Alice Cooper has updated his North American tour schedule with new shows (**) in Idaho, Illinois and New Jersey. It is now as follows:

July:

31 - Redmond, Oregon - Deschutes County Fair

August:

01 - Kalispell, Montana - Raceway Park
02 - Great Falls, Montana - State Fair
03 - Sturgis, South Dakota - Buffalo Chip
05 - Bismarck, North Dakota - Civic Center Arena
07 - St. Louis, Missouri - The Pageant
08 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin - The Riverside
09 - Sparta, Wisconsin Fort McCoy Army Base
10 - Sioux City, Iowa - Orpheum Theatre
12 - Casper, Wyoming - Events Center
13 - Idaho Falls, Idaho - Sandy Downs **
15 - Imperial, Nebraska - Chase County Fair
16 - Council Bluffs, Iowa - Harrah's Stir Cover
17 - Duluth, Minnesota - Fortune Bay Resort Casino
19 - Hammond, Indiana - The Venue @ Horseshoe Casino
21 - Bloomington, Illinois - The Theatre @ US Cellular Coliseum
22 - Indianapolis, Indiana - White River State Park
23 - Florence, Indiana - Belterra Resort & Casino
24 - Columbus, Ohio - LC Pavilion
27 - Detroit, Michigan - State Fair
28 - Oshkosh, Wisconsin - Waterfest Concert Series
29 - Waukegan, Illinois - Genesee Theater **

September:

05, 06, 07 - Las Vegas, Nevada - Orleans Hotel & Casino
12 - Hutchinson, Kansas - State Fair
18 - Vancouver, British Columbia - Centre for the Performing Arts
20 - Vernon, British Columbia - Multiplex
21 - Kamloops, British Columbia - Interior Savings Center
23 - Prince George, British Columbia - Canada Centre
24 - Grand Prairie, Alberta - Crystal Centre
26 - Red Deer, Alberta - Centrium Arena
27 - Edmonton, Alberta - Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium
28 - Lethbridge, Alberta - Enmax Centre
29 - Calgary, Alberta - Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium

October:

01 - Regina, Saskatchewan - Conexus Arts Centre
02 - Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - TCU Place
04 - Thunder Bay, Ontario - Auditorium
06 - Hamilton, Ontario - Hamilton Place
07 - Barrie, Ontario - Molson Centre
08 - Oshawa, Ontario - General Motors Centre
10 - London, Ontario - Centennial Hall
11 - Ottawa, Ontario - Civic Centre
14 - Kitchener, Ontario - Centre In The Square
15 - Montreal, Quebec - St Denis Theatre
17 - Halifax, Nova Scotia - Metro Centre
18 - Saint John, New Brunswick - Harbour Station
19 - Moncton, New Brunswick - Coliseum
21 - St John's, Nefoundland - Mile One Stadium
22 - Cornerbrook, Nefoundland - Pepsi Centre
26 - Schenectady, New York - Proctor's Theater
30 - Englewood, New Jersey - (venue tba) **
31 - Mashantucket, Connecticut - MGM Grand @ Foxwoods

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Source:	alicecooper.com
Band profile:	Alice Cooper

Amon Amarth have posted following statement:

''We have had plans of doing a smaller club show tour for quite some time now where we would mainly play older songs, but that has been very hard to pull off. So when this idea was brought to us of re-visiting the 4 first full lenght albums at Bochum in Germany we were all up for it. This will be a once in a life time chance for us to play and our fans to experience all the old songs that we don't have room for in the setlist anymore, but are still too good to not play! Of course we'll also play songs from the new upcoming album, as well as "With Oden On Our Side" and "Fate Of Norns".
Since these shows will be unique we thought we could might as well record the shows too!

We are thrilled over this event and look forward to the shows. It will be some hard work and preparation playing around 50 -60 different songs in 4 days. Some songs we haven't played for a very, very long time and some we have never played live at all. But challenges are something that encourages us!''

4 Evenings - 4 Shows - 4 Albums
Zeche Bochum, Germany

28.12.2008 Once Sent From The Golden Hall
29.12.2008 The Avenger
30.12.2008 The Crusher
31.12.2008 Versus The World

Apart from playing the 4 albums in their entirety each night there will be a best of mix from "Fate Of Norns", "With Oden On Our Side" and of course the new upcoming album!

