.net
Band profile:	Withered