Posted on a blog on the band's MySpace site:

"Watch the YouTube video, hear 4 clips from the new CD, and follw the instructions to enter the give-away! Novembers Doom is giving away an 8GB, Black iPod nano. On the back of the nano the bands logo and symbol are laser engraved. The grand prize winner will receive the iPod, a signed copy of "Into Night's Requiem Infernal", and a DVD copy of "The Novella Vosselaar." Included on the iPod itself will be the entire Novembers Doom discography, including all the promotional videos, and the DVD video as well. 5 second place winners will receive an autographed copy of "Into Night's Requiem Infernal." This contest is completely random.

To enter the contest, you need to do the following...

01. Subscribe to our youtube channel
02. Rate the video
03. Comment on the video

When you comment you MUST enter "iPod - comment". You're comment can be anything. Just start the comment with "iPod -". This contest will last 3 weeks, ending on June 23rd. Good Luck!"


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Source:	blogs.myspace.com
Band profile:	Novembers Doom

Italian metal band Graveworm have posted a new, quite long sample of their new song "Vengence Is Sworn". The track, which can be heard here, comes off the band's new upcoming album, "Diabolical Figures", which is scheduled for released on June 16 via Massacre Records.

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Source:	myspace.com
Band profile:	Graveworm

Original news, posted on 10.05.2009

An e-card for "Darkest Day", the forthcoming album from US metallers Obituary, can be found at this location.

"Darkest Day" is scheduled for release on June 30 via Candlelight Records. The cover art was done by Andreas Marschall, who created the art for "The End Complete", "Frozen In Time", and the band's lastest album, "Xecutioner's Return".

"Darkest Day" cover art] tracklisting:

01. List Of Dead
02. Blood To Give
03. Lost
04. Outside My Head
05. Payback
06. Your Darkest Day
07. This Life
08. See Me Now
09. Fields Of Pain
10. Violent Dreams
11. Truth Be Told
12. Forces Realign
13. Left To Die

UPDATE (thanks to 34595)

Obituary have posted a new song online called "List Of Dead". Check it out here. The song comes from the band's upcoming album "Darkest Day", which will be released on June 30 via Candlelight Records.

Read more ››

Source:	candlelightrecords.co.uk
Band profile:	Obituary

As posted on Disarmonia Mundi's website:

"We are glad to announce that we just signed with Coroner Records. Before the release of the new album entitled "The Isolation Game", scheduled for November, a completely remastered version of the debut album "Nebularium" will see the light via Coroner Records. The re-release will also feature a bonus cd entitled "The Restless Memoirs EP" featuring 6 previously unreleased tracks and a completely new artwork. "Nebularium + The Restless Memoirs EP" will be released as a double digipack the 26th of June."

Source:	disarmoniamundi.com
Band profile:	Disarmonia Mundi

Original news, posted on 30.04.2009

Sonata Arctica guitarist Elias Viljanen will release his third solo album via Spinefarm Records in mid-June. According to the label "the music of Elias Viljanen is much influenced by Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. There will be 12 tracks on the album and 10 of the tracks will be instrumental. Marco Hietala and Tony Kakko will be the two singers performing on the album."

Apocalyptica drummer Mikko Sirén, Evergrey/ex-Stratovarius bassist Jari Kainulainen and Sonata Arctica keyboardist Henrik Klingenberg are also featured on the album. Audio samples will be added to Viljanen's MySpace page soon.

UPDATE (thanks to 5933)

Spinefarm Records has set a June 24 Finnish release date for the third solo album from Sonata Arctica guitarist Elias Viljanen, entitled "Fire-Hearted". According to the label "there will be 12 tracks on the album and 10 of the tracks will be instrumental." Guest musicians on the CD include vocalists Marco Hietala and Tony Kakko keyboardist Henrik Klingenberg (Sonata Arctica), bassist Jari Kainulainen and drummer Mikko Sirén.

"Fire-Hearted" tracklisting:

01. Fire-Hearted
02. Last Breath of Love (feat. Marco Hietala)
03. Cruel Groove
04. Kiss of Rain (feat. Tony Kakko)
05. Head up High
06. Up to Speed
07. Supernatural
08. One Tonight
09. The Triumph
10. My Guiding Light
11. Showstopper
12. Beautiful Piece

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Source:	eliasviljanen.com
Band profile:	Sonata Arctica

Australian metallers Lord have parted ways with long-time drummer Tim Yatras and have announced that Damian "Damo" Costas will take over the drum stool for the second leg of their current tour promoting their upcoming release "Set In Stone".

