We can tell you right now that God Forbid’s new album, Earthsblood will be one of the best heavy albums of 2009.

You can figure out for yourselves that what we’re saying is at least a little bit true by going over to God Forbid’s MySpace and listening to the 2-minute album sampler they’ve chucked up there.

Earthsblood is going to be released through Century Media on 16 February 2009 in Europe and 24 February 2008 in America. This is pretty cool.

Watch the video to ‘The End Of The World’ by God Forbid

The Altamont Never Say Die! Tour has a lot of gumption putting seven bands – and good bands at that - onto a single bill. It’s almost too much to take in, a full five-solid hours of murderous intent, spat out from the stage with all the ferociousness of a rutting rhino.

Support bands have wet dreams about crowds like tonight’s– rather than barging each other out the way at the bar, they’re packing the floor with a whirling-dervish hardcore pit. Carnifex and Whitechapel both respond by dropping breakdown after bloody breakdown.

Knocking everyone off-balance is Protest The Hero, whose technical flair actually sounds tepid and lukewarm against the rest of the bill. Luckily, rising Brighton stars, Architects, pull off one of the shows of their lives to set The Forum sizzling again.

The punch-bag deathcore of Canada’s Despised Icon provides a final bout of bruises to the tireless crowd, before the dual-headliners get set to unleash a metalcore knockout. Unearth’s decade on the road has given them the experience to set the bar high, but Parkway Drive have put in some solid gig-graft of their own over the last two years. The Australians show why they’ve earned the top slot with 45 minutes of brain-damaging riffs and vocals that bark like the Devil’s drill instructor. Simply vicious.

Altamont Never Say Die! Tour @ London Forum photo gallery by Danielle Kelly

The Proud Galleries in Camden, London are going to be hosting an exhibition celebrating AC/DC’s latest - and probably last ever - world tour.

Taking place between 05 February 2009 and 31 May 2009, the exhibition will look at the band in their youth, in the days before the success, through the lens of Australian rock photographer Philip Morris. That’s one of his, up there.

This will definitely be the first time these images will be seen in the UK and some of the late, great Bon Scott might have never seen daylight anywhere, ever.

It is probably going to be really good.

Watch a promo clip of when the exhibition was in Sydney

There was a Nirvana exhibition at Proud Galleries in Charing Cross once and it was so good one man bought the book, Winterlong, twice. It wasn’t us. Honest.

Did you know that AC/DC classic album Back In Black has sold 42 million copies? Well it has.

Brian ‘Head’ Welch
Save Me From Myself
Driven Music
3 November 2008

by Hugh Platt

Let’s just make sure we’re all up to date with the story of Brian ‘Head’ Welch, shall we?

Boy meets other boys. Boys form band. Band helps kick start trendsetting but later much-derided music genre. Band gets big. Band gets stratospheric big. Boys celebrates by getting off their tits on drink and drugs and porn star wives. Boy gets addicted to bad lifestyle choice. finds God. Boy quits band. Boy bitches about Band. Band bitches about boy. Boy writes book about God. Boy makes up with band although does not rejoin. Boy writes another book about God. Boy makes solo album.

Which is where we come in for this, the painfully-titled Save Me From Myself.

If we didn’t already know it was because of the Big Man upstairs, after listening to Save Me From Myself, you sure as shit know that Head didn’t quit KoRn because of ‘musical differences’.

From the Jonathan Davis-copycat vocals, right down to the Nursery rhyme breakdowns, this record sees every half-cocked KoRn-ism have any remaining spark of imagination panel-beaten out of it. What we’re left with is a paper-thin facsimile of KoRn’s earlier output, with one even more tragic flaw.

Head’s riotously literal lyrics veer from the nascently banal to hilariously lacking any self-awareness. “Flush! / All the puke i’m throwing UP! / In the toilet, this SUCK! / not a part of growing UP”, he alternately wails and croaks through ‘Flush’, disregarding subtley with all the grace and charm of a Born-Again doorstepper.

Watch the video to ‘Flush’ by Brian ‘Head’ Welch

Head doesn’t just spell out precisely what concrete-thick message he’s trying to send, but writes it in the lyrical equivalent of giant red capital letters, with underlining just for good measure.

While Brian ’Head’ Welch is probably eager to proselytise the story of his fall and subsequent redemption, it’s hard to see why anyone - and especially anyone with a modicum of taste - could care less.

