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").

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."

Vocalist Apollo Papathanasio of Greek melodic metallers FIREWIND has been forced to miss the band's imminent European tour due to family issues. Apollo will be back with FIREWIND for the group's North American "Frets Of Fury" tour in October. Apollo's replacement for the European "Defiance Over Europe" shows is the acclaimed Swedish vocalist Mats Levén (KRUX, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, THERION, TREAT, ADAGIO, AT VANCE).

U.K.-based crust punk death metal band THE ROTTED will release its new album, "Ad Nauseam", on October 31 via Candlelight Records. The CD was recorded earlier in the year at Parlour Studio with Russ Russell (NAPALM DEATH, DIMMU BORGIR, EVILE) once again at the helm.

The dark and dirty artwork for "Ad Nauseam", as drawn by the bass-playing Minister Of The Sinister The Reverend M. Trudgill can be seen below along with a "track-by-track" YouTube video sampler by vocalist Ben McCrow.

The "Ad Nauseam" artwork is inspired by the lyrics and each part represents a different song.

"Ad Nauseam" track listing:

01. Anarchogram Sun
02. Rex Oblivione
03. Surrounded By Skulls
04. Non Serviam
05. Just Add Nauseam
06. Entering The Arena Of The Unwell
07. The House Of Bedlam
08. Apathy In The UK
09. Motorbastards
10. The Hammer Of Witches
11. Put Me Out Of Your Misery

This year's edition of the Rock In Rio festival — which will take place September 23 - October 2 in "The City Of Rock" in Olympic Park, Barra da Tijuca/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — will be streamed live via YouTube for fans outside of Brazil.

For more information, visit the Rock In Rio YouTube channel.

Among the acts scheduled to perform at this year's Rock In Rio are EVANESCENCE, SYSTEM OF A DOWN, GUNS N' ROSES, ANGRA, COHEED AND CAMBRIA, METALLICA, MOTÖRHEAD, SEPULTURA and SLIPKNOT.

The Rock In Rio festivals are massive events, drawing millions of people and a diverse roster of local and international artists.

TIMES OF GRACE are streaming the video for the uplifting song, 'Live In Love', on their Facebook page. But this isn't your average hard rock video. Rather, Times Of Grace use this medium to shed light on the Rise Above Foundation and that organization's important cause. The Rise Above Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to providing Massachusetts children in foster care with enriching activities, opportunities and experiences. Given the hopeful message encased in the lyrics, the song is a perfect complement to the efforts of the Rise Above Foundation.

The clip shows the band walking through the streets of Massachusetts, singing the song and splicing footage of those in need throughout. The striking, heart wrenching images further demonstrate the point that the band is trying to make about help and hope.

In addition to close up shots of worn faces and hands, which serve to make the plight of those in need incredibly real and tangible, the video also displays statistics about people in foster care, rehab and on the streets. The video opens its arms to the homeless, the elderly and the children who are at risk.

Times Of Grace singer Jesse leach commented on the video, saying, "I am excited for this video to come out. I feel like we did a different approach to the typical performance video. I enjoyed the shoot and the day we spent driving around to different locations. I feel strongly about the message of compassion and love. I hope we are able to help change a child's life through weriseabove.org or at the very least inspire others to reach outside themselves and make a difference. I want nothing more than for our music to have a positive impact in this world. One love to all!"

Director Tim Dennesen also weighed in, saying, "'Live In Love' sends a powerful message. Anthony Jarvis, the director of photography, and I wanted to give raw visuals to this message to help spread awareness. It was a mystical quest, and a lot of fun to work with Times Of Grace."

We Rise Above was equally thrilled about partnering with the band to spread their message and their mission, saying, "We're honored that Times Of Grace identified Rise Above as the Massachusetts charity to spotlight in this video. Working with a band with strong roots in Massachusetts is a great way to advocate for the youth in foster care that we serve. We are proud to be part of such a powerful effort to bring critical social issues to the surface."

