Bugger you go away for a couple of days to earn some pennies and what happens, yep that's right details of the third installment of Firefest are announced. Now I'm sure the majority of people will already know but Firefest III takes place on October 28th and although the venue has yet to be announced details of the line up are available. The full line up for the show is as follows:

Winger, Gotthard, Bonfire, Fair Warning, Wig Wam, Treat &  Nexx.

Tickets for the show are already available, priced at Ł40 and can be bought via Paypal using the following email address fireworks.mag@ntlworld.com  . More details as we get them of course....

Enuff Z Nuff vocalist Donnie Vie will release a double CD & DVD package entitled DVied, which comes complete with a six track EP, on July 3rd through Livewire/Cargo.

The EP features the following tracks; Code Red, Country Roads, If You Could Read My Mind, I Love the Way, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds and Somewhere. The DVD portion of the release features a video for "Code Red," a live performance of the Beatles "Don't Let Me Down" with John Corabi of Motley Crue and a live performance of "Stand By Me" as well as interviews with Donnie and Enuff Z'Nuff including the bands very first interview and Enough Z'nuff performing “Harlia” in 1986 alongside the videos for “Fly High Michelle”, “New Thing” and various TV performances
 

Stone Sour, the band led by Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor, will release their sophomore album, entitled 'Come What(ever) May' through Roadrunner Records on July 31st.  The album will feature the following track listing:

30/30-150, Come What(ever) May, Hell & Consequences, Sillyworld, Made Of Scars, Reborn, Your God, Through Glass, Socio, 1st Person, Cardiff and Zzyxz Road.

In further Stone Sour news the band have now cancelled their planned show at London's Mean Fiddler that was scheduled to take place on July 5th.

Soilwork have lined up a UK tour for September. The dates so far confirmed for the trek are as follows:

Sept 18th - Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms
Sept 19th - Oxford Zodiac
Sept 20th - London Mean Fiddler
Sept 21st - Nottingham Rock City
Sept 23rd - Leeds Cockpit
Sept 24th - Manchester University
Sept 26th - Birmingham Academy
Sept 27th - Cardiff Barfly

HAMMERFALL recently entered the studio to begin recording the follow-up to 2005's “Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken”.

The album will be released on October 20th, through Nuclear Blast Records, with a single release on the track “Natural High” available on September, 22nd.

Other song titles on the album include "Carved In Stone," "Titan," "Dark Wings, Dark Words," "Shadow Empire," "Rebel Inside," "Threshold, "Howlin' With The Pac," and "The Fire Burns Forever”. Guitar player and main songwriter Oscar Dronjak comments: “Our goal was to get as heavy and energetic production as we had on the previous albums, but to improve it and the performance even more. Musically, we built on the foundation of our previous work and developed the sound, and perhaps brought back some of the speed. Without losing the heaviness and the groove, of course. HammerFall is, and always will be, a Heavy Metal band."
Everyone who will visit this years Earthshaker Festival (www.earthshaker-fest.de) will get the chance to listen to one of those new tracks live. Says Oscar: “We will do "The Fire Burns Forever", the song we recorded a video together with the Swedish athletics a couple of weeks back. As far as I know, it will be available for download during August only, so it will be in promotion for that. We're also going to bust out a few songs we haven't done in a while, just for fun.”

The next instalment of Subverse, the all ages rock club, takes place at London's Camden Underworld on July 2nd. This time around the club is showcasing four live bands, namely Enter Shirkari, I-Def-I, Chaser, and Fei Comodo as well as Katie Parsons from the mighty Metal Hammer and the Radio 1 rock show spinning the music. For more info you can check out the Subverse MySpace website at www.myspace.com/subverseclub

Brit rockers Brigade release the second single from their critically acclaimed 'Lights' album on Aug 7 2006.

Following on from their success so far in 2006, the emotive power of 'Meet Me At My Funeral' should firmly cement the band's place at the vanguard of the current rock renaissance.  With a creative philosophy that defines them as a pure and focused rock band (positioned far outside the current preoccupation with emo stylings and retro 'metal' excess), Brigade are determined to forge their own path. And their latest single is a potent slab of intensity, both musically and lyrically.

"I wrote the lyrics to MMAMF after reading a book called 'Bodies'", explains frontman Will Simpson. "It depicts the experiences of a junior hospital doctor as he starts out and his subsequent mental breakdown. I definitely identified with the author's cynicism and was inspired by the main character's helpless rage at a system that stifles idealism in those who work within it. The song is about searching for redemption and our abilities as humans to cope and survive when there is no clear definition between what is right and wrong."

