A demo version of "Where We Come From", a brand new song from New Brunswick, New Jersey's melodic, thrash-metal warriors GOD FORBID, is available for free download as part of a new Victory Records Labor Day digital sampler.

To download the 16-track sampler, go to this location. (Note: You must "like" the page in order to access the free music.)

GOD FORBID recently inked a merchandising, publishing and recording deal with Victory Records. The band's new album is tentatively due in early 2012.

Commented GOD FORBID drummer Corey Pierce: "We are so excited to be a part of the Victory family. We are very proud to bring our music too all the maniacs out there who are fans of the band as well as this label. We look forward to starting a powerful partnership which will bring a new energy to the metal world."

GOD FORBID guitarist Doc Coyle previously stated about the material for the band's forthcoming CD, "It's always difficult to tell how a new album will sound this early in the process, but I can say that our new guitar player Matt Wicklund [ex-HIMSA] is contributing tons of material. His stuff is very hook-oriented with a Scandinavian twinge.

"The stuff I've been writing has been varied from evil MORBID ANGEL, black metal shit to mid-tempo/power groove MACHINE HEAD-type stuff, and signature GOD FORBID material that is a logical progression from our previous albums."

GOD FORBID's last album, "Earthsblood", sold around 5,400 copies in the United States in its first week of release, according to Nielsen SoundScan, to land at position No. 110 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD debuted at No. 2 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200.

GOD FORBID's previous album, "IV: Constitution of Treason", entered The Billboard 200 chart at No. 119 in September 2005 after shifting 8,300 units.

Iconic rock group MÖTLEY CRÜE wrapped one of summer's biggest rock tours as headliners and honorees for the Sunset Strip Music Festival (SSMF) live on Sunset Boulevard this past Saturday night (August 20). The show, a combination of classic hit songs, massive pyro and fireworks displays, state-of-the-art sound and visual effects — including "The 360" drum coaster, with electronic music sensation deadmau5 joining Tommy Lee for a ride — rocked over 15,000 fans. It marked the largest crowd ever for the SSMF.

Hot off the heels of a spectacular summer tour, MÖTLEY CRÜE is giving back to their fans with a newly shot live video to "Kickstart My Heart", one of the band's biggest hits. The video, shot by videographer Bobby Hewitt, chronicles life on the road for the iconic rockers, and proves that after 30 years, the group's music and lyrics have withstood the test of time. MÖTLEY CRÜE remain one of the most explosive and innovative live bands in existence.

MÖTLEY CRÜE issued the following statement to fans: "We documented the whole tour, top to bottom (the good, the bad and the ugly) and as we were looking through all the amazing footage, we thought how cool it would be to cut together a "best of visual" for the fans who made this tour happen. This one is just for the fans, from us."

Check out the clip below.

MÖTLEY CRÜE's summer trek has landed the group on the Billboard "Hot Tours" chart six times so far since the tour launch, marking it as one of the legendary rock group's most successful tours to date. The 48-city trek tour — which launched on June 24 and wrapped this past weekend — was one of the summer's highest grossing, packing amphitheaters and arenas all summer long, drawing half a million fans.

Relentless Energy Drink has just released the fifth entry in the 2011 Short Stories film competition, which focuses on crowd surfing and the connection between bands and fans through the mosh pit.

Directed by Dave Depares, "The Pit: A Film About Crowd Surfing" introduces us to the fans who risk ejection from the venue, the musicians who live it every night (including Liam Carmier of CANCER BATS and Lee Spielman of TRASH TALK) and the bouncers who try to keep everyone safe. The film contrasts the focused energy of the band with the seeming chaos of the pit.

Depares draws on his dual experiences of directing music videos, and reviewing hundreds of gigs as a music journalist, to get under the skin of the fans and show how they see the art of crowd surfing.

"I've always been fascinated by crowd politics, the way different crowds respond to different bands, the changing energy levels, the positioning of various crowd members within the venue and their roles within the crowd," he says. "There are the planks, the head-nodders, the dancers, the pogoers, the moshers, and the crowd surfers."

"The Pit: A Film About Crowd Surfing" studies the rituals of crowd-surfing, moshing, pogoing and their related activities, attempting to unfold the psychology of those who partake in these manic, raucous celebrations of energy and emotion. It's a study of the politics and anthropology therein, and of the detached hedonism that its proponents gorge themselves on. The film delves deeper into the psychology of the pit, and aims to illustrate that there’s more to it than meets the eye. Depares finds a strange sort of beauty within the chaos, and exposes a world that was previously only known to those foolhardy enough to experience it at first-hand.