Bassist Johan Husgafvel of Swedish industrial metallers PAIN will sit out the band's upcoming European headlining tour for "family" reasons. His temporary replacement will be Andre Skaug (CLAWFINGER), who previously toured with PAIN in 2007.

Commented Johan: "The forthcoming PAIN tour is just about to start and I'm completely sure that all of the shows will be absolute killer!!! Unfortunately, I've decided to sit out this tour due to family reasons. I won't be able to do the European four-week run, but I'm really looking forward to do the first and last leg of the tour, the Swedish and Finish tour dates. So to all of you I don't get to see this year, we'll make it up on the festivals next year!"

To celebrate the release of Marcus Nispel's remake of the classic Arnold Schwarzenegger action adventure "Conan The Barbarian", U.K.'s Metal Hammer magazine caught up with the film's star, Jason Momoa. Perhaps best-known for his role as Khal Drogo in HBO fantasy epic "Game Of Thrones", the Hawaiian-born actor is a heavy metal fan who says that he listened to a lot of PANTERA, METALLICA and MUDVAYNE to get himself into the right frame of mind for playing a warrior like Conan. You can watch Metal Hammer's interview with Momoa below.

"Conan" debuted in the U.S. in late August and had an opening weekend tally of just $10.5 million on approximately 4,500 screens.

The movie reportedly had a production budget of around $90 million (plus marketing and distribution costs), making "Conan" one of the summer's biggest flops.

Reviews for the film slanted toward the negative, with a meager 27 percent freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator. Reviewers generally praised the action and visual spectacle but panned the thin storyline and mindless, video game-style gore.

According to MusicWeek, METALLICA and Lou Reed will be among the guests at BBC's television show "Later... With Jools Holland" when it returns for its 39th series.

The former VELVET UNDERGROUND singer and the heavy metal titans will perform together on "Later..." to promote their new collaborative album "Lulu", set for release by Warner Bros. Records on November 1. The CD was co-produced by Reed, METALLICA, Hal Willner — who has produced albums for Reed, Marianne Faithfull, and Laurie Anderson, among others — and Greg Fidelman. Fidelman also mixed the record.

"Later…" began in October 1992 and is series produced by Alison Howe, executive-produced by Mark Cooper and directed by Janet Fraser Crook. It is now the longest-running music show in British TV history aside from "Top Of The Pops".

The idea for these two giants of modern music to work together was born after the 25th anniversary Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame concerts in New York City in October 2009. METALLICA — singer/guitarist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo — played with Reed on VELVET UNDERGROUND classics "Sweet Jane" and "White Light/White Heat". "We knew from then that we were made for each other," Reed says.

After that triumphant performance, Reed suggested they all make a record together. At first they planned to record an album of Reedfraven's older material, what Ulrich describes as "some of Lou's lost jewels — songs that he felt he'd like to give a second spin, and we could do whatever it is we do to some of those songs." That idea "hung in the air for a couple of months." Then, a week or two before that session was to begin, "Lou called up and said, 'Listen, I have this other idea.'"

That idea was to record a series of songs Reed had written for American avant-garde theater director Robert Wilson and German theater group the Berliner Ensemble's production of the "Lulu Plays", which premiered in April at the Theatre am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, founded by Bertolt Brecht. The songs are inspired by German expressionist Frank Wedekind's early 20th century plays "Earth Spirit" and "Pandora's Box", and were a rewrite of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", which emerged as a graphic novel on Fantagraphics Press.

"We were very interested in working with Lou," says Hetfield. "I had these giant question marks: What's it going to be like? What's going to happen? So it was great when he sent us the lyrics for the 'Lulu' body of work. It was something we could sink our teeth into. I could take off my singer and lyricist hat and concentrate on the music part. These were very potent lyrics, with a soundscape behind them for atmosphere. Lars and I sat there with an acoustic and let this blank canvas take us where it needed to go. It was a great gift, to be asked to stamp 'TALLICA on it. And that's what we did."

