From the band's webpage:

"The new album Difference is now recorded, mixing will start monday 25th of October at Finnvox studios by Mikko Karmila. There will be 11 tracks featured".

Source:	dreamtale.net
Band profile:	Dreamtale

According to Blabbermouth.net, Antimatter have set "Planetary Confinement" as the title of their third album, tentatively due in February.
"The album is acoustic-based, and will have a much more organic feel than 'Saviour' or 'Lights Out', this time featuring natural strings, piano and drums," reads a posting on the group's web site. "Some of Duncan's recordings will be of interest as one is a track that was originally intended for 'Alternative 4'. Anathema fans will also notice 'Eternity Part 24', which is a modern version of 'Eternity Part 4'. Duncan and Mick worked seperately in their home countries for this release, involving local musicians.
"Duncan is currently mixing the Irish sessions for the album. Confirmed song titles are 'Line Of Fire', 'Planetary Confinement', 'Relapse', 'Mr. White' and 'Eternity Part 24'. The sessions will feature guest performances from local Irish musicians.
"Recording and mixing is now complete for the English half of the album. Mick recorded four tracks in mid-July ('A Portrait Of The Young Man As An Artist', 'Legions', 'The Weight Of The World' and 'Epitaph'), choosing to abandon all electronica and produce an all-natural session, complete with live drums and violins, the latter performed by Rachel Brewster of Liverpool band Marlowe. Recording took place in Studio 33, Liverpool and was engineered by Ronnie O'Keefe."

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Source:

roadrun.com

"German webzine Metal-Inside.de has posted pictures of Kreator and producer Andy Sneap attending the listening session for the German thrashers' new album, "Enemy of God", on Tuesday, October 19 at the Hamburger Dungeon in Hamburg, Germany. Check out the photos at this location
(http://www.metal-inside.de/dyn/galerie.jsp?id=579)
Kreator are scheduled to release "Enemy of God" in Europe and South America on January 10 and North America on January 11 via SPV Records. A limited-edition version of the CD will come with a bonus DVD containing a "making of" documentary and video clips. Artwork duties will be handled by Austrian artist Jochim Luetke (www.luetke.com). ARCH ENEMY guitarist Michael Amott makes a guest appearaonce on lead guitar on the track "Murder Fantasies".
The follow-up to 2001's "Violent Revolution" was recorded and mixed at Backstage Studios in Derbyshire, England with producer Andy Sneap (Machine Head, Skinlab, Nevermore), and was previously described by Kreator mainman Mille Petrozza as "pure brutal thrash! Tons of fast shit, sick solos, aggro riffing... I am really psyched about the new shit. Can't wait to hear what think about it..."
Kreator will be teaming up with Sweden's Dark Tranquility for the "Enemy of God Tour 2005" beginning in February 2005. Two as-yet-announced opening acts will be added to the bill".

Source:	roadrun.com
Band profile:	Kreator

"Former Pestilence bassist Jeroen Paul Thesseling is currently preparing a flamenco-oriented studio project dubbed Projekt Tabun. The recording sessions are planned for December 2004, according to a posting on Thesseling's official web site.
Jeroen, who played on Pestilence's fourth album, "Spheres" (1993), joined the flamenco ensemble of the Dutch virtuoso guitarist Peter Kalb, El Periquin, in 2003. "The live performances with this group allowed him to show his impressive strengths by playing beautiful fretless chords, harmonic overtone slides and very advanced solo parts," reads a posting on Jeroen's web site".

Source:	roadrun.com
Band profile:	Pestilence

"The mixing process of the new album is almost finished and it sounds killer.
The Astral Doors were at a photo session the other night and it could have ended up in a disaster. Som technical equipment caught fire right in front of us. Fortunately we discovered the fire at an early stage and took care of it but the equipment got destroyed. Scary shit !"

http://www.astraldoors.com/

According to the band homepage, the new album, entitled "Voice of Wilderness", will come out in December.

http://www.korpiklaani.com/

"Home after his first-ever trip to the U.S., special guest appearance at Atlanta's ProgPower USA V, and performances in South America Timo Kotipelto sends his regards to his fans worldwide, "The gigs in Argentina and Brazil were superb! The response from the fans was so awesome. A lot of people knew my songs and we had lots of fun on stage. The funny thing was that our bass player's last name Porra (Lauri Porra) is a swear word in Brazil and means something like sperm! So the people were shouting his name very loud when I introduced him.

