The following message has been delivered via The Gathering newsletter:

Dear all,

Due to illness, the Gathering has unfortunately been forced to cancel all shows in Europe and the Netherlands scheduled between 19 April and 28 May. Anneke van Giersbergen is suffering from an obstinate bronchial and sinus infection, which has taken a turn for the worse over the past few days.
"The band very much regrets having to take this step, but Anneke's health will have to come first. We are consulting with promoters to try to reschedule the concerts to later this year so that tickets would remain valid", declares the band's management.

The latest recording Home was released this past weekend. So this cancellation is very unfortunate for the band as well as for their fans. The Gathering will resume touring starting in June.

We will keep you updated!
TG Webteam

Source:	- The Gathering Newsletter -
Band profile:	The Gathering

Finland's Finntroll have secured the services of Twilight Moon frontman Mathias Lillmåns as the group's new lead singer. Lillmåns is reportedly 23 years old, and like Fintroll's original vocalist, Katla Mathias, is Fenno-Swedish, with Swedish as his mother tongue. Check out pictures of Finntroll performing live with Mathias Lillmåns on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 at the Night Life Rock club in Helsinki at this location.

For more information on Lillmåns' other band, Twilight Moon, click here.

Finntroll parted ways with frontman Tapio Wilska (Sethian, ex-Wizzard, former session vocalist for Nightwish) in January after "reach a situation in which we it impossible to continue Finntroll" with their previous vocalist, according to a statement issued by the group a short time after the split.

Finntroll in January completed a short North American tour with German thrashers Sodom. The band's next live appearance is scheduled for June 4 at the Rock Hard Festival in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.

Read more ››

Source:	metalreviews.com
Band profile:	Finntroll

The complete track listing has been revealed for the three CDs that will be included in the upcoming Bathory box set, "In Memory of Quorthon", due on June 3 via Black Mark Records. As previously reported, the full package will contain three CDs, one DVD, a book and a poster. Börje "Boss" Forsberg ? owner of Black Mark Records and father of late Bathory mainman Thomas "Quorthon" Forsberg ? had previously stated that the package would contain "Quorthon's and Bathory's complete musical history."

"In Memory of Quorthon" track listing:

CD 1:

01. Song to Hall up High
02. Oden's Ride over Nordland
03. Twilight of the Gods
04. Foreverdark Woods
05. A Fine Day to Die
06. The Woodwoman
07. Quorthon - I've Had It Coming My Way
08. Armageddon
09. Born to Die
10. Quorthon - God Save the Queen
11. The Sword
12. For all Those Who Died
13. Call from the Grave
14. Born for Burning
15. Quorthon - Boy

CD 2:

01. One Rode to Asa Bay
02. The Lake
03. The Land
04. Raise the Dead
05. War Pig
06. Enter the Enternal Fire
07. Blood Fire Death
08. Ring of Gold
09. War Machine
10. War
11. Ace of Spades
12. Death and Resurrection of a Northern Son
13. The Ravens

CD 3:

01. The Wheel of Sun
02. Apocalypse
03. Black Diamond
04. Woman of Dark Desires
05. Destroyer of Worlds
06. Sea Wolf
07. Deuce
08. The Return of Darkness And Evil
09. Day of Wrath
10. Quorthon - I'm Only Sleeping
11. Ode
12. Hammerheart
13. Heimfard
14. Outro
15. Quorthon - You Just Got to Live
16. Jennie Tebler - Silverwing
17. Jennie Tebler - Song to Hall up High

The following description of the box set's contents has been released by Black Mark:

"A unique work, exhaustively and respectfully assembled in remembrance of the legendary founder of death metal and viking metal. For an entire year Boss collected and went through so much material that it took months until the project truly began to take shape. Boss used as much of Quorthon's original material as possible ? including his layouts, text and notes taken from the posted and unreleased material he left. The artwork: Painted by Kristian Wåhlin who closely followed Quorthon's concept for a new Bathory album cover ? even if the new album itself was barely outlined at the time. Kristian began working on the new cover in late spring 2004, only weeks before Quorthon unexpectedly passed away. The painting Kristian gave us meant so much to Boss that he decided to use it for the memorial shirts and, of course, as the box sets cover art. The CDs: Boss personally selected the songs for the three CDs, which feature four of the finest hours of Bathory and the great Quorthon. When choosing the tracks, Boss kept in mind Quorthon's favourites, so you can be sure it is a compilation first of Quorthon's favourites, and of Boss ? selected from a very strong and diverse catalogue. In addition, you will hear Bathoryand Quorthon recordings you probably didnt even know existed. All music was remastered especially for the box set. The book - 176 pages. Only in the memory box set. Text written by Quorthon personally appears in italics. Besides lyrics, the book features Bathory's history, discography, background on the first recordings ? with titles, years, studios, covers ? and even a couple of photographs. Nearly all of this is from Quorthon's and Boss' own private archives. By popular demand, the DVD contains the first official commercial release of the legendary 11-minute video for 'One Rode To Asa Bay', as well as the MTV interview Quorthon did in London for the release of 'Hammerheart'. The poster: Quorthon's fire breathing."