Produced by Joe Gibb (Robbie Williams, Madonna, The Cure, Funeral For A Friend) and Gethin Woolcock, the single will be released on Mighty Atom Records (Funeral For A Friend, 3 Colours Red, Hondo Maclean).

Having toured with the likes of Fightstar, Hidden In Plain View, Hundred Reasons and Biffy Clyro, the band are fast becoming live favourites… and they have yet more dates planned to promote the 'Meet Me At My Funeral' single!

21st June - Telford, International Centre, NUS Showcase
9th July  -Bridgend, Recreation Centre
23rd July - Oxford, Truck Festival (Barn Stage)
27th July - Belfast, Radiation @ Limelight
28th July - Dublin, Sugar Club
29th July - Derry, Nerve Centre
14th Oct - Great Yarmouth, End Of Days @ Pontins

More than five years after their last album "Four", the German Melodic Hard Rock sensations FAIR WARNING are back with their reunion album “Brother’s Keeper” to be released on Frontiers Records in Europe on August 25th 2006.

The band’s reunion happened after a five years break and is now formed by singer Tommy Heart, guitarist Helge Engelke, bassist Ule W. Ritgen and CC Behrens on drums.

Similarly to what happened with some of their previous albums ("Rainmaker", "Go" and "Four"), the band withdrew in an old mansion, where they recorded a big part of the new album from august 2005 until march 2006.

The first reactions to the new material are stunning. The first single "Don't Keep Me Waiting", scored a sensational 92/100 points in the Japanese leading rock magazine "Burrn!". That does not happen that often for single releases !

“Brother’s Keeper” will be released on the 25th of August, anticipated by the re-release of their debut album "Fair Warning" and the band’s breakthrough album in Japan "Rainmaker", together with the first world wide release of the DVD "The Call Of The East" - a live concert in Japan.

“Brother’s Keeper” final tracklisting shall include the following songs (click on the song title to listen an mp3 sample):
Don’t Keep Me Waiting; Generation Jedi; All My Love; Rainbow Eyes; Push Me On; Wasted Time; The Cry; The Way; Once Bitten Twice Shy; Tell Me Lies; In The Dark; Still I Believe (Bonus Track for Europe); All I Wanna Do.

Fair Warning have already announced their participation to some festivals throughout Europe, including the second edition of the United Forces of Rock festival in Ludwigsburg, Germany on October 1st 2006. A full European tour is planned for late 2006 / early 2007.

Epic Records has announced a September 5th release date for REVELATIONS, the highly anticipated new album from multi-platinum rock band AUDIOSLAVE.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone.com, guitarist Tom Morello described the record as “Led Zeppelin meets Earth, Wind and Fire,” adding that it’s a “big hard rock record with a funky bottom.” Among the album’s many highlights is the groove-driven lead single, “Original Fire,” and "Wide Awake," about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "It's probably Audioslave's most political song to date,” says Morello.

The Grammy-nominated quartet (vocalist Chris Cornell, bassist Tim Commerford and drummer Brad Wilk) recorded REVELATIONS at Henson Studios in Los Angeles with acclaimed producer Brendan O’Brien. O’Brien, whose myriad credits include Pearl Jam and Bruce Spingsteen, mixed Audioslave’s Out of Exile record and the Live in Cuba CD and DVD. His history with the band goes back even farther, as he produced Rage Against The Machine albums Evil Empire (1996), The Battle of Los Angeles (1999) and Renegades (2000) and mixed Soundgarden’s Superunknown (1994).

REVELATIONS follows 2005’s Out of Exile, which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top 200 and featured the Grammy nominated single “Doesn’t Remind Me.”

The full track listing for REVELATIONS is as follows:

“Revelations”
”One And The Same”
”Sound of a Gun”
”Until We Fall”
”Original Fire”
”Broken City”
”Somedays”
”Shape of Things To Come”
”Jewel of the Summertime”
”Wide Awake”
”Nothing Left To Say But Goodbye”
”Moth”

Iron Maiden plan to release their new studio album entitled A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, in early September.

The band started writing songs at the end of 2005 after a short break from their hugely successful festival appearances in Europe and the USA. After Christmas the songs were completed and rehearsed when the band then got together with producer Kevin 'Caveman' Shirley at Sarm West Studios in London to start work on recording the backing tracks.

Kevin Shirley has now co-produced three of the bands studio albums alongside Steve Harris, as well as two of their recent Live DVD's and albums. From this the working relationship between Kevin and the band seems to get stronger and stronger. Says Kevin, 'The Beast is back! I feel from the outset we all clicked on this one. We spent two months in the studio, from Go to Whoa - from Nicko's 'tubs up' to final mixes and sequenced master! That's a tiny gestation period for an album. Producing Iron Maiden is like sitting in the head and driving one of those mammoth automatons from Star Wars or Saturday morning cartoons! And there's nothing that can stop it!'

