UK Metallers Venom have announced their album "Hell" is set for release in May 2008 through Universal.

Packed with 13 brand new malevolent tracks from the masters of Black Metal, Venom are now preparing to unleash this thunderous sequel to their 2006 "Metal Black" album. With song titles such as "Armageddon", "Straight To Hell", "Hand Of God", "USA For Satan", "The Power & The Glory", "Evil Perfection", "Kill The Music", and the title track "Hell".
The new album truly shows the power and intensity that is Venom, the trio of Cronos, Antton and Rage deliver the metal album of 2008.

Click here for more information.

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Source:	venomslegions.com
Band profile:	Venom

The ProgPower UK team has posted the following announcement on the event's website:

This is the hardest decision we have ever had to make, but it is with great regret that we have had to cancel ProgPower UK III.

We have made no secret of the financial difficulties that have dogged our first two years, which is why we made a significant number of changes for year three. However, ticket sales have been extremely poor and, as a result, there is no way we can stage the festival without losing a substantial amount of money - again.

This decision has not been taken lightly and we are fully aware of both the disappointment and inconvenience it will cause. However, we simply cannot afford to keep pumping money into ProgPower UK and we can assure you that we are as disappointed about this as you no doubt are.

As a result of this, ProgPower UK LLP will cease trading with immediate effect.

Ticket holders who purchased tickets via cheque or Paypal through the ProgPowerUK website will be refunded by the method through which the tickets were purchased. This will be done within twenty-eight days.

If you purchased tickets at Bristol Ticket Shop, please contact them directly for a refund.

Please direct any enquiries to enquiries@progpoweruk.com All enquiries will be dealt with, but please be patient.

We would like to sincerely thank everyone who has supported us over the past three years, and also thank Rene Janssen and his team giving us the opportunity to make ProgPower UK a reality.

The ProgPower UK Team

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Source:	progpoweruk.com
Event:	ProgPower UK [CANCELLED]

Stream Of Passion have posted the following blog on their MySpace:

"Rumours had been going on for a little while and finally we can say that they were true! We've been working on our new material for quite a while now and before releasing our new cd this year, we want to give you the chance to listen to a combination of old and new material and also to see our new members rock with SoP!

4 gigs are confirmed so far, more will follow soon!

12-04 headlining act at Tournai ProgFest, Tournai (BE)
13-04 Spirit of 66, Verviers (BE)
24-04 Effenaar, Eindhoven (NL)
25-04 Fenix, Sittard (NL)
also: Kasteel, Alphen a/d Rijn (NL) tba

As said, more dates will follow soon! Keep checking our site/MySpace for updates!"

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Source:	blog.myspace.com
Band profile:	Stream Of Passion

A new song called "The Mirror's Truth" from the ditto named EP/single is now available for streaming at the In Flames MySpace page.

The single/EP is released on March 7th in Europe by Nuclear Blast (March 5th in Sweden). In North America it will be released as an ITunes release only on March 11th.

Along with "The Mirror's Truth" the single/EP will feature three other tracks that will not appear on "A Sense Of Purpose". More news about the single at this location.

The brand new video for the first single "The Mirror's Truth" will also air on their MySpace next Monday, February 18.

UPDATED on February 17 (thanks to WinterChild):

In Flames have posted the video for the song "The Mirror's Truth" at their MySpace site. Check it out here.
The video was produced by Popcorn Film.

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Source:	profile.myspace.com
Band profile:	In Flames

The following blog has been posted at the official Pantheist MySpace page:

"As you may have not noticed, since the font is completely unreadable (one could argue that this is done deliberately as it would grant us a certain aura of kvltness, but I have to admit that it's probably the actual myspace skin that needs changing) there is a new gig date displayed on our profile: Friday 21st of March (bank holiday) we are playing at The Unicorn in Camden. That's right, after having been based in London for about 4 years now, it is about time -in true funeral doom terms- for our first ever London gig. We seek to perform mainly new tracks with a small dose of 'oldies' in between.

Furthermore, our promo has been sent to several labels, so we are awaiting for responses and feedback that will hopefully allow us to set up another perfect marriage between cynical business and idealistic naivete (without of course wanting to disclose at which side we currently are). Stay tuned as news will be announced here as soon as there is something worthwhile to mention.