"We had to bring 'Lulu' to life in a sophisticated way, using rock," Reed says. "And the hardest power rock you could come up with would have to be METALLICA. They live on that planet. We played together, and I knew it: dream come true. This is the best thing I ever did. And I did it with the best group I could possibly find. By definition, everybody involved was honest. This has come into the world pure. We pushed as far as we possibly could within the realms of reality."

"It's definitely not a METALLICA album, or a Lou Reed album," adds Hammett. "It's something else. It's a new animal, a hybrid."

Songtitles set to appear on the CD:

* Junior Dad
* Little Dog
* Mistress Dread
* Pumping Blood

German "metal queen" Doro Pesch flew from Düsseldorf to New York yesterday morning, just three days after Tropical Storm Irene made landfall just west of her second home on Long Island. When she arrived in Long Beach, a city of 33,000 with many apartment buildings built nearly up to the Atlantic Ocean, instead of her neat house on the beach, Doro only came upon a heap of ruins.

"The damage is disastrous," Doro states mournfully. "The whole ground floor was flooded. It stinks, electricity failed and everything's wrecked inside of the house. From the TV to the fridge to the furniture. Everything's grime-stained, defective, unusable."

Doro continues, "The worst thing is that pieces of my stage costumes and lots of my souvenirs and presents from fans from all around the world are lost forever now."

Despite the damage to her house, Doro's previously announced concerts in celebration of the North American release of the "25 Years In Rock" 2DVD/CD set will go ahead as scheduled.

"The shows will take place, of course," Doro says. "For now, I've found accommodation in a hotel in New York and will have to see where things will go from here."

She adds, "I saw the pictures of Irene on TV when I visited my mother in Germany on the weekend. When a red rubber raft appeared canoeing through a road on Long Island, I already assumed the worst."

Although Doro has kept a busy touring schedule throughout the years, she's called America her home base for the past 20 years. "I got my green card in 1991 and I was so happy," she told Noisecreep in a recent interview. "I stayed in New York City for the next ten years. It just got to be too expensive to live in Manhattan, so I moved to Long Beach, Long Island. It's a nice community here and I'm not that far from the city. I have no complaints."

The photo of Pesch below was taken this past spring when she sat by the pier in front of her house to make use of the idyllic atmosphere to write songs for her new album that will be released in 2012.

A CBS TV report on the damage to Long Beach, New York caused by Tropical Storm Irene can be seen below.

Former SKID ROW singer Sebastian Bach has posted the following message on his Facebook page:

"I am numb, in shock and devastated to report that my home of 21 years, my house featured on MTV 'Cribs', has been destroyed, condemned and deemed uninhabitable due to the extreme flooding courtesy of Hurricane Irene.

"In the two decades I have lived in this home, there has never been a single drop of water in the basement or anywhere else in the structure. Now Irene has overflowed the reservoir adjacent to my house. The surging waters have snapped the bridge in half next to my house and sent the bridge straight into my garage, knocking the house off of its foundation. The basement that has been dry for over two decades is now overflowing with water and I am not even allowed to start pumping the water out due to fears of electrocution.

"Original SKID ROW and KISS fans, I have bad news for you. Gone are irreplacable items, such as my KISS Gargoyles from the 1979 tour. KISS pinball machine. SKID ROW master tapes, video and audio, concerts, master tapes from 'Oh Say Can You Scream', etc. Boxes and boxes of one-of-a-kind SKID ROW memorabilia, from the first tour to our last, all stuff I collected on the road that no one else had. I had a library in the basement with every single magazine that had SKID ROW on the cover. This library took up a big part of the basement. All of this is lost now.

"We will salvage what we can, of course. But how I wish there was a reason to do a box set or something before Hurricane Irene hit. Nobody cared. Now it's too late.

"Don't know what you got till it's gone, indeed.

