The band are currently in Brighton, England finishing the recording of their latest album Call To Arms.

If you can get to the studio tonight (10th February) at 20:00, then you can be part of the choir in one of their new songs, called "Back in '79".

The address for the studio is:

Brighton Electric Recording Co Ltd
Tramway House
43-45 Coombe Terrace
Brighton
BN2 4AD

Have fun!

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Source:	saxon747.com
Band profile:	Saxon

We are delighted to be offering two people the opportunity to meet and greet the members of Accept at their show in Sheffield, England on the 22nd of March.

The two lucky winners will be put on the guestlist and have free entry to the show, as well as having the chance to meet and greet the band before they step on stage. This is the last show on the band's European tour, so don't miss your chance to meet these Teutonic legends of metal.

All you have to do for your chance to win, is visit this contest page and answer the question.

http://www.metalstorm.net/contests/accept.php

Good luck!

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Source:	metalstorm.net
Band profile:	Accept

Choose Suffolk over the last months have been carrying out an open poll to allow people to vote for an image which is most iconic of the easterly county of Suffolk. The winning image was to be used to advertise the county as an attractive destination to visit.

An image of Suffolk resident Dani Filth from the county's most notorious band Cradle Of Filth turned out to be the winner, with a total number of 13,025 votes. A picture of an old swimming pool came second with a tiny 2,055 votes in comparison.

Choose Suffolk have unfortunately disregarded the support for the funny-looking man and have ignored the result in favour of a new short-list of images to choose from.

A spokesperson for the website apparently stated that the judges were "looking for icons which had a wider currency outside the borders of Suffolk", which apparently Cradle Of Filth don't have.

Still, you can vote for your favourite non-Filthy, Suffolky picture here.

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Source:	telegraph.co.uk
Band profile:	Cradle Of Filth

Several sources claim that Saxon have announced the following UK tour dates for next spring, ending with yet another show at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London on St George's Day. These are the dates:

April 9: Leamington Spa Assembly
April 10: Nottingham Rock City
April 11: Whitehaven Civic Hall
April 13: Manchester Academy 2
April 14: Glasgow O2 ABC
April 15: Newcastle O2 Academy
April 17: Leeds O2 Academy
April 18: Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall
April 19: Bristol O2 Academy
April 21: Falmouth Princess Pavilion
April 22: Bournemouth O2 Academy
April 23: London Shepherd's Bush O2 Academy

Wolfsbane and Fury UK are said to be supporting.

Source:	classicrockmagazine.com
Band profile:	Saxon
Event:	Saxon

The first five dates of the UK tour scheduled to start tomorrow have been cancelled:

The band did personally not want to cancel this tour but unfortunately Michael Poulsen was ordered by doctors not to fly or travel until his medical condition is stabilized to their satisfaction. At this moment Michael Poulsen is currently under doctor's supervision and a full recovery is expected within time to be able to pursue engagements from Dec 1st and onwards.

The cancelled dates are as follows:

24.11.2010 - GBR, Portsmouth
25.11.2010 - IRL, Dublin
26.11.2010 - GBR, Belfast
28.11.2010 - GBR, Sheffield
29.11.2010 - GBR, Nottingham

Source:	volbeat.dk
Band profile:	Volbeat
Event:	Volbeat: UK & Ireland Tour [CANCELLED]

Jörg Michael, the drummer for many bands in the past such as Rage, Axel Rudi Pell, Running Wild and Saxon - and current Stratovarius drummer - has been diagnosed with cancer.

Posted on the official Stratovarius website:

He recently discovered a lump on his neck, went to the doctor, they decided to operate, and found what they call "a malignant thyroid neoplasm". They took out his whole thyroid just to have the best chance to get everything out. He will also have to undergo a regimen of radiotherapy. He is a fighter. We have all talked to him and it's clear that this guy is not down for the count. He and his team of German doctors are pissed off and ready to kick ass, and I would not want to be a little cancer cell on these guys' shit list.. believe me.

Jörg and his family (and us guys in the band) found this out only last week, after the operation. Naturally we are all going between a lot of emotions, sadness, worry, shock, confusion, even anger.

As for Stratovarius, as you perhaps know there is a long tour coming up with Helloween, and with the surgery and therapy that will now follow there is no way Jörg can do the first part of the tour. For me personally (it's Jens writing this if you didn't figure it out) I at first felt quite hopeless about the tour, because I was so upset about all this news. But Jörg himself has been extremely clear that he does not want the band to cancel a single show because of this. In the end this is what made at least me feel better about going back hitting the road next week.