Read more ››

Source:	metalreviews.com
Band profile:	Bathory

I, the new band consisting of former Immortal frontman Abbath, original Immortal drummer Armagedda, Enslaved guitarist Arve Isdal and Gorgoroth bassist King ov Hell, have signed a deal with Nuclear Blast Records. The band will enter the studio at the end of this month to begin recording their debut album, which will feature lyrics written primarily by former Immortal guitarist Demonaz. A late 2006 release is expected.

I will make their live debut on August 26 at the Hole In The Sky festival in Bergen, Norway. Additional live appearances will be announced soon.

Source:	blabbermouth.net
Band profile:	Immortal

To coincide with the announcement of Virgin Black's three requiems, the band is giving an inside view of the production process by revealing excerpts of string arrangements performed by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra - (full instrumentation not represented). The fragments are taken from songs featured on "Requiem - pianissimo". You can find the download on the "Download" section of their website http://www.virginblack.com

A release date for Requiem has not as yet been confirmed. The label is currently deliberating over those details.

Source:	- Virgin Black Newsletter -
Band profile:	Virgin Black

The band announced the new bassist, it's Roel Vink, "he is a young bassplayer with a lot of good musical ambitions, and we will start to work hard on learning him all the songs." commented the band.

Roel Vink will play live with Sun Caged for the first time at the Elsrock festival in Rijssen, The Netherlands on August 26th.

Also the band commented on the recording of their upcoming album: "We are currently recording our second album. All drums have been recorded, and now Marcel and Rene are recording their tracks.
Barend Tromp (ex Lemur Voice) will play bass on a few songs, and also will play a sitar solo in one of our songs. It will be great for fans of Lemur Voice to see Marcel work with Barend again, since Lemur Voice splitted up in 2000."

Source:	suncaged.com
Band profile:	Sun Caged

Anathema have posted the following message on their official website :

"Here we present a brand new Anathema song called 'Everything'.

It has been recorded and mixed by the band, independent of any record company. We decided to give this song directly to the public as soon as it was finished, as a thank you to all those people who have kept faith with anathema and what we are doing.

Anathema presently has no record deal. For this reason we have included a Donate Option, where you can help the band by donating a small amount to the process of recording this new record.
In return, we will present more songs for you to download over the coming weeks and months. These versions will be exclusive and not available anywhere else.

Here is an opportunity for people to support a band directly, instead of filling the pockets of anonymous businessmen.

The sentiment of this song is one of hope. Of truth. We are very proud of it. We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed creating it."

Download the song here.

Source : http://www.anathema.ws

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Band profile:

Anathema

Gaia Epicus have posted the following message on their official website :

"12th of July Gaia Epicus will enter Top Room Studios to record their 3'rd album which will be called "Victory". The band will have the album finished by the time they go to the USA, and hope to make some good promotion for the album at the Minneapolis Mayhem Fest. The band have already received some offers from record labels that wishes to release this new album, but nothing have been
decided about this yet. The cover painting for the album will be done by famous J. P. Fournier, who also did the bands first album cover "Satrap" in 2003."

"Victory" track listing (in no particular order):

01. New Life
02. Iron Curtain
03. The Sign
04. Revenge Is Sweet
05. In Memory
06. Awaken the Monster
07. Rise of the Empire
08. When Darkness Falls
09. Fortress of Solitude
10. Through the Fire
11. Victory

Source : http://www.gaia-epicus.com

Band profile:

Gaia Epicus

The following statment was posted at Mercenary's official website:

"We've been waiting for this moment for a long time, and now it's finally here.
The new Mercenary album - the follow up to "11 Dreams" - is done.
The recordings ended on Friday, April 7th.
We're also finally able to spill out some more details that we've had on the tip of our tongues for several months:

The new album title is: "The Hours that Remain"

The album will contain 10 brand new songs - about 60 minutes of playing time.
Some track titles are; "The Year of the Plague", "My world is Ending", "Obscure Indiscretion" & "Lost Reality".

We're very happy with the result - and if you like "11 Dreams" you'll definately like this as well. "The Hours
that Remain" has the custom Mercenary riffs and sound, but a lot more heavy, speedy and melodic at the
same time. We've gone even further in mixing the different styles as we like them into a nice "Mercenary" type blend.

"The Hours that Remain" will also include special guests, that we keep a secret for now.

As for the art work, we've decided to go another round with Travis Smith (Nevermore, Testament, SYL etc.).
Travis also did the "Everblack" artwork for us and we're very happy with the layouts he has done for
"The Hours that Remain" so far.

"The Hours that Remain" -was recorded at Jacob Hansen Studios from march 11th - April 7th.
The mixing will take place 5th - 15th of May. Mastering will once again be handled by Ziggy.at zigzound Studios."