+ Meet and greet with the band
+ Special merchandise sold at each show
+ New Years Eve Party on the 31.12

UPDATED (thanks to -LugburZ-)

In other news, Amon Amarth have set "Twilight Of The Thundergod" as the title of their seventh full-length album, due this fall via Metal Blade Records. The CD title was revealed by frontman Johan Hegg during an interview with the "Tinitus" radio show, which airs on Norway's P3.

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Source:	amonamarth.com
Band profile:	Amon Amarth
Event:	Amon Amarth: Bloodshed Over Bochum

Swedish Viking metallers Amon Amarth will embark on a North American headlining tour in October. Support on the trek will come from the Tampa melodic thrash outfit The Absence. Other support bands are rumoured to be Ensiferum and Belphegor.

The tentative routing for the tour is as follows:

01.10.2008 - USA, Anaheim, CA
02.10.2008 - USA, Los Angeles, CA
03.10.2008 - USA, San Francisco, CA
04.10.2008 - USA, Portland, OR - Hawthorne Theatre
05.10.2008 - USA, Seattle, WA
06.10.2008 - CAN, Vancouver, BC
08.10.2008 - CAN, Edmonton, AB
09.10.2008 - CAN, Calgary, AB
10.10.2008 - CAN, Regina, SK
11.10.2008 - CAN, Winnipeg, MB
12.10.2008 - USA, Minneapolis, MN
13.10.2008 - USA, Chicago, IL
15.10.2008 - CAN, Toronto, ON
16.10.2008 - CAN, Montreal, QC
17.10.2008 - CAN, Quebec City, QC
18.10.2008 - USA, Worcester, MA
19.10.2008 - USA, Philadelphia, PA
20.10.2008 - USA, New York, NY
21.10.2008 - USA, W. Springfield, VA

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Source:	roadrunnerrecords.com
Band profile:	Amon Amarth
Event:	Amon Amarth: N. American Tour

Satyricon have posted the following update:

Hey everyone!
We've now completed the drums and the guitars for the new Satyricon album in Los Angeles! We have a new session beginning Monday, doing vocals, bass and and perhaps some brass too. Third week of July we're doing some keyboard/FX stuff before we go back to L.A to mix the record. These are exciting times as we feel this is a milestone in the making. It won't help keeping expectations down, but we can't help it, it feels so incredibly strong! Dates are being confirmed and offers are coming in constantly as we speak and it looks like we will start touring the world mid November. We'll post a video from the recording of the drums over the weekend and in the meantime we might see some of you at Nummirock and Hellfest. Take care.

Source:	satyricon.no
Band profile:	Satyricon

The following update was posted on the official website of Obituary on June 16th :

"What a great weekend! We have been working really hard on this new EP and Saturday night we finished it. I am totally psyched about this and can't wait to get it to you. I am not sure about the release date yet, but I'll post it as soon as I know. Once again, Mark Prator and RedRoom Recorders really helped us out to get this done. Markie, you rule...thanks for everything!!! Most of you probably know that we built our own studio for the recording of the Xecutioner's Return CD. We tracked this new EP in our studio and are really happy with the sounds we are getting. Because of our limited, but growing, Pro-Tools HD experience, we lean heavily on Mark for his guidence and help. We then take all those tracks to RedRoom where we put it all together. This process of being able to record right here in our own studio whenever we want has been an unbelievable asset to our writing and recording abilities!

This EP will contain 4 songs: 2 new ones, that are heavy as balls. A new 2008 studio recording of Slowly We Rot. Slowly is one of the first songs we ever wrote and of all our songs it gets played every show! It is interesting to hear this song re-recorded almost 23 later. Unbelievable! You have to hear it. Dethroned Emperior is a song by Celtic Frost that we sometimes play live or just while jammming in the studio. Because we enjoy it so much we recorded it for this EP as well.

I feel like we just got home from the first leg of our European Festival Tour and now we leave again Wednesday to start the second leg: Austria, Spain, France, Belgium, Germany and Italy...coming up! I hope you come out and see us!"

Source:	obituary.cc
Band profile:	Obituary

Metallica has just announced the title of their upcoming album, "Death Magnetic". The band has been posting teaser images all week leading up to this image. The album is due out in September.