So, we have debated what to do for many days now. Jörg first suggested my brother Anders to do this November-December 2010 leg, but it turns out Anders will unfortunately be busy recording some record or other with that little indie cellar band of his called HammerFall. ) After a lot of searching we found a guy that both can do it and didn't have other commitments: Alex Landenburg. He plays well, Jörg says he is a great guy (very important!) and he even started learning the set already before we even had decided what to do, which to me shows a lot of dedication. You can google Alex' name if you are curious.
So it turns out that Stratovarius will do the first leg of the Helloween Seven Sinner tour, just as planned, only not with Jörg behind the kit, but with Jörg very much as a motivator to us being there. Not one single date will be cancelled or changed. Jörg wants to be back on the road with us again as soon as possible depending on the thearapy, but we are not making any promises, that one is up to powers even higher than Jörg Michael and his doctors. We will try to keep you somewhat updated.

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Source:

stratovarius.com

Iron Maiden are finally going to tour the UK. Posted on their official website:

This will be an extensive 10 city arena tour for the final run of dates on their FINAL FRONTIER WORLD TOUR 2010/11. For the first time in many years, the band will be playing shows across the full length and breadth of the UK, including places they've not visited for up to three decades!

Steve Harris comments; "Everything in the Maiden camp has been so full on these last five years or so that we haven't travelled around the UK to play for our home fans for almost that long. These fans supported us by coming to Twickenham Stadium, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Download and more recently Sonisphere so we thought we should get off our backsides and do the travelling this time and get round the country to see them all. We very much look forward to playing all four home countries and a couple of places we haven't been for a very long time, Aberdeen and Belfast! And playing the O2 gets us as close to the East End of London where Maiden started off than we have been for many a year, probably since the Ruskin Arms! All in all l think this is going to be a very special series of shows and a wonderful way to end this whole world tour.

"We intend to take the full stadium show into the UK arenas and fit everything we possibly can into each venue. The set list will be different to this year's tour. Of course we will play more songs from the new album and some other recent material, but we intend to include a healthy dose of older fan favourites too for those who haven't seen us before, plus a spectacular light show and stage set, not forgetting, of course, ?Eddie!"

The UK shows will be the culmination of The Final Frontier World Tour, which began in June 2010 with a hugely successful 25 date tour throughout North America, followed by selected European stadium and festival shows, including Knebworth Sonisphere in the UK. As recently announced, early next year Ed Force One will fly the band, crew and equipment 50,000 miles around the World visiting thirteen countries before the band take a short break prior to the extensive European Tour (more announcements soon) of which the UK is the final leg.

As always we hope to facilitate "First To The Barrier" for our fan club members at as many shows as possible, details of these will be announced nearer the time on this website.

There will be an exclusive first ticket pre-sale for Iron Maiden Fan club members, before tickets go on sale to the general public on Saturday November 20th. Please keep checking this website for updates about ticket sales and further information about the special fan club pre-sale.

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Source:	ironmaiden.com
Band profile:	Iron Maiden

Taken from the official Kiuas website:

Hello folks! We have some startling news: our lead singer Ilja Jalkanen has decided to leave the band after some serious thinking. The reasons for this are purely musical and the chemistry within the band has always been great. In Ilja's own words: "My heart is not in heavy metal anymore, and a great band like Kiuas deserves a singer completely dedicated to the music."

However, as all the fans know, although Ilja has been the voice of Kiuas for many years, his contribution to the songwriting has been very minimal and thus his departure won't affect the bands musical direction or diminish the power of the music in the future in any way. The fact is that Kiuas will be able to continue it's musical journey with passion only without Ilja - this is the only way to go.

Unfortunately Ilja won't be able to perform the gigs we have booked for October 29th-31st. We we're on the verge of cancelling them, but luckily we were able to get talented vocalist Asim Searah to stand in for Ilja on those gigs. We apologize for announcing this so late, but we had agreed with the local promoters to do the UK tour before we announced Ilja leaving the band.

We also have some good news: Ilja will still perform a farewell gig with Kiuas in Helsinki in January 2011. The exact date and venue will be announced later.

Source:	kiuas.net
Band profile:	Kiuas

British modern metallers Cyanide Serenity are about to undergo a short tour of India, after a successful tour with Iron Maiden in February 2009.