Source:	mercenary.dk
Band profile:	Mercenary

Vintersorg posted the following message on his official website:

"The new album will be finished recorded after the summer. There're some things that has to be solved but most of the guitars are recorded, the keyboards are done and some other FX are also completed.
We'll record the drums and bass during the summer, this time our live session drummer Benny Hägglund will be perfoming with us. For the bass we'll work with our live session bass player Johan Lindgren and we think it'll be a very interesting album from several aspects. The metal element are extended still melody is there of course. The most striking thing is that the lyrics will be this time is Swedish.
After having several albums with a mix between languages, and the last one totally in English, I got inspired to write in Swedish again. The change is for the same reasons as when we switched to write in English, to feel inspired and to stay fresh. A more ethnic touch is also to be noticed, still the music is forward thinking. So it's not a part II for TF or ÖS, so read this before you start mailing us about that

The album will be called "Solens Rötter" and can be translated to "The Origin of the Sun" or "The Sun's Roots". It's very hard though to give a good translation as the the combined words give you a certain feeling and the phonetics is also something that taste good in our mouths. Stay tuned for more info about the recording. Over and out!

Mr V"

Source:	vintersorganic.com
Band profile:	Vintersorg

Sirenia is finally ready to introduce their new female singer. Her name is Monika Pedersen, from Denmark, born 1978. Monika has been dedicated to music all her life, and has loads of experience from other bands, projects, choirs etc. In addition she has been working with several professional singing teachers in Luxemburg and Denmark. From now on she will have an important role in Sirenia's music, and we all look forward to a future collaboration.

Click Here to see her picture.

Read more ››

Source:	sirenia.no
Band profile:	Sirenia

Luca Turilli posted the following message on his official website:

"Hi my friends, today I am proud to announce you that Karsten, my faithful and talented webmaster, added some samples to this and the Dreamquest website for all those people that want to know more about the evolution of my musical style and how these new upcoming releases will sound. The samples that you can find on this website consist in an excerpt from the following tracks: 'Mother Nature', 'Altitudes' and 'The Miracle of Life', tracks that represent well the intensity of these new compositions sounding more mature and modern than ever before, also thanks to the wonderful voice of Bridget Fogle, that from simple chorist became lead singer of this band. Surely 'The Infinite Wonders of Creation' is the most symphonic album I released until now and the opera choirs, singed by the talented 'Voices of Astral Conscience', are massive and epic from the first until the last track of the CD. And more: when you will see the booklet that Karsten created for this album you will understand how the complete concept around my new release, musically, lyrically and graphically, took a particularly defined way of inner expression that will represent from now on the trademark for my future solo productions.

I am also proud to tell you that for the first time in my solo career my 3rd solo album 'The Infinite Wonders of Creation' has been chosen as 'album of the month' in an important German magazine. I'll tell you more when more infos will be available.

Very important: very soon, thanks to the hard word of my brother Karsten Vom Wege, this site, totally renewed, will be finally open. But before, in a couple of days, you'll be already able to exchange your opinions and thoughts in the new forum linked to this website.

Best Wishes and stay tuned for further news!"

Go to Luca's official website to check the samples:
http://www.das-buero-jaeger.de/lucaturilli/index.php

Band profile:

Luca Turilli

The Rekuiem album 'Time Will Tell' will be available around the World from 24th April 2006. The album is already released in Japan on Jan 27th, 2006 (entering the album chart in Japan at number 44).

The band have also shot videos for two tracks from the album and these will be made available in some format to Rekuiem fans in the near future (some early copies of the album will be sold complete with a free copy of the dvd featuring both videos, but these will be available purely on a first come, first served basis). The Video is expected to be avaiable for streaming in place from the band's website.

The band have signed to Majestic and plan later in the year to play a few select festivals across Europe and hopefully make a debut appearance in the U.S.A. to promote the release. Edited MP3 samples of all 10 tracks from the European release are now available from the album page on their website.

The band announced that have some studio material from the days with Mike Reid and his later replacement Steve Mills (formerly with Trespass) and they are considering releasing these for fans and collectors on vinyl and cd via the website later in the year.

Source:

rekuiem.org

The new guitarist for Lizzy Borden is Ira Black (Metal Church/ Vicious Rumors)
"Ira came in, turned up and started shredding up the place, I can't wait for everyone to hear him play all the Borden songs. The rehearsals so far have been just crushing! He's just the new blood we've been dying for" Reports Lizzy...

Lizzy Borden have decided to go back to their classic line up of two guitarists, so they are still on the lookout for a second guitarist of equal abilities.

Any interested Guitarist:

Must live in Los Angeles
Must be a shredder with taste (Rhoads/Wylde)
Must have stage presence and be a part of the Lizzy Borden Show.
Send us a link to your website so we may hear samples of your playing and see pictures. (No Snail mail please.) Go here to submit the link http://www.lizzyborden.com/lizzyborden-contact.htm

Source:

lizzyborden.com

The release date for upcoming Persuader album "When Eden Burns" is set for 15 May 2006. The tracklist is the following:

01. Twisted Eyes
02. Slaves Of Labour
03. Sending You Back
04. R.S Knights
05. The Return
06. When Eden Burns
07. Judas Immortal
08. Doomsday News
09. Zion
10. Enter Reality
11. Alight The Heavens (Japan Bonus)

Click here to see the artwork.

The band will be performing at Release Fest at Äpplet/Umeå with Reveria (Umeå) and Dreamland (Gothenburg).

Read more ››

Source:	persuader.nu
Band profile:	Persuader