If you thought the knuckle-dragging Fieldy’s Dreams was the lowest ebb of KoRn-related solo works, then Save Me From Myself is going to be forehead-slappingly dimwit revelation. Amen.

1/6

Brian ‘Head’ Welch - Save Me From Myself tracklisting
L.O.V.E.
Flush
Loyalty
Re-Bel
Home
Save My From Myself
Die Religion Die
Adonai
Money
Shake
Washed by Blood

Simon Neil and James Johnston of cheeky Scottish rock trio, Biffy Clyro hooked up with the folk at Guitar Hero: World Tour to chat about their own touring habits.

Then they played some Foo Fighters on Guitar Hero with Simon on the drums and James on guitar. Watch it all happen. In a video.

Watch Biffy Clyro playing Guitar Hero: World Tour + interview

Biffy Clyro December tourdates - all sold out
13 Dunfermline Alhambra Theatre
14 Belfast Mandela Hall
15 Dublin Academy
17 London Brixton Academy
18 Birmingham Academy
19 Manchester Academy
20 Glasgow SECC

Bullet For My Valentine are playing in front of about 9,000 people. Slayer did the same thing last month but with a much stronger supporting line-up and over two nights. Some might say there is no justice.

The fact of the matter is that Bullet For My Valentine are a Top 5 charting band in the two most important countries and they sell records to the people that matter – people that actually give a shit.

Bullet sell records to the people that will also show their love for a band by actually turning up to see them play the songs on that record.

Yes, large portions of those people are very young girls, ably escorted by similarly young boys but don’t let that fool you.

Their brand of modern metalcore is absolutely not as true to traditional metal as many demand. That’s what makes is modern rather than traditional. The years don’t start with the number 19 any more, FYI.

This is a band that is going to be around for a while yet. This is no flash-in-the-pan pop band. They write real songs for real people.

Take the chap to my left in his mid-40s, for example. To him, this is as real as any metal band. His hangover, tomorrow morning, is testament to that.

Bullet For My Valentine, Lacuna Coil, Bleeding Through and Black Tide @ Alexandra Palace photo gallery by Graham Pentz

The Dillinger Escape Plan, have written a MySpace blog about creating a DVD and also, rather excitingly, some new material for a new album. Read what they have to say:

We’re wrapping up a DVD, a documentary on early years Dillinger, from the beginning, all the way through the end of the Calculating Infinity cycle, which is gonna be really cool for the ten of you out there who weren’t in elementary school when this band started. For everyone else, it’ll be a history lesson well worth watching, to see how this beast got started.

We’re writing new songs. They will be here soon. When I say soon, I mean DEP time, but soon nevertheless even factoring in DEP time….and I promise you, these songs are gonna make each and every one of you make THE FACE.

We wanna make THE FACE!

DEP are due to play the quite fantastic-looking Soundwave Festival, all over Australia in late February to March with Nine Inch Nails, Alice In Chains, Lamb Of God, Funeral For A Friend, Poison The Well and Every Time I Die.

That looks like a good lineup. Indeed, the band says, “If you don’t live in Australia THAT FUCKING SUCKS cause this is gonna be ridiculous.” We believe them. It bloody sucks!

We previously reported a rumour that Metallica might be playing Knebworth in July 2009.

Blabbermouth has reported that Metallica are set to play Festival De Nimes in France on 07 July 2009.

Mastodon and Lamb Of God will also be performing at the festival that day. Could that be a package tour that stops off at Knebworth for one day?

Mighty, but pale-of-face Norwegian black metallers, Satyricon, have unleashed the video to their new single, ‘Black Crow On A Tombstone’.

Is frontman, Satyr actually just a black metal (and as such, an even angrier) Josh Homme?

Watch the video to ‘Black Crow On A Tombstone’ by Satyricon

Nine Inch Nails drummer, Josh Freese is due to leave the band at the end of 2008 and Trent Reznor has posted details of his replacement, Lostprophets‘ Ilan Rubin, on the band’s official website:

With great pride and excitement I announce the addition of Ilan Rubin to the lineup beginning next year. I had the chance to see Ilan playing his ass off at Reading and Leeds a couple summers ago and he blew me away. We recently invited him out to rehearse with us and he blew US away - the perfect guy to pick up the sticks after Josh leaves us at the end of the year.