The band will Headline 4 dates across the country as well attending the Indian Music Conference

Orka Networks Presents:

13th November 2010 - Kyra Theatre, Bangalore
14th November 2010 - Extreme Sports Bar, Hyderabad
20th November 2010 - Co-Headlining Indian Music Conference
21st November 2010 - Blue Frog, Mumbai

The band's debut album will be released early 2011.

http://www.myspace.com/cyanideserenity

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More sad news in the world of Rock. Gotthard singer Steve Lee died yesterday (5th October 2010) in a motorcycle accident in the United States.

He was 47 years old when he died in the accident in Nevada. Long-time Gotthard manager Jan Bayati commented "it is a tragedy." and that he would give more details soon. But the Nevada Highway Patrol have confirmed the death, confirming it happened about 50 miles north of the "Las Vegas Motor Speedway".

He died at the scene after being clipped by a lorry.

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Source:	swissinfo.ch
Band profile:	Gotthard

6 is the working title of their forthcoming album scheduled for release on March 21st, 2011. The new album will include 11 songs. Some of the titles are "Ain't giving in", "Concealed In The Dark", "If Only Death Was An Illusion", "Monster" and "Warrior Blood".

The album will be available in minimum 3 different formats, which will include 4 bonus tracks: "The Eternal War", "Show Your Hate", "The Almighty" (these are all re-recorded versions of tracks taken from the band's first album - "Fear Of Tomorrow") and "Computer God" (a cover version of the song by Black Sabbath).

The band will enter the recording studio on November 29th. The new material will be recorded again at Medley Studios in Denmark, with Søren Andersen as the producer.

Artillery plan to promote the new album with a world-wide tour.

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Band profile:

Artillery

Leon has posted a demo version of new track "Time Never Lasts" from the forthcoming fourth album online. That can be heard at this location.

He has also posted this message on the band's official forum:

As anyone who's heard the track might have noticed, and some people are already aware; in addition to playing guitar and drums, I'm also doing vocals and bass on this track. So here comes the next announcement: the next Mithras record is going to be me flying solo, playing all the instruments and doing vocals. This was in some ways a very hard decision to make, but in other ways an astoundingly easy one, which I think is going to work out for the best for me personally, and isn't really a reflection on anyone else. I was fortunate enough to have many viable options on this record as to who could perform on it (from live and ex-members) but after very careful consideration regarding practicalities and all the hard work which goes into a new record, not to mention much soul searching, I decided the best possible outcome for the record was for me to work alone.

Expounding on previous news announcements, Mithras live shows and any other musical projects are firmly off my agenda for the near future, so I can concentrate totally on the new record. Once the new record is in the can I'd like to play some shows and hopefully I can hook up with some of my comrades to do so.

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Source:	mithras.org.uk
Band profile:	Mithras

A new song from the long-awaited new Angra album has been posted online on their official myspace page.

To listen to the song, visit the myspace page here, or simply use this link for the pop-out player.

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Source:	myspace.com
Band profile:	Angra

Tony Iommi has talked to Sunday Mercury, a Birmingham newspaper about what the future might hold.

He confirms that the tribute show at the High Voltage festival in London will be "the very last gig we play as Heaven And Hell", as they "chose the name because the band comprised the Black Sabbath line-up that made the Heaven And Hell album." And that they will no longer carry on as Heaven And Hell, as they "couldn't carry on under that name without Ronnie".

Regarding a reunion with Ozzy; he stated "I spoke to Ozzy while I was in Los Angeles after Ronnie's funeral, and he said he'd give me a call when he got to England on his own tour". But that "I've not had that telephone call yet".

About the future, Iommi says they would "like to do something, and carry on playing", but "in what form, and with what singer, I don't know".

Read the full interview at this location.

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Source:	sundaymercury.net
Band profile:	Heaven And Hell

According to desmoinesregister.com, police are investigating the death of Slipknot's bass guitarist Paul Gray at a local hotel.

They report:

"Paul Dedrick Gray, 38, of Johnston was found dead at approximately 10:50 a.m. today by an employee at TownePlace Suites, 8800 Northpark Drive, police said.

There was no evidence of foul play, police said, but the investigation is ongoing. An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday. Toxicology tests will be done."

Paul Gray and his wife were expecting a child, according to friends of Gray's. Gray had a history of drug abuse and was arrested on drug charges in June 2003.

Source:	desmoinesregister.com
Band profile:	Slipknot