"Lord" Tim Grose comments: "One of the things that we all agreed on when Lord was formed was that everyone does it for all the right reasons. If your heart is no longer in it, don't wait until it impacts on our friendships or the stability of the band, speak up and if it's time to move on, then so be it; no hard feelings at all.

"T.Y. injured his back recently after some excessive partying after a gig earlier this year which caused him to miss a few shows. This break gave him time to think about his life and he came to the conclusion that he wasn't feeling the hunger for Lord any more and wanted to try other things. We remain great friends and are all very sad to see him go, and wish him all the best with his other projects and whatever band he will no doubt be playing for next. In my opinion he is one of the best metal drummers in Australia, so it won't be long until he's out and about again tearing up the stage.

"We'd like to introduce everyone to our new drummer Damian "Damo" Costas. Damo has been a long-time fan of Lord and DUNGEON prior to that and his previous bands had supported Lord several times. We would often remark on what an amazing talent this guy had and that if he kept at it, he would be something special. When T.Y. was forced out of playing live for us, Damo stepped in with just one rehearsal and played our set flawlessly, having already known the entire Lord and Dungeon back catalogue back-to-front. After T.Y. announced he wanted to leave, Damo was the logical choice as his replacement.

"T.Y. will continue to play with Lord until the final gig on the first leg of our "Set In Stone" tour on June 12 in Sydney, and from that point onwards Damo will be the new face behind the kit. We'd love everyone to come along to wish T.Y. a fond farewell and a warm welcome to Damo."

Source:	ultimatemetal.com
Band profile:	Lord

Dutch technical death metallers Textures have signed with one of the worldwide biggest record labels Nuclear Blast Records. The band and the label have posted the following statements:

Jaap Wagemaker from Nuclear Blast said: "After winning the "Igor Award" as unsigned band at Aardschok magazine's "Metal Bash", the band got signed to Listenable Records, who re-released their critically-acclaimed debut "Polars". With their follow-up albums "Drawing Circles" and "Silhouettes" Textures proved their musical status even more and became one of the most exciting new bands in (extreme) metal!

Diversity and complexity are important elements of the unique Textures sound, building bridges between epic, polyrhythmic grooves and contrasting melodies. Textures create their own style and establish their own interpretation of progressive, heavy modern metal!"

Commented the band: "We have been expressing our musical concepts for three albums now, played a truckload of cool shows and created a solid fanbase. Now it's time for us to take it to a higher level and expand our territory. Nuclear Blast gives us that opportunity. We are very excited about it!"

The band's debut album for Nuclear Blast is expected to be released in 2010.

Source:	nuclearblast.de
Band profile:	Textures

Official press release

The Slovak grinders returned on scene after some thime, when there was nothing new to be heard of. The return is their new album "Something Wrong", releaseed on Austrian label Noisehead Records on 6th May 2009.

With this 3rd official album the band finally lost their not that much deserved fame of "plagiators" of one (not named here) British legend. They themselves characterize their music as "alternative grind core". 13 songs in grinding, but not orthodox style will please mainly the fans of extreme styles as well as those who like
hardcore insanity and more progressive riffs. After various line-up changes and death of the guitarist Boris in 2006 the band has stable line-up, which finished the recording of their actual material. The works on "Something Wrong" took time from May to September 2008 in Morpheus multimedia and Fork In The Eye studios, under the production of guitarist Ivin. Not very long time after finishing the works Obliterate got chance to sign the contract with Noisehead Records.

"Something Wrong" cover art] and tracklist:

01. Revolution of Misinformation
02. Petrolocracy
03. Economic Megamessiah
04. Know and Suspicious
05. What it Leads Us To
06. Generation Deja-vu
07. Unhope
08. Run it For Real
09. Human Parasite
10. Seven Day to Arrival
11. Something Wrong
12. Moving Targets
13. Tiesaurus

"Something Wrong" video:


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Source:

myspace.com

Original news, posted on 23.05.2009

Finnish death metal fivesome Survivors Zero have posted a full song, entitled "Armageddon Cult" from the upcoming album at their MySpace site. This song will be included in the debut album "CMXCIX", to be released on September 9th via Cobra records.