Lastly, many many thanks to those who have listened to the previous promo track "The Loss Of Innocense" in the past few days. After 750 plays in ten days time or so we started to fear that people might actually become sick of the track before it's even properly recorded, so we decided to take it down again. However, your persistence and enthusiasm has moved us so we decided to give you a sneak preview of the second promo track as well for a few days."

In the meantime, a track called "Eternal Sorrow" has been posted on the band's MySpace page.

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Source:	blog.myspace.com
Band profile:	Pantheïst

The label Armageddon Music will be renamed to Wacken Records and distributed within the SPV system. The press release is as follows:

A joint venture of a very special kind promises to bring a fresh breeze to the German metal scene: SPV, the record imprint from Hanover, and Wacken Records have announced their cooperation in the marketing, promotion and worldwide distribution sectors. At the same time, Wacken Records (formerly trading under the name of Armageddon Music) will be incorporated into the SPV system, while remaining an independent company which will benefit from the international contacts and longstanding experience of its new partner. With the support of Wacken Records, SPV will in turn gain access to a wider forum and increase its focus on discovering, supporting and promoting newcomer acts.

SPV is among the most important rock and metal labels worldwide, with top acts such as Whitesnake, Motörhead, Saxon, Iced Earth, Helloween and Type O Negative on its roster. Wacken Records will bring Rose Tattoo, Victory, Onkel Tom Angelripper and Holy Moses, among others, and the extremely promising newcomers Suidakra and Forever Slave into the cooperation. The label also runs the Metaltix merchandising company and the tour promoters, ICS, who are responsible not only for the Wacken Open Air festival, but also for the Wacken Road Show and the Metal Battle tour concept. In this light, Olly Hahn, International Product Manager at SPV in the metal/rock sector, expects a fruitful cooperation which many newcomer acts, alongside the established artists, will benefit from: "This cooperation contract is our reaction to the shifts that have taken place in the market, focussing the strengths of SPV and Wacken Records, in association with Metaltix and ICS. Our cooperation will produce new marketing structures for young bands to break into the world of heavy metal."

Wacken Records label boss, Thomas Jensen, is also looking forward to the cooperation: "The aim of the Wacken Open Air festival, alongside ICS with its Wacken Road Show and the Metal Battle concept, has always been to bring metal music to the world. This is why we are permanently looking for strong cooperation partners for our label. In SPV, we have found a company with a great wealth of experience and willingness to try unconventional paths, which complements Wacken Records perfectly. This joint venture will consolidate the continuation and emphasis of our strengths."

Upcoming release plan for Wacken Records:

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Source:

Britta Kock @ ICS-WOA

Death Angel's new album, entitled "Killing Season", can now be streamed in its entirety at the group's MySpace page (here). The stream will last until February 22.

Due on February 26, 2008 via Nuclear Blast Records, "Killing Season" was recorded at Studio 606 in Northridge, California with producer Nick Raskulinecz, who has previously worked with Foo Fighters, Rush, Velvet Revolver, Shadows Fall and Stone Sour, among other acts.

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Source:	myspace.com
Band profile:	Death Angel

Says in the band in their MySpace bullettin:

"Kamelot will reissue its classic "Ghost Opera" album on March 28 (Germany), March 31 (rest of Europe) and April 8 (USA/Canada) under the title of Ghost Opera - The Second Coming, enhanced with lots of interesting features. The album will be released as a double CD limited edition slipcase design. This sophisticated and comprehensive package includes the CD featuring all the songs from the regular album, plus ten additional live tracks recorded live in Belgrade, Serbia during the band's 2007 World Tour, plus the bonus tracks Season's End, The Pendulous Fall, Epilogue and the remix of Rule the World. Additionally the two videos for The Human Stain and Memento Mori (live) and on top of that, the package features new artwork and a comprehensive booklet."

