PRIMAL FEAR’s "10 Years Of Metal" Tour continues with the confirmation of the band’s summer festival schedule!May10 - Cz - Kurim - Rockfest17 - IT - Cremona - MotorockJune05 - SE - Solvesborg - Sweden Rock Festival21 - IT - Moraro - Mora Rock Festival27 - Cz - Trinec - Noc Plna Hvezd Festival28 - Cz - Porici - Basinfirefest FestivalJuly11 - RO - Bucharest - B’estfest Aftershock26 - SK - Martin - Inferno Boom Fest27 - BE - Deinze - Brielpoort FestivalAugust02 - Cz - Nikolcice - Motonalet Festival15 - UK - Derbyshire - Bloodstock Festival16 - D - Dinkelsbühl - Summer Breeze Open AirSemptember20 - RU - St. Petersburg - Orlandino21 - RU - Moscow - Tochka ClubMore festival dates are under negotiation and will be announced soon!

Frontiers Records is pleased to announce the European release of "Live In Sao Paulo", Richie Kotzen’s first-ever live album on July 4th 2008. With much prompting from fans, Kotzen chose for the purpose a stellar performance from his South American tour in 2007."Live In Sao Paulo" is an absorbing collective blend of Kotzen’s songs throughout the years. His live performance reflects the guitar style’s that has defined his career as a virtuoso. Kotzen reveals to fans live his true diversity with the rhythmic labours of "A Love Divine" to the poignant ballad "Remember". The performance continually travels between moments of classic-rock song "Shapes Of Things", to the uplifting original "Stand".

After a very successful Metalmania Festival 2008 we are proud to announce the dates of the 2009 edition. As every year, the Festival will take place in Poland and in Czech Republic.Metalmania Festival 2009:Friday, 6th March 2009, Zlin (CZ), Novesta HallSaturday, 7th March 2009, Katowice (PL), Spodek HallThe 23rd edition of the Metalmania Festival - the biggest Metal fest in Central-Eastern Europe – will guest over 20 bands that will perform for thousands of metal freaks!!!!The Metalmania Festival has a long and great history. Running for over 20 years, it has become the biggest and the most important metal festival in Poland and Czech Republic. In the past, the Festival hosted over 300 artists incl.: MEGADETH, TESTAMENT, Blaze Bayley, ENTOMBED, DESTRUCTION, BENEDICTION, ZYKLON, THERION, NEVERMORE, ANATHEMA, MOONSPELL, SAMAEL, APOCALYPTICA, CRADLE OF FILTH, NAPALM DEATH, DEATH, SOULFLY, MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP, TIAMAT, MORBID ANGEL, OPETH, PARADISE LOST, MY DYING BRIDE, LACUNA COIL, JUDAS PRIEST, THE GATHERING, DIMMU BORGIR, HAMMERFALL, RUNNING WILD, VITAL REMAINS, FEAR FACTORY, SEPULTURA, CANDLEMASS, KREATOR, OVERKILL, HELLOWEEN, SAXON among many others.The recent edition of the Festival, which took place on the 7th March (in Czech Republic) and 8th March 2008 (in Poland), gathered on one stage such great bands as MEGADETH, DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, SATYRICON, OVERKILL, VADER, IMMOLATION, ARTILLERY, FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, and MARDUK, to name a few. Each edition is very well documented, as the show in Katowice is recorded and released as DVD+CD compilations.Metalmania Festival is also a perfect place to shoot a live DVD. In the past, such bands as ANATHEMA, PAIN, VITAL REMAINS, Blaze Bayley, and DECAPITATED have released DVDs recorded during their shows in Poland. The forthcoming DVDs of ARTILLERY (“One Foot In The Grave, The Other One In The Trash”) and FLOTSAM AND JETSAM (“Once In A Deathtime”) feature their performances on the Metalmania Festival’s stage!BANDS – We want you!Bands interested in performing on the side stage during Metalmania 2009 can send their applications (bio, link to website, link to mp3 files etc) to the following e-mail address: sidestage@metalmind.com.pl. The deadline: November 30, 2008.