You can watch "The Pit

Nebraska knows there is a part of you that wants to rock and roll all night, and maybe even party every day. That part may be way down, deep inside of you, but it's just aching to come out and play.

Nurture your inner-rock star by playing the Nebraska Lottery's $5 KISS Scratch Game. Each time you scratch, you have a chance at winning the top prize of $50,000. And if you don't scratch a winner, you'll be given an encore chance at fame and fortune. Just enter the KISS Second-Chance Giveaway.

Nebraska Lottery MVP Club Members may enter two non-winning $5 KISS Scratch tickets for a chance to win one of two Grand Prize trips to Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy Camp in Los Angeles, California, and other prizes.

Tickets may be entered online from August 26, 2011, to October 31, 2011.

* Grand Prize: Paid enrollment for one individual to attend Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy Camp in Los Angeles, California, November 10-13, 2011, featuring Paul Stanley of KISS. Package includes camp registration, flight, hotel and $1,000 spending cash. Prize also includes a compact disc copy of "Destroyer" by KISS;
* Second Prize: $1,000 cash and a compact disc copy of "Destroyer" by KISS; and
* Third Prize: $500 cash and a compact disc copy of "Destroyer" by KISS

Gary Graff of Billboard.com conducted an interview with singer Rob Halford of British heavy metal legends JUDAS PRIEST. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On the band's next album:

Halford: [Guitarist Glenn Tipton and I] began writing new music early on this year, before we went out on the road. We have about 12 or 14 tracks completely mapped out, four of which have been recorded and mixed and are ready to go... so the good news is that there will be a brand new PRIEST record next year."

"I think it's fair to say that this is going to be just another great, traditional British heavy metal album from PRIEST with what you love about the band -- the riffs, the screaming vocals, all of the tradition and heritage that we try to keep somehow in our music as we've moved along."

On JUDAS PRIEST's ongoing "Epitaph" farewell world tour:

Halford: [We are] taking every opportunity to let our fans know this is not the end of JUDAS PRIEST. We're just cutting back on these big, long treks around the world that we love to do. But yet we're facing mortality; as a metal singer I'm still able to do the vast majority of things that have laid out before me...but I'd be the first to admit that I'm finding it more challenging now, and I don't want to get into that syndrome where you end up a little bit punch-drunk and you're not giving the performance that you want to give. I'm delighted that we're taking this approach because the inevitable payoff is that it gives the band more life. We're able to continue doing selective shows in the future and, as importantly, keep recording and making new metal records."

On possibly playing a live show based on PRIEST's 2008 concept album "Nostradamus":

Halford: "That is a very important record for us. We had a big-picture aspect of what we wanted to do with 'Nostradamus' in mind — of course, to play it in its entirety, which is completely feasible — and because we are cutting back on these intense tours we can focus more on that."

On how guitarist Kenneth "K.K." Downing's departure is comparable to his own time away from the band between 1992 and 2003:

"PRIEST has always been there. PRIEST has never been away. The attitude is that the band is bigger than you. The music and the heritage and the tradition of the band is bigger than one member of the group. That's really important to think about, you know?"

On Downing's replacement, Richie Faulkner:

Halford: "[He is] a phenomenal talent [and] a tremendous boost and a relief as well. There are a lot of different feelings we went through, But Richie is out there night after night, tearing up the stage and delivering the goods, as we like to say."

Video footage of Canadian musician/producer Devin Townsend rehearsing for his upcoming special shows in U.K. can be seen below. The song featured in the video is "Radial Highway", which was previously released as a "Ghost" B-side and will apparently appear on Townsend's upcoming "Ghost 2" release.

Commented Devin: "Here's a late-night jam with the band that plays 'Ghost', the fourth record of the DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT. In November, I am playing all four records back to back, and this rehearsal is the first one finished... 'Deconstruction' next. The four shows will be in London for DVDs. I'm using different people right now — some from the records, some not... It's a hell of a lot of work, but it's off to a great start! Kat Epple on flute, Mike St-Jean on drums, Jean Savoie on bass, and Dave Young on keys. Chrys Johnson plays second guitar, but he had to move. He'll be in London. The song is 'Radial Highway' from the upcoming 'Ghost 2', by the way."

Townsend released "Deconstruction" and "Ghost" — the third and fourth in a series of albums to be made available under DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT moniker — on June 21 (one day earlier internationally) via InsideOut Music.

METALLICA played a corporate gig last night (Wednesday, August 31) in San Francisco at a party hosted by Salesforce.com, a cloud computing company that provides cloud-based applications and solutions for businesses to enhance their sales and customer service capabilities. The company hosted its annual convention called Dreamforce in San Francisco, and METALLICA got involved through guitarist Kirk Hammett's friendship with Salesforce.com chief executive officer Marc Benioff, who is his neighbor.