Ghost Opera - The Second Coming track listing:

CD 1: Ghost Opera
01. Solitaire
02. Rule the World
03. Ghost Opera
04. The Human Stain
05. Blücher
06. Love You to Death
07. Up Through the Ashes
08. Mourning Star
09. Silence of the Darkness
10. Anthem
11. EdenEcho
12. Memento Mori (enhanced video: Live in Belgrade, Serbia)
13. The Human Stain (enhanced video)

CD 2: Live in Belgrade
01. Solitaire
02. Ghost Opera
03. The Human Stain
04. Mourning Star
05. When the Lights Are Down
06. Abandoned
07. The Haunting (with Simone Simons/EPICA)
08. Memento Mori
09. Epilogue
10. March of Mephisto
Studio cuts:
11. Season's End
12. The Pendulous Fall
13. Epilogue
14. Rule the World (remix)

Source:	bulletins.myspace.com
Band profile:	Kamelot

Finnish folk metallers Turisas have issued a statement explaining a sudden change of the band's lineup:

We hereby announce, that we have been forced to hire a step-in accordion player to replace Lisko on all announced upcoming tourdates. We have an important show this Friday at Finnish Metal Expo (FIN) and two lengthy tours in UK/Europe and USA just around the corner - but no accordion player.

The thing is, we played a cool show in Groningen, Netherlands on 11th January and everything was cool. Then the next day, before the flight, some of us decided to check out Amsterdam really quickly, by train. Lisko had behaved in a bit hazy way during the trip, but it was nothing that weird (considering he is Lisko); however, he never showed up back at the airport. We got an interesting phone call, where he told that due to "special" reasons he wouldn't fly in the same plane with us. This alone was pissing us off a bit, but we decided he could do it on his own expense. However, after returning to Finland, despite our attempts, there has been practically no communication with the guy, apart from a couple of interesting SMS's (so apparently he's alive): no rehearsals, nothing. We don't even know if he's back in Finland at the moment.

This puts us in a difficult situation: with a lot of pre-arrangements like flights and visas to be done, and with all our upcoming responsibilities we have no other option than to release Lisko from his duties for an undetermined time period, starting from today. Luckily for us, we already managed to get a replacement for him on such a short warning time: the step-in accordionist for Spring 2008 will be Netta Skog, who also helped us out with the latest European tour in October-November. No permanent accordion player will be added to the current line-up at this point. Turisas also wants to point out that NO shows will be affected by the small change in the line-up.

Source:	turisas.com
Band profile:	Turisas

Italian metallers Stormlord have posted the following update on their website:

"Hi guys,

We are proud to bring some good news to all the Stormlord legions out there. The recording sessions of our fourth chapters have begun! We entered The Outer Sound Studios (Novembre, Necrodeath, Klimt 1918 etc.) one month ago together with the producer Giuseppe Orlando, as usual. We'll keep on working for about twenty days more. We decided not to give you any news until now in order to fully understand how good this work is. This album is such a great bet for us, it'll see Stormlord going back to an epic sound near to our first album "Supreme Art Of War", that almost ten years ago was able to influence tons of bands still growing strong in the scene, even if the style of our recent albums will not be missing. You'll find some surprises like an acoustic song, folk instruments and even some sitar parts, everything mixed with an extreme-epic attitude like it was back in the days, but with the nowadays production and a well developed technical skill.

Now it"s time to go back to work again but in the next week we'll post some other news, still we've got some aces up our sleeves!"

Source:	stormlord.net
Band profile:	Stormlord

German gothic metallers Flowing Tears have posted news on their upcoming album:

We can announce a major update on the upcoming studio album: after some very creative months, we're almost done with the songwriting. There are 12 songs so far, not sure if all of them will find their way to the album or if some new ones might come up at last minute, but we're close to the end of the writing mode. Studios are already booked and the production will start in May. A release is scheduled for autumn.

"We don't want to reveal too much about the material yet, but I can tell you it sounds much more atmospheric than we used to sound on our last few albums. Some of the songs have that certain mood that reminds me of what we did on albums like "Jade" or "Joy parade" while still having the power of the stuff from the "Razorbliss" era. Way less synths this time and way more guitars. There's heavy stuff, there's trippy stuff ? and there's some serious doomy stuff. Terribly pessimistic lyrics by the way

"There's no working title yet, but some of the songs that are finished so far are entitled 'Pain Has Taken Over', 'Words Before You Leave', 'Until The End' and 'For My Enemies'."

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Source:	blog.myspace.com
Band profile:	Flowing Tears

Finland-based band Kivimetsän Druidi has issued the following statement:

Kivimetsän Druidi and their female singer Jenni Onishko have decided that their paths will go different ways from now on! Due to personal reasons the co-operation is no longer possible. We are deeply sorry to say this, but we can't keep on fighting against the windmills.