PRIMAL FEAR frontman Ralf Scheepers has issued the following update:

GOREAPHOBIA — which was supposed to hit Canada for a short tour with ESTUARY and LAPIDATE beginning on May 8th in Toronto, Ontario has issued the following statement:

POISONBLACK, the Finnish band featuring former SENTENCED frontman Ville Laihiala, has posted a new song, "Left Behind", on its MySpace page. The track comes off the group’s third album. "A Dead Heavy Day", which was recorded at Soundmix Studio in POISONBLACK’s hometown of Oulu with Kari Vähäkuopus. The CD was mixed by Aksu Hanttu at Grooveland Studio in Lahti.Commented POISONBLACK drummer Tarmo Kanerva: "’Left Behind’ is the very first track we wrote and rehearsed for ’A Dead Heavy Day’. We already included it in our live set for a while and found out that it’s a very cool song that is fun to play live. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!"

Athens, Greece-based death/thrash metal band DESCENDING has inked a deal with Massacre Records. The group’s new album, "Enter Annihilation", is scheduled for release this summer.According to a press release, DESCENDING combines "both bombastic aggressive metal riffage and melodic hook lines in their songs. Their debut album ’Enter Annihilation’ is going to shake the foundations of modern metal community! This modern metal masterpiece features astonishing belting vocals by Jon Simvonis giving a deadly touch with his wide range of vocal palette, from deep growls-to ecstatic emotional screams. Also blazing rhythm/lead guitar work by a new guitar hero Constantine (ex-NIGHTRAGE) who combines his fast and furious solo pyrotechnics along with his strong melodic phrasing giving to the album a unique flavour of his own shredcore fashion."A trailer for "Enter Annihilation" can be viewed below. <embed src="http://lads.myspace.com/videos/vplayer.swf" flashvars="m=33589816&v=2&type=video" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="346" width="430">

Swedish dark, melodic metal act EVERGREY has inked a deal with Steamhammer/SPV. The agreement covers not only the group’s brand-new studio album, "Torn", which will arrive at the stores at the beginning of September, but also EVERGREY’s complete back catalogue. EVERGREY mastermind Tom S. Englund is looking forward to a productive cooperation with Steamhammer, explaining: "After long and intense negotiations, we feel that we have arrived at optimum conditions for everybody involved. We are confident that EVERGREY will continue to grow artistically under the terms of this contract, that SPV will enjoy our cooperation and — this is definitely the most important aspect — that our fans will thoroughly benefit from the new deal."The first stage of this ambitious target will see the release of EVERGREY’s new studio album, "Torn", featuring eleven compositions, described by Englund as a "modern mix of ’In Search Of Truth’ and ’Recreation Day’." "The tracks are all guitar-oriented and very atmospheric," he says. "They have exactly the sound that our fans expect from us." According to Englund, the slightly more experimental direction of EVERGREY’s previous release, "Monday Morning Apocalypse", has given way again to old strengths and virtues. "Two years ago we needed an album with a slightly different approach and an expensive producer, just to find out how that sort of thing works," he explains. "It was the right album at the time, but now we have returned to our typical trademarks." This is one of the reasons why the tracks on "Torn" were self-produced by Englund together with drummer Jonas Ekdahl. In addition, the band has a new bassist, Fredrik Larsson having been replaced by former STRATOVARIUS musician Jari Kainulainen.

IN FLAMES bassist Peter Iwers has issued the following update from ’Gigantour 2008’: "We are now about four weeks into the tour and we’re still very psyched about all the great feedback we have gotten throughout the tour. Right now we’re all in the bus trying to determine today’s setlist. As you might know, we try to flip-flop some songs every day to keep it more interesting for everybody, which is more fun than just sticking to the same one all the time. Tomorrow is an off show in Omaha and even then it’s hard to decide a list to keep everyone happy, so I guess we’ll have to play for three hours :) Hope to see all of you there." The third installment of the U.S. ’Gigantour’ — the acclaimed traveling heavy music festival launched in 2005 by MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine — officially launched on April 12 in Denver, Colorado with headliner MEGADETH, Swedish metal band IN FLAMES, Finland’s CHILDREN OF BODOM, Arizona’s modern extreme act JOB FOR A COWBOY and Oakland, California heavy power trio HIGH ON FIRE. The 29-date trek will criss-cross North America and is scheduled to wrap May 22 in Phoenix, Arizona.IN FLAMES will embark on a European headlining tour in October. Support on the trek will come from SONIC SYNDICATE and GOJIRA.IN FLAMES’s new album, "A Sense of Purpose", shifted 20,000 copies in the United States during its first week of release. This is slightly less than the opening tally of "Come Clarity" (Ferret), which sold just under 24,000 copies in February 2006 to debut at position No. 58.