The band's setlist was as follows:

01. Creeping Death
02. For Whom the Bell Tolls
03. Fuel
04. The Memory Remains
05. Fade to Black
06. Cyanide
07. Sad But True
08. One
09. Master of Puppets
10. Blackened
11. Nothing Else Matters
12. Enter Sandman

Encore:

13. Last Caress
14. Seek & Destroy

INMORIA — the Swedish project featuring Christer Andersson (TAD MOROSE) on guitar, Danne Eriksson (ex-TAD MOROSE) on keyboards, Tommi Karppanen (MORGANA LEFAY, TAD MOROSE), and Peter Moren (TAD MOROSE, STEEL ATTACK) on drums — will release its sophomore album, "A Farewell To Nothing - The Diary Part 1", on October 7 via Rock It Up Records.

Audio samples of all the tracks that are set to appear on "A Farewell To Nothing - The Diary Part 1" can be heard using the ReverbNation widget below. The CD was recorded at Studio Soundcreation in Bollnäs, Sweden.

"A Farewell To Nothing - The Diary Part 1" track listing:

01. Blinded
02. The Mirror
03. Watch Me Bleed
04. End Of The Line
05. Hear My Prayers
06. In My Dreams
07. The Silence Within Me
08. Save Me
09. I Watch My Shadow Fall
10. Just Another Lie
11. My Last Farewell
12. Why

Singer Charles Rytkönen (MORGAN

"Everything's Burning", the new video from veteran Italian progressive metallers ELDRITCH, can be seen below. The song comes off the band's eighth studio album, "Gaia's Legacy", which will be released on September 25 via Scarlet Records. A concept effort dealing with global warming based on Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth", the CD sees ELDRITCH going back to its technical progressive roots, with lots of influences raging from thrash to AOR and a modern approach still in the band's distinctive style. Frontman Terence Holler wrote all the lyrics after a deep search of information on every kind of source for the last three years.

Italian symphonic metal masters RHAPSODY OF FIRE have revealed the name of the new musician who will join forces with Fabio Lione, Alex Staropoli, Tom Hess and Alex Holzwarth in the band new and revamped lineup. German bass player Oliver Holzwarth (brother of RHAPSODY OF FIRE drummer Alex Holzwarth) has been recruited as an official and permanent member of RHAPSODY OF FIRE, and will be involved in both live performances and studio recordings.

Oliver is an excellent bass player who has toured with BLIND GUARDIAN, Tarja Turunen and SIEGES EVEN and has recorded several studio albums with BLIND GUARDIAN.

Commented Staropoli: "It's a true privilege and honor to have the two Holzwarth brothers playing together in RHAPSODY OF FIRE. I am sure it will be fantastic to have the best rhythmic section on this planet, a unique and true force of nature, on our side. I am really looking forward to hearing them shaking the stages around the world on our upcoming world tour."

Staropoli and RHAPSODY OF FIRE guitarist Luca Turilli recently announced their decision to go their separate ways.

KYUSS LIVES!, the project featuring three-quarters of KYUSS — the influential American stoner rock/metal band, originally from Palm Desert, California — was the featured musical guests on last night's (Wednesday, August 31) edition of Fuel TV's "The Daily Habit" program. The band — bassist Nick Oliveri, drummer Brant Bjork and singer John Garcia along with guitarist Bruno Fevery, who most recently played with Garcia in the GARCIA PLAYS KYUSS project — performed the classic KYUSS songs "Hurricane" (the lead track from 1995's "...And the Circus Leaves Town") and "100°" (from 1994's "Welcome to Sky Valley").

Austrian symphonic metallers VISIONS OF ATLANTIS will release a new EP called "Maria Magdelena" on October 21.

The track listing for the effort is as follows:

01. Maria Magdalena
02. Melancholia
03. Change Of Tides
04. Last Shut Of Your Eyes
05. Distant Shores
06. Beyond Horizon- The Poem Pt. II

Check out the cover artwork below.

Due to scheduling conflicts, SINGLE BULLET THEORY touring drummer Adam Sagan (ex-INTO ETERNITY) will not be able to take part in the September 17 video shoot for the band's new song "Diabolical". Filling in during the shoot will be Chris Hamilton (BLOODSIMPLE, DOWNSET, MEDICATION).

The "Diabolical" clip will be a complete concept video with production duties coming from Jay Bones and Ray Johnson.

Commented SINGLE BULLET THEORY guitarist/vocalist Matt DiFabio: "Chris and I have been good friends since 1992. We have talked numerous times about working together in some capacity. I am thrilled that Chris will be in the video with us and I hope that he and I can record together at some point."