Survivors Zero will also release a limited edition cd-single "Reclaime My Heritage" in the beginning of June. The single will be available only in Finland yet the download version has a worldwide availability. The single includes a cover version of a classic Kreator song, "People Of The Lie".

The studio insanity of Survivors Zero can be checked out at this location (human drum machine Reima Kellokoski's skin pounding). This is the first part of the band's self-shot studio diary, so expect more wicked videos to come.

UPDATE

Survivors Zero has released a promo video of the single "Reclaim My Heritage" (which will be released on June 6). The video can now be seen at their campaign site http://www.cmxcix.com. It's a great video, but unfortunately the budget went through the ceiling and the record company, Cobra Records, had to rent away their office space. "A bloody awful thing, but a beautiful and timeless video" commented Cobra's nameless office worker.

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Source:

myspace.com

Brazillian Heavy metal group Hazy Hamlet, active since 1999, has finally released its debut - titled "Forging Metal". The album is totally independent, was recorded and produced by the band and mixed/mastered by singer Arthur Migotto. Its sound embraces the traditional heavy metal, turned to the 80s, and the band worked hard to achieve a vintage sonority with valve amps timbres, punchy bass drums, and a lot of effects, rather than the dry sound of contemporary productions. The magnificent cover artwork is signed by professional illustrator Celso Mathias, and presents an acrylic painting of Nordic god Odin forging a sword, accompanied by his ravens Hugin and Munin.

The album is composed of 10 tracks, as below:

01. The Beginning of the End - part 1
02. The Beginning of the End - part 2
03. Black Masquerade
04. Metal Revolution
05. Field of Crosses
06. Funeral for a Viking
07. Chrome Heart
08. Chariot of Thor
09. Forging Metal
10. The Faces of Illusion

More info about the band and four songs on http://www.myspace.com/hazyhamlet.

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Source:

myspace.com

Dark Funeral have issued the following update:

"Finally. We have a date set for our much delayed studio session... On July 10 (yezz, the day after we play the Rockweekend Festival in Kilafors, Sweden) we will enter Abyss Studio together with Peter Tagtgren to begin the recording of our new, yet untitled, full-length album.

At this point of time we have demoed 7 new and totally amazing (of course) songs and we got an 8th almost done. Besides that, we have quite a lot of additional material written that we hopefully will be able to turn into a killer track or two before our studio time runs out.

As I previous mentioned, the new album will definitely be our most varied album thus far, perhaps a little bit toned down compared to its precursor, but still carry on with the same spirit and strength as always.

This time we will offer more than one non blast beat (means heavy song) too. And some of the material will probably come as a surprise, as it's not all typical Dark Funeral style, which I personally find very inspiring. And I can't wait to nail this new album once and for all.

Once we begin to work at the Abyss Studio we will keep you updated on regular basis, that includes video reports too. Not sure which website we'll use as the main forum for this, but once it's decided we'll let you know of course."

Source:	blogs.myspace.com
Band profile:	Dark Funeral

Inferna Profundus Records press release

"Plei?tas", the first album of Lithuanian-based black metal band Argharus, will come out on June 6th this year. The album will be released in 6 panel DIGI format under Inferna Profundus Records flag.

After quite enough time since Luctus and Argharus split release, the band has taken a rather different direction, and to its listeners introduces a musical creation of a new concept. The music as well as the idea has significantly changed, what can surprise the constant fans of the band or become a new discovery. The former creation, compared to the latter work, seems like a youthful play, folded by hardly perceived ideas. "Plei?tas" is a new path of the band and a reached musical conception, which was not built, but born naturally, in the process of intense work of searching and creating in studio. Destruction or escape from the preceding has not been a purposeful aim. All turned out naturally, as a result of a process, probably familiar to majority of bands.

The album consists of 8 creations, nurtured for more than a year during rehearsals. Album recording has been executed in ?iauliai studio Unitedzeros. Although the studio was not considered seriously at first, the final result, however, surprised and did not disappoint. The quality of the album recording should satisfy even the most sharp-eared listeners.

Album design was trusted to Badger Art studio, which exhibited interesting solutions and created design, specifically answering the band's new concept. Argharus has no plans for album presentation concerts, the only unique performance will occur at "Kilkim ?aibu" open-air.