'I feel incredibly privileged to have been around to see this album born and breathe life. There have been only a couple of occasions in my career when the ENTIRE process of recording felt so complete - and it is on display here.'

As on previous projects all of the tracks were performed live and together in one room. No click tracks or computer tightening or manipulation has happened at any stage of the recording.

Says Steve Harris,' I think in many ways this has been the easiest album in terms of recording that we've ever done. The whole process of writing through to recording was very natural. I think in terms of the material we've also pushed our boundaries yet again and I think it will please our fans but also really surprise a lot of people as well. The sound we've managed to get is very powerful for a Maiden record and all of us have pushed ourselves in our own ways to create something that we're all immensely proud of and I think working as quickly as we did with Kevin really was part of that process. We simply can't wait to take this out on the road. We've played some great shows and had a lot fun recently introducing some of our older songs to a new generation of fans. However for us personally we're incredibly excited about getting out and performing these new tracks.'

Says Bruce Dickinson,'This album has to be our best since working with Kevin. There is such a wide scope of musicianship on this album and in parts this album is truly epic. I thought with the likes of Paschendale from the last studio album that we could only hope to surpass that but having now heard the album back as well as sitting with a few select people and hearing their reactions as well I truly believe we have managed it. Every one of us has put everything into this record and it's really paid off. However we've had such fun making it that it's almost difficult to believe what we've managed to achieve in the time it took.'

The full track listing is as below.

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

1. Different Worlds (Smith/Harris) 4.17
2. These Colours Don't Run (Smith/Harris/Dickinson) 6.52
3. Brighter Than a Thousand Suns (Smith/Harris/Dickinson) 8.44
4. The Pilgrim (Gers/Harris) 5.07
5. The Longest Day (Smith/Harris/Dickinson) 7.48
6. Out Of the Shadows (Dickinson/Harris) 5.36
7. The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg (Murray/Harris) 7.21
8. For The Greater Good of God (Harris) 9.24
9. Lord Of Light (Smith/Harris/Dickinson) 7.23
10. The Legacy (Gers/Harris) 9.20

Following on from their all conquering, packed out success of a show at Download festival last weekend, Bring me the Horizon announce  a set if dates through July at a variety of venues, a few festivals, and even a couple of shows with UK legends SIKTH!!!

This will be the last chance to grab a glimpse of these Kerrang approved, fast rising UK underground stars before they disappear into the recording studio to start work on their debut album proper. The full list of dates are as below,

July 5th - Exeter The Cavern (w/t SikTh)
July 6th - Bristol The Croft (w/t SikTh)
July 7th - Bournemouth Opera house (w/t SikTh)
July 8th - Bridgend Collison Course Festival
July 9th -Yeovil  Collison Course Festival
July 10th - Banbury Confessions
July 11th - Birmingham Barfly
July 12th -  Liverpoo, Academy
July 13th - London Islington Bar Academy,
July 14th - Guilford  Guilfest
July 15th - Rotherham Arts Centre
July 16th - York The Junction

Majestic Rock records have announced the signing of Swedish Neo-Classical metal act Twilight Illusion to a world-wide recording deal for their debut album, currently due for release early in 2007.

‘The band bring something new and exciting to the genre’ says Majestic Rock A&R director Geoff Gillespie. ‘There are many bands working in this area, so to stand out a band needs to have something more about them. Thankfully, Twilight Illusion have that something special and I have no doubt at all that this record will turn heads”.

The Stockholm based band comprises American vocalist Sebastian Nicolescu, guitarist Johan Ahlskog, bassist Hĺkan Andersson and drummer Rickard Johansson and vocalist Sebastian had this to say about signing with Majestic Rock:

“We’ve been listening to the neo-classical metal out there and frankly we’re not impressed. On the other hand it feeds us the hunger. The hunger to show that original neo-classical music can still be written. Music that is exciting and fresh with no need to imitate certain “icons” of the genre. We also think that an album should be made of great songs entirely, not only one or two. We’d like to thank Majestic Rock Records and Geoff Gillespie in particular for this chance. This is going to be fun!”

Jimmy Barnes has lined  up a series of UK shows during July & August. The currently confirmed dates for the trek are:

July 28th - Belfast Limelight
30th July - Glasgow Garage
31st July - Newcastle Academy
2nd August - Leeds Cockpit
3rd August - Liverpool Academy 2
6th August - Bristol Academy 2
7th August - Lndon Islington Academy
10th August - Oxford Zodiac
12th August - Birmingham Academy 2
13th August - Manchester Academy 2

PMUK Metal Promotions have announced details of a the fist UK tour by Nicodemus with support on all dates coming from Manchester,  based Goth metal band Liquid Sky.