The whole trip to Atlanta ProgPower V and to South-America was such an enjoyable journey for me. I hope to get back to play some shows in the U.S. with my band, and also to headline a tour in South America in the near future. Thanks to all cool people I met over there!"

Keyboardist Jens Johansson (Stratovarius, ex-Yngwie Malmsteen) who stepped-in in the eleventh hour to perform with the band, said the following regarding the band's South American shows, "It was really nice performing with my new friends from the band Kotipelto this past week. The audiences in South America are always a lot of fun so it was my pleasure to help Timo out when his regular keyboard player Janne pooped out due to tour with CoB - ha ha. The last gig in Sao Paulo in front of 7,000 crazy Brazilian fans was a nice finish of the Latin American leg, and as I have never been to Cordoba, Argentina before that was also really interesting. Next this mini-tour takes us of all places to Finland."

Kotipelto, whose newest album Coldness was released earlier this year by Century Media Records, will be performing 6 dates in the next two weeks in the artist's native country Finland. More information on the performances can be found here. In addition, the band will be playing in Helsinki, Finland with Nightwish December 26th at the sold-out post-Christmas show".

http://www.centurymedia.com/

Band profile:

Kotipelto

From the official website of the Dutch band:

"There where a lot of rumours going on lately but now its official the guys are back together again. After 6 and a half years they are jamming together again. "After a few minutes we stood there all with a big smile on our face like "fucking hell we rocked" it felt great playing together again."
They have rehearsed a few times now the first day they played a few old songs but the second day they already started to write new songs! Three songs are already recorded and the guys are listening to them at home and playing around with them. Jan Chris said that at least one of the new songs is faster than everything they ever did. He insures us that the next record will be a hard and dark album, and he means very hard!
When we will see this new album.... well no hurries. In October they are going into the studio again to record some more but they don't follow deadlines anymore. They do it when they want to and don't want to feel that pressure anymore".

http://www.gorefest.nl/

According to Blabbermouth.net, the Canadian band set the title of the new album as "Alien". The release of the album is scheduled for March 2005, through Century Media Records.

"It took drummer Gene Hoglan (Dark Angel, ex-Death) only three days in late August to pound through 11 tracks at the Armoury in Vancouver before the band moved on to Greenhouse Studios (also in Vancouver) to record the guitars and vocals. The remaining work is being done in SYL mainman Devin Townsend's studio in Maple Ridge (suburb of Vancouver). Songtitles set to appear on the CD include:

01. Imperial
02. Skeksis
03. Shitstorm
04. Love?
05. Shine
06. Possessions
07. Landscape
08. Zen
09. What's New, Pussycat? (Tom Jones cover)

SYL will release their first-ever DVD, entitled "For Those Aboot To Rock (Live at the Commodore)", on November 15 through Century Media Records. The disc features a full set from the band's sold-out hometown show at The Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver recorded earlier this year, plus some "hilarious" backstage antics and video clips. The DVD will be available for the price of a regular CD".

Source:	roadrun.com
Band profile:	Strapping Young Lad

"Over the weekend Orphaned Land played for over 1,000 people in a Shuni Fortress for over two and a half hours. They performed both an acoustic and an electric set, and played tracks from all three of their albums (track list below). The band was impressed to see the crowd respond overwhelmingly to tracks from their Century Media debut, 2004's "Mabool". Vocalist Kobi Farhi commented on their enthusiastic performance: "I was in ecstasy! I was singing the first half of the first song in the electric set, when I realized that the microphone was on the other side of the stage. I couldn't understand why I couldn't hear myself; it became the joke of the show . The crowed threw loads of candy at us (as Jewish usually do in Bar Mitzvah since it was Orphaned Land's Bar Mitzvah). In the acoustic set we were dressed in white clothing and then for the electric we changed into black, the switch of the vibes was so perfect!" The band brought along six female singers to perform the choral arrangements for "Building the Ark", a cellist, and other guest musicians. Pictures from the extended performance can be viewed here.

