A Life Once Lost Announces Residency!

“We are doing a July residency at the most lawless club in Philly, Kung Fu Necktie (KFN). Every week we will have special guests playing and each show will be a different line up. Come check out all the new A LIFE ONCE LOST material as we tighten up our show and get ready to unleash our new album.” - A LIFE ONCE LOST guitarist Doug Sabolick

KUNG FU NECKTIE RESIDENCY DATES:

7/2 – A LIFE ONCE LOST @ KUNG FU NECKTIE w/ Black Sheep Wall & Chimpgrinder

7/9 – A LIFE ONCE LOST @ KUNG FU NECKTIE w/ Woe & Hull

7/16 – A LIFE ONCE LOST @ KUNG FU NECKTIE w/ Jucifer & Spirit Animal

7/23 – A LIFE ONCE LOST @ KUNG FU NECKTIE w/ Auroboros & Mount Carmel

7/30 – A LIFE ONCE LOST @ KUNG FU NECKTIE w/ Fight Amp

Children Of Bodom on Nuclear Blast

Children of Bodom is living the high life right now. The band's last four albums were #1 in their home country of Finland, and they just completed a successful North American tour with Eluveitie, Revocation, and Threat Signal. Now, the band is announcing that they have signed a worldwide deal with Nuclear Blast Records.

"We had a good, long, productive run with Spinefarm Records for fifteen years and now it's simply just time for a change," said Children of Bodom front man / guitarist Alexi Laiho. "I'm absolutely stoked to start the new chapter of COB's career with Nuclear Blast and look forward to working with them."

For those of you who just want a new Children of Bodom album, you're in luck. The Finnish metal band is planning on releasing new material in 2013. If I were a betting man, I'd say you can expect the band on one of the popular North American summer fests too.

"Personally, I am so excited to work with Nuclear Blast again," adds COB bassist Henkka T. Blacksmith. "We have such good memories from the beginning of our career with them. We know the people already and we know how committed they are in doing metal!"

As you just read, this isn't the first time that Children of Bodom has been under theNuclear Blast banner. The German-based metal label helped put out the first three COB releases. The band then went to Spinefarm Records where they spent the last 15 years. If you thought the band was successful now, wait until you see what happens after Nuclear Blast markets the shit out of them. Who else is ready for more Bodom?

New As I Lay Dying

As I Lay Dying have spent the last few months in the studio and finally we are getting a taste of what the band is working on. They just premiered a new track, "Cauterize" and guess what? They've gone and completely changed their sound. They're progressive djent now. Of course, I'm lying. They have their signature sound and with this track, they expand on it. You can hear the new track right here, and download it for free (in exchange for your emailaddress). Their new album, Awakened comes out sometime in the fall.

Grave Digger Announces Track Listing

German power metallers GRAVE DIGGER will release their new album, "Clash Of The Gods", on August 31 in Europe and September 4 in North America viaNapalm Records. A six-song mini-CD, "Home At Last", will precede the full-length effort on July 27 in Europe and August 7 in North America.

GRAVE DIGGER's new CD was recorded at Principal Studios in Münster, Germany. The band laid down at least 10 new original compositions as well as "a cover version of a male, 'not-heavy-metal' artist," which the group said "won't be another German 'Schlager' song... it will be 150 percent pureGRAVE DIGGER metal. Again we transferred the spirit of the '80s into the sound of 2012."

"Clash Of The Gods" track listing:

01. Charon
02. God Of Terror
03. Hell Dog
04. Medusa
05. Clash Of The Gods
06. Death Angel & The Grave Digger
07. Walls Of Sorrow
08. Call Of The Sirens
09. Warriors Revenge
10. With The Wind
11. Home At Last

Bonus tracks on digibook version:

12. Saints Of The Broken Souls
13. Zurück Nach Haus ("Home At Last" German version)

"Home At Last" track listing:

01. Home At Last
02. Rage Of The Savage Beast (non-album track)
03. Metal Will Never Die (non-album track)
04. Ballad Of A Hangman (live in Wacken 2010)
05. Excalibur (live in Wacken 2010)
06. Heavy Metal Breakdown (live in Wacken 2010)

GRAVE DIGGER last fall extended its contract with Napalm Records. The band said in a statement, "Napalm is a small and hard-working team that is as effective and productive as a company of 70 people. Always reachable and competent, they work with their artists individually. These are the strengths of Napalm, and that is why we have signed a deal for three more records under the Napalm banner."

"The Clans Are Still Marching", the latest DVD from GRAVE DIGGER, entered the German Media Control chart at position No. 56 (German chart rules allow music DVDs to enter album charts).

GRAVE DIGGER's latest album, "The Clans Will Rise Again", was released in Europe on October 1, 2010 via Napalm Records. The CD was recorded between mid-May 2010 and mid-July 2010 at the Meadow Studios, which is owned by GRAVE DIGGER's new guitarist Axel Ritt, and Principal Studios, where all of GRAVE DIGGER albums since 1995's "Heart Of Darkness" have been tracked. It was produced by Chris Boltendahl and mixed by Jörg Umbreit.

Metallica Talks The Black Album

Chris Steffen of The Village Voice recently conducted an interview withMETALLICA guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield and guitarist Kirk Hammettabout the band's breakthrough album from 21 years ago, 1991's self-titled fifth LP, commonly known as "the black album." A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

The Village Voice: "Nothing Else Matters" was a major departure for the band. It pissed off some fans expecting thrash metal, but it's still played at almost every show.

James Hetfield: It's absolutely crazy, that was the song that I thought was least METALLICA, least likely to ever played by us, the last song anyone would really want to hear. It was a song for myself in my room on tour when I was bumming out about being away from home. It's quite amazing, it's a true testament to honesty and exposing yourself, putting your real self out there, and taking the risk, taking a gamble that someone's either going to step on your heart with spikes on or they're going to put their heart right next to it, and you never know until you try. That solidified, I think, that we were doing the right thing, writing form the heart about what we felt, and you can't go wrong that way. It has become an unbelievable song live, and from the New York Hells Angels putting it in their movie to sports people to people getting married to it, all kinds of stuff, people relate to it. I'm grateful that the guys forced me to take it out of my tape player and make it Metallica.

The Village Voice: What do you find so compelling about the themes in"The Unforgiven" that you decided to revisit the song for two sequels?

James Hetfield: Maybe it's not done, maybe I didn't feel forgiven or wasn't able to forgive. It's one of those songs to me that is pretty personal, obviously revolving around forgiveness of the world and self and whatever else you have some resentment against, working through that. The melody itself never went away in my head, it's potent for me, and lyrically, stuff kept coming along with it, and probably the fact that you're not supposed to do a trilogy or something, or keep writing the same thing onto the next album. I think after "The Unforgiven III", we're kind of done with it. I think I'm able to forgive, forgive myself and move on.

The Village Voice: Do you ever look at a setlist before a show, see "Enter Sandman", and say, "Seriously, guys, not tonight."

Kirk Hammett: There's a certain amount of songs we know we have to play, because the audience expects us to play them, and songs we throw in because we feel like playing or get requests. The great thing about our music is most of it is really, really fun to play, and very dynamic, dynamic enough so that if we wanted to change part of a song or add a part, take out a part, it can pretty much survive that. When songs start to become a little tedious, what we'll do is just change them, take parts out, add parts, or make it more dynamic, and that's our way around getting around the whole boredom factor, which I think is a good approach, an honorable approach. There were times when the mention of "Seek And Destroy"would make me gag, but we started playing it in a heavier key, and now it sounds like a brand new song to me. We made the change six or seven years ago, and I love it all over again. 

Read the entire interview from The Village Voice.