WHITESNAKE’s new album, "Good To Be Bad", has registered the following first-week chart positions so far:Norway: #5 Finland: #5 Germany: #6 Greece: #6 UK: #7 Hungary: #8 Sweden: #10 Austria: #11 Switzerland: #15 Denmark: #18 Canada: #23 Czech Republic: #27 Holland: #33 Poland: #48 Italy: #57 USA: #62 France: #69 Belgium: #70"Lay Down Your Love", the new video from WHITESNAKE, can be viewed below.

Oakland, California-based band HIGH ON FIRE has scheduled the following European dates in June:

The second video of the rehearsals of the extended Remenyi Ede Chamber Orchestra from Miskolc has been posted online. You can watch it below:

Here’s the statement from AC/DC’s official site:

DeepRockDrive (www.DeepRockDrive.com), the world’s first interactive online concert venue, has launched a global free concert series in partnership with Pepsi starring DISTURBED.

MOONSPELL’s video for the track "Scorpion Flower" can be viewed below. The clip is one of two (along with "Night Eternal") off the group’s new album, "Night Eternal", which were shot by Ivan Colic (TYPE O NEGATIVE, SYMPHONY X, HAMMERFALL) in Belgrade, Serbia. Colic previously worked with the group on the "Memorial" video for "Finisterra".

Amanda Somerville — the American singer-songwriter and vocal coach who was recently tapped to replace EPICA vocalist Simone Simons on the band’s North American tour with SYMPHONY X due to Simons’ ongoing health issues — has posted the three more updates to her video tour diary. Watch the footage below.

Greece’s ROTTING CHRIST and Brazil’s KRISIUN will team up for the Summer Rituals Tour 2008 in June/July. The trek will cover mostly Spain and Portugal and will include appearances at three big summer festivals: Hellfest (France), ’Graspop Metal Meeting’ (Belgium) and ’With Full Force’ (Germany). Special guest act for the club shows will be RAVENCULT from Athens, Greece. The dates are as follows:

On the 16th June 2008 Metal Mind Productions will release a new live DVD by FLOTSAM AND JETSAM.

This press release just came in:Spanish Heavy Metal band CAIN’S DINASTY have inked a deal with the French label Melodica Records.The group’s debut album, "Legacy Of Blood", will be released on May 23rd 2008 featuring a limited edition.The CD was recorded, mastered and mixed at Immortal Studio in Valencia with Fernando Asensi.You can listen the music at this following address : http://www.myspace.com/cainsdinasty

With a phenomenal start to 2008 after the incredibly successful second headlining UK tour as well as their first and as successful European headlining run with labelmates NORTHER, TURISAS have confirmed that they will once again be gracing these shores after having been confirmed as main support on the autumn tour with UK heroes DRAGONFORCE.Warlord Nygard had the following to say on the forthcoming tour:“We just made it back from a very successful European tour which included an impressive 13 dates in the UK. We were really surprised how amazing the turnout was, with many of the UK shows selling out, considering we had only played one of the cities before. The crowds were crazy and now we’re extremely pleased that we’re able to come back in autumn to do it all over again. We’re joining up with DRAGONFORCE on their UK tour and this something we’re already hugely looking forward to. We are also extra excited about the shows in Ireland, which will be our first ones on the island that we’ve been unfortunate enough to miss out on previous tours. As you can imagine, Olli is sharpening his bow already as his one-man mission is about to reach its climax ... All in all, it’s going to be a great package no-one should miss out on. Right now we’re just about to head out on a voyage to begin our assault on the US as part of the Paganfest .. so we’ll either see you at the summer festivals or in the autumn”TURISAS will be playing with DRAGONFORCE at the following venues – make sure you get your tickets asap as this is already set to sell out early.September26 – Manchester Academy27 – Birmingham Academy28 – Southampton Guildhall30 – Cardiff University Great HallOctober01 – Nottingham Rock City03 – London Astoria05 – Norwich UEA07 – Leeds University08 – Newcastle Academy10 – Glasgow Academy11 – Belfast Mandela Hall12 – Dublin Ambassador13 – Cork Savoy Theatre