Acoustic Set:

01. Rainbow
02. The Evil Urge
03. Mercy
04. Medley: Aldiar Al Mukadisa, A'salk, Joy
05. The Beloved's Cry
06. Building The Ark
07. A Never Ending Way
08. El Meod Na'ala

Electric Set:

01. Mabool
02. Find Your Self, Discover God
03. Birth Of The Three
04. Seasons Unite
05. The Sahara's Storm
06. Ocean Land
07. Halo Dies
08. Of Temptation Born
09. Above You All
10. Norra El Norra
11. Kiss Of Babylon
12. Ornaments Of Gold"

Read more ››

Source:	roadrun.com
Band profile:	Orphaned Land

Lacrimas Profundere posted online the video from "Ave End" track on their official homepage.
Also, the band finished the work for another video, which will be released in November.

http://www.lacrimas.com/

Band profile:

Lacrimas Profundere

"Poema Arcanvs will on Saturday, October 9, enter the studio to record their new album "Teluric Manifesto".
No release date will be set yet, but we expect it to be ready just in the beginning of 2005..."

http://aftermath-music.com/
http://www.poemaarcanus.cl/

Band profile:

Poema Arcanus

Here is a statement made by Michael Amott, from the official website of the band:

"Although there's been little to no activity here at spiritualbeggars.com over the last few weeks, interesting things ARE happening in the Beggars camp! First off, we mixed the new album with Fredrik Nordström (he was assisted by Patrik J. Sten), and the result is truly great! We had a lot of fun during the mix, and we did it all in 5 days! A very good mix with a cool atmosphere!
We have also mastered the album with Göran Finnberg, he has mastered the last couple of Spiritual Beggars albums, he really knows the Spiritual Beggars sound very well and he made this thing shine - it sounds wonderful now!
A special mention needs to go out to Rickard Bengtsson in Slaughterhouse Studio, who also put a lot into the making of this new Spiritual Beggars record - cheers mate!
The album artwork is also very close to being completed. We have Niklas Sundin from "Cabin Fever Media" working on this - and it's looking really?eh, RED! It all ties in with the overall feel of the album, the title, the music? We'll be posting artwork samples here within a few weeks I am sure.
Next week the band will be getting together for a photo shoot - promotional shots that will appear around the release of the record.
Licensing deals are being negotiated right now for this album and our future releases - I am hoping well have something to announce soon about that.
That's it for now, more news to follow?

Michael Amott"

Source:	spiritualbeggars.com
Band profile:	Spiritual Beggars

"Isengard have announced the addition of singer Morgan J. Johansson (ex-Crystal Blue) to the group's ranks.
Morgan is 36 years old and hails from Örebro, Sweden. After his Crystal Blue stint, he did a few tours with different cover bands around Scandinavia.
"Morgan has a ton of experience," stated Isengard bassist Ted Lundin. "Even though it's not this kind of music, he will be valuable resource for Isengard and it will be very interesting working with him."
"I never thought that an AOR singer would suit to our music until I heard Morgan," added guitarist Ronnie Andréson. "He has a voice that can take Isengard's music to a whole new level."
isengard, who are currently unsigned, will begin writing new material for their next recording. Several gigs in Sweden are also planned".

Source:

roadrun.com

From the band homepage:

"Sirenia will tour Europe together with Tiamat, Theatre of Tragedy and Pain. The tour will take place in december and january, tourdates will be added as soon as they are available. Stay tuned!"

http://www.sirenia.no/

Band profile:

Sirenia