A short video clip revealing the new album title can be viewed here. The clip also contains audio from a new and untitled song.

"Death Magnetic" is "a stunning, overdue return to the shock and rush of the band's speed-metal monuments, 1984's "Ride The Lightning" and 1986's "Master Of Puppets"," according to Rolling Stone.

According to some internet sources, the album will be preceded by an eight-minute single which is being described as "a tour de force that features some of their fastest playing ever." The record is being produced by Rick Rubin (Slayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers) and mixed by Greg Fidelman.

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Source:	metallica.com
Band profile:	Metallica

The Eternal has issued the following update:

"We would like to welcome Dave Langlands to the band as our new bass player. We just played our first show with Dave in Sydney and he did a great job. Dave is from New Zealand and has been active in the local scene for many years. Dave moved to Melbourne to work on various musical projects and we were lucky enough to bring him into the ranks of The Eternal. For our Melbourne fans we hope to be announcing a home show soon, so expect to see Dave and the rest of us shortly."

Source:	blog.myspace.com
Band profile:	The Eternal

The unbreakable thrash legends Holy Moses releasing right now the title of the long expected new album: Agony Of Death (Todeskampf). The album will be released around the 19th of September 2008 worldwide via Wacken Records/SPV. Right now the band is working behind the walls of the Blue Castle Studio near Hamburg with producer/guitar player Michael Hankel to do the last steps of the production. The first video's from the production will be online in the a few days.

For the first time, Holy Moses will perform two new tracks live at the famous Wacken Open Air 2008. Holy Moses will play at the Main Stage / Black Stage on the 2nd of August at 13:55. The press will get the chance to listen to the whole album at the pre-listening party in the press tent.

Source:	holymoses.de
Band profile:	Holy Moses

Posted on Eluveitie's official website:

"After a long time playing together with us, Sevan (flute, whistles, bagpipes) and Rafi (bass) decided to leave Eluveitie. Both of them came to this desicion due to personal reasons. Both, Sevan and Rafi, were longtime members. Sevan was with Eluveitie from the very beginning on. So their step was kind of a shock for us. Yet we also understand and accept their desicion. We won't forget the years we spent together and we wish Sevan and Rafi all the very best on their future musical as well as personal ways! "Thank you both for your dedication and for the time we spent together the last four years! Take care & horns raised!!!

Sevan and Rafi will still play with us the next couple of shows! But of course we're now looking for worthy replacements - a bass player and a multi-instrumentalist well playing bagpipes (Gaita and similar), tin and low whistles and eventually Irish flute. If you're interested in playing in Eluveitie, then click here!"

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Source:	eluveitie.ch
Band profile:	Eluveitie

Swedish modern melodic death metallers Engel have posted a second video online, for the song "Next Closed Door". The song comes off the band's debut album "Absolute Design", which was released last year. The clip is filmed in Belgrade, Serbia with Rock The Nation. You can watch the video at this location.

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Source:	myspace.com
Band profile:	Engel

German Folk metallers In Extremo have posted online a video for their single "Frei Zu Sein". The song is from their last released album "Sängerkrieg", which was released on 9th May by Motor Music. You can see the video at this location or via YouTube here.

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Source:	inextremo.de
Band profile:	In Extremo

Swedish progressive death metal band Opeth have made an edit of a new song called "Lotus Eater" available online. The upcoming Opeth album "Watershed" will be released on 3th June at Roadrunner Records. You can download the song at this location.

In other news, Opeth have recently filmed a promotional video to an edit of the song "Porcelain Heart". The clip was directed by Lasse Hoile (Porcupine Tree etc) and shot in Vaxholm/Sweden at the marvellous Bogesund castle, built in the 1640's. The edit was done by Jens Bogren and Mikael Åkerfeldt. Mikael comments: "I think the video came out great! The location and the castle was beyond gorgeous, even though it was cold and empty in there and...yeah, a little scary too. Lasse and his team as well as the actors did a great job! The clip is very gothic looking which I think is the perfect imagery for the song and for Opeth overall I suppose. Really enjoyed filming that one actually!" Check out a few screen-shots here! The video can be watched by clicking this link.

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Source:	opeth.com
Band profile:	Opeth