One piece from the new album is available at band's MySpace profile. Also check out June month Terrorizer magazine where you can find other never published Argharus track in magazine compilation CD.

"Plei?tas" cover art] and tracklist:

01. Dievopi
02. Mano ligos - Tavo ligos
03. Unnamed Track
04. Pleistas
05. Krecianti Kontrole
06. Brolisko Kapo Sindromas
07. Viskas Perniek
08. Prakalba i Atmatas

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Source:

myspace.com

Official press release

Finnish four-piece Altaria, known for its traditional but yet catchy heavy metal, has inked a new record deal with Escape Music. The new album "Unholy" will be released this summer.

Altaria's fourth longplayer "Unholy" introduces the fourth lead vocalist during their nine-year long career. Charismatic and multi-talented vocalist Marco Luponero has vaulted the band's stage presence up to a completely new level and participated in composing some of the hardest rocking Altaria material ever. Says drummer, band founder Tony S.: "For the first time ever the new songs have been written together as a band. All of us have contributed to the songwriting."

"Unholy" is more guitar-oriented and grooving harder, yet sounding a bit 'dirtier' than the previous Altaria works. But don't worry, we haven't forgotten the honest, melodic heavy rock Altaria is all about - the catchy choruses are still there."

"The recording, mixing and mastering of the album took almost half a year, so we want to thank our fans for the patience and offer a full song from "Unholy" available immediately after the album got its final touch. "Warrior" is groovy piece of heavy metal, served with a memorable chorus. The song is a true appetizer for the forthcoming album Unholy.", Tony S. explains.

The new song "Warrior" can be listened to at Altaria's MySpace page or downloaded from their website.

The fourth album of Altaria, "Unholy", will be released during this summer via Escape Music. Earlier Altaria albums, including a compilation album "Divine Invitation", were released by German label Metal Heaven. Altaria has toured excessively in Finland and all over Europe with fellow Finns Sonata Arctica and German ever-young Metal Lady, Doro.

"Unholy" cover art] and tracklist:

01. Alterior Motive
02. Warrior
03. Unholy Invasion
04. Pride & Desire
05. The Lake
06. Danger Zone
07. Steal Your Thunder
08. Wind Beneath My Wings
09. We Own The Fire
10. Ready!
11. Never Wonder Why
12. Underdog

Read more ››

Source:	myspace.com
Band profile:	Altaria

Death Angel have released the following statement in regards to the departure of longtime drummer Andy Galeon:

"As some of you may have already heard, Death Angel's long time drummer and original member Andrew Galeon has decided that it is time for him to move on from the band. While we are sad to see him go, we wish him nothing but success. Not only has he been an integral part of Death Angel from day one, but he's also family and a friend and we will miss him. All the best to you, Brother.

As for the future of Death Angel, THE SHOW GOES ON! Old friend and long time fixture of the Bay Area metal scene, Will Carroll (Scarecrow, Old Grandad, Vicious Rumors, etc.), will be handling the drum duties for the upcoming local shows in June and the Summer Madness Tour in Europe with Kataklysm and Keep Of Kalessin. Will's been jamming with us for over a month now and is tearing it up! We look forward to hitting the stage with him very soon. We'll be performing songs from "Frolic Through The Park" and "Act III" that we haven't played live since back in the day so prepare for a dose of some serious old school thrash!"

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Band profile:

Death Angel

Posted on Lost Horizon's official website:

"Faith followers and die hard believers, ex fans and passive likers. The time has come to unveil some secrets about the new material. After massive waves of misery from all fans around the world praying in years for exposing a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g. about the new magic we have decided that we are now ready to do that.

Here are 3 clips from 3 different songs that will appear on the new album. Its midi drums here only and the whole thing is taken directly from a raw working/recording document, which means neither mix nor any kind of sound improvement has been applied on the clips, which is the very point of leaving the final effect for the real album. Also, its MP3 format of course.

Feel and absorb the magical power, and if not then sell your metal gears and buy golf equipment!"

http://www.oncelosthorizon.com/media/wizard.mp3
http://www.oncelosthorizon.com/media/spirit.mp3
http://www.oncelosthorizon.com/media/fire.mp3

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Source:	oncelosthorizon.com
Band profile:	Lost Horizon