Our former singer Annika Laaksonen kindly helped us out at Helsinki, Semifinal. On Thursday in Kouvola we will be supported live by several Metal Warriors - a kind of all stars team: Lainedil and Iné from Elexorien, Tuuli from Shattered Within etc. The gig in St. Petersburgh on Saturday will be played without female vocals. All the gigs in near future will definitely be very challenging both technically AND mentally for the band.

We wish Jenni all the best in the future. And although our paths part now, the friendship will live forever.

The band is now in search of a new female vocalist:

"Our new singer should be 18-25 years old and preferably she should have a classically trained voice. She should be suitable to our style and we appreciate charisma and performing skills. Anyway she'll be our new metal queen!
We have already agreed gigs both in Finland and abroad, so the sooner we find our new singer the better.
We are training in Kouvola, but as long as the singer can spend in Kouvola two weekends a month, it's no problem where she is living. However a great part of our songs are written in Finnish, so she should be able to sing in Finnish."

Source:	kivimetsandruidi.com
Band profile:	Kivimetsän Druidi

Bloodbath has posted the following update on their website:

The new mini-cd will be entitled 'Unblessing The Purity' cover art] and this 4-song disc will see a release exclusively through Peaceville on March 10th. The classic oldschool looking cover artwork was created by Dusty Peterson who won last year's competition. We'd like to congratulate Dusty and thank him for visualizing our artconcept. We'd also like to thank all the other artists for taking their time and effort to submit their creations even though it didn't make it all the way. Look out for audio-preview teasers to be posted shortly.

Tracklist:

01. Blasting The Virginborn
02. Weak Aside
03. Sick Salvation
04. Mouth Of Empty Praise

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Source:	bloodbath.biz
Band profile:	Bloodbath

Swedish metallers Soilwork have issued the following statement on their website:

Soilwork, who recently completed the Lamb Of God/Killswitch Engage U.S. tour in support of their new album "Sworn To A Great Divide", have decided to part ways with guitarist Ola Frenning.
It was felt that Ola resisted the demands of the road and found it difficult to come to terms with the amount of touring scheduled.

Sworn To A Great Divide is Soilwork's fastest seller and the live demand for the band is growing. They intend to play everywhere and fulfill the album's potential.

Vocalist Björn "Speed" Strid says: 'It was a very difficult decision to make because Ola has been our friend and bandmate for a very long time'.

The decision will not affect any of Soilwork's plans. Guitarist David Andersson will fill in on their upcoming Finnish/Baltic tour as well as the "Scum Of The Earth" U.S. tour with Throwdown. The band will then tour Australia, Japan and South-East Asia before returning to Europe for festivals and a headlining U.S. tour in the Fall.

Ola Frenning comments: "After 10 years, 7 albums and several world wide tours, we've realised that we have developed in different directions and have a different set of values, profession wise. The disagreements have reached their peak and it has become an untenable situation. The band's solution is that I part ways with them so that I won't be in the way for the future plans of Soilwork.
However, since I'm not gonna be on the road (at least for a while), I will now be able to continue with my songwriting and producing at another level. For further information, visit www.myspace.com/olafrenning. The page will be updated in the near future.
Cheers to ya all... And thanks for making these 10 years with the band memorable."

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Source:	soilwork.org
Band profile:	Soilwork

According to a posting on the Six Feet Under website, legendary death metal vocalist Chris Barnes has officially parted ways with the Finnish death metal band Torture Killer, who took their name from a Six Feet Under song back when they were a SFU and Obituary cover band.

"I am no longer involved with, or a member of the band Torture Killer. The split is mutual; it was just time for me to move forward. I wish the band well in all future plans and musical endeavors" comments Chris Barnes.

Torture Killer have commented the split and announced their new vocalist on their Myspace site:

"From this point on we will continue with Sallinen on vocals. No drama, we agreed it will be less confusing and better for us and Chris to continue on our own paths. We're very grateful for his help during the past few years and wish him the best of luck - he's been cool to us all this time. With Sallinen we now have a complete and solid line-up and will concentrate on finishing the 3rd Torture Killer album."

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Source:	sfu420.com
Band profile:	Torture Killer