Confirmed dates are as follows:
 

July 16 Stoke-On-Trent @The Glebe
July 20 Queensferry @ The Pentre Club
July 22 Hertford @The Marquee
July 23 Aylesbury @ The White Swan
July 27 Croydon, Surrey @The Cartoon Club
July 28 Hull @ The White Room
July 29 Mansfield @ Town Mill

More dates will be announced as they are confirmed. Band leader, Christopher Morris, is thrilled that the band will finally tour overseas. “It feels great to finally get the opportunity to tour England and to do it along side a great band like Liquid Sky. We have had tremendous support from our British fans since our debut album almost 6 years ago. To play for them now, as well as gain exposure to new fans, is a dream come true for us. Being British myself, there is also a great sense of pride in this homecoming."

Nicodemus
Nicodemus began in late 1998 as a project of American musician Christopher Morris. After graduating with two music degrees, he left failed bands behind and launched his own label, Dark Throne Music, to release his new work. In 2000 the debut Nicodemus CD "Tales of the Lovelorn & Necromantic" was released. Inspired by traditional, progressive, and European black metal, the album achieved critical acclaim for its original blend of musicianship and dark atmosphere. Compared to such metal heavyweights as Dimmu Borgir and King Diamond, the Nicodemus sound caught on with the metal underground and sales grew strong. Due to such demand, the album received distribution in thirteen countries giving the release international press attention and retail availability. By this time, Nicodemus had grown to include Andrew Greene on drums and Mathew McGee on lead guitar in the live and recording line-up. Buzz about the band continued to grow eventually catching the attention of Jeff Keller Management LLC (Black 'N Blue, Law And Order). In 2002, with a management team in place, Nicodemus signed with US based gothic metal label Dark Symphonies and recruited a second guitarist, Dave Peters. February 11th, 2003 saw the much anticipated release of the "The Supernatural Omnibus".
Critical acclaim continued with the more melodic and progressive approach of the sophomore effort Radio play increased, mainly in Europe, and exposure through metal magazines and on the Internet grew exponentially. Drawing diverse comparisons to bands like Dream Theatre and RUSH, to Theatre of Tragedy and Tristania, Nicodemus was making an impact. Looking for a stronger presence outside of the US, the band immediately began writing new material with a focus on attracting even more attention from the stronger European market. With more focused song writing and even stronger progressive arrangements, the band left Dark Symphonies and sought a European label for its new home. Winter of 2004 saw the signing of a worldwide deal with Greek metal label SONIC AGE RECORDS. An exciting new chapter for Nicodemus is now under way as the band's new opus is in its final stages of preparation.

Liquid Sky
Already regulars at venues like Manchester's Roadhouse, the Cavern in Liverpool, and the Hope and Anchor in Islington, they've supported bands such as Skindred and Uniting The Elements. The highlight of 2004 was performing at the Bloodstock festival in Derby in September, alongside such luminaries as Children of Bodom, Gamma Ray and Sonata Arctica.

And more than anything else, it’s these incendiary gigs that have won them a loyal and constantly expanding army of fans. They consistently turn in live performances that radiate the kind of energy that electrifies your synapses and blisters your eardrums.

Drawing on the best rock tradition of twin guitar attack, the line up sees Jonathan Craven and Audie Lewis rolling out a decadent double crunch of guitars. Meanwhile, Den Constable relentlessly pins the bass down and Jamie Ward keeps it watertight on drums with the added bonus of some serious double-kick drum abuse. The prodigious young talent that is keyboard player Joe Rhodes, adding a new twist to the Liquid Sky alchemy, bolsters the band’s constantly evolving sound.

2004 saw the arrival of new vocalist Hecate Taglietti. With her searing passionate voice and a powerful stage-presence, this raven-haired siren has effortlessly bewitched a legion of fans. And with Jon occasionally backing her with a guttural roar, it’s a heady vocal brew.

Riding high on the success of their previous EPs “Adrenochrome” and "Nightfall", Liquid Sky have just released a clutch of blistering album “Bloodline”. As Jonathan says, "Bloodline demonstrates exactly where Liquid Sky is right now – a combination of melody and power; the perfect balance of light and darkness".

Drawing together all of their varied influences and adding a new twist to produce cutting-edge metal, Liquid Sky are the embodiment of the new breed of rock musicians – intense, powerful and ready to make music you’ll always remember.

More info can be found at www.nicodemus.us and www.liquid-sky.co.uk