"The good news is that all my father's artwork, including the 16-foot 'Slave To The Grind' mural, is all OK. My sons and friends moved all my dad's art to the second level of the structure before Irene destroyed our home. My Silver Age comic collection is all on the third level, with the David Bierk archives, which is a completely dry level. But we are not allowed into the house yet to retrieve everything because the foundation has crumbled and the house could conceivably collapse at any second. We are working with the police and fire department to get the electricity turned off so no one gets electrocuted entering the premises. As soon as the power is off, we will pump out the basement and salvage what we can. Everything will be put into storage and then it looks like we will level the house.

"This has really taught me that the best things in life are indeed 'free.' What makes me happy is that my children and ex-wife are safe. My dad's art is unharmed. No one got hurt. My scrapbooks of memories of my life are dry and safe. The only things that are making me smile today is cranking BLACK VEIL BRIDES' 'Set The World On Fire' CD over and over again. Texting Danny from ASKING ALEXANDRIA who may become my new roommate in L.A. Getting texts from my girl Minnie [Gupta] in L.A. making sure I'm OK and trying to cheer me up. My neighbours in New Jersey clamouring around my house, calling me, offering help in any way they can. These things mean more to me than mere posessions.

"I have been holding on to my house since December, when my divorce papers were filed. I just could not let go of the only home I had ever known.

"Well, God has other plans for me it seems. He has made His decision for me.

"My home has been taken away by an 'act of God.' I just think He is giving me a much-needed push, is all.

"New Jersey, thank you all so much for 25 years of rock 'n' roll. It's all over now.

"I will always love New Jersey, but now there is literally nothing left for me here except memories of a past life.

"Hello, Los Angeles. Hello, New Life. Here i am. It's time for a new start.

"Like I have a choice."

After seven records and seven world tours, Swedish sleaze rockers HARDCORE SUPERSTAR are celebrating 10 years with a best-of album. "The Party Ain't Over 'Til We Say So" will be released on October 26 and will contain songs from all the records that the band has released between 2000 and 2010 along with a newly written track, "We Don't Need A Cure".

"We Don't Need A Cure" had its world premiere this past Wednesday on Sweden's Bandit radio and can now be streamed below (radio-rip quality).

Sony/ATV Music Publishing has extended its deal with Jeff Waters for the music publishing/administration rights to at least eight ANNIHLATOR CDs. This extension comes after the successful partnership of Sony/ATV and ANNIHILATOR's 2007 deal for the 2007 ANNIHILATOR release titled "Metal" as well as other strong-selling titles such as "King Of The Kill", "Refresh The Demon", "Schizo Deluxe" and ANNIHILATOR's latest effort, titled simply "Annihilator".

Commented Waters: "Being with Sony/ATV helped to breed new life into ANNIHILATOR back in 2007. With the steady rise of our CD sales, downloads and touring/festival opportunities, we are happy to, once again, align ourselves with Sony/ATV to move into ANNIHILATOR's 14th studio release and 22nd year releasing records… without a break! Thanks to all at Sony/ATV and thanks to all the metal fans that listen to real metal music!"

ANNIHLATOR is currently working on its 14th studio release as well as a "special" recording that Waters describes as "a treat for the faithful ANNIHILATOR fans and a welcoming to our new fans." The band is also in talks with labels about a record deal for Canada and the USA.

ANNIHILATOR's self-titled album was released in Europe on May 17, 2010. The CD was made available in Europe via Earache Records, in Japan through Marquee and in Australia via Riot Entertainment. It was also released in the U.S. and Canada via iTunes and most all other digital/online outlets.

BLIND GUARDIAN, KREATOR, HYPOCRISY and ENSIFERUM have been confirmed for next year's installment of the Metalfest festival.

Metalfest 2011 was a huge success, having taken place over two weekends in five countries. Bands such as SABATON, CRADLE OF FILTH, AMON AMARTH, ARCH ENEMY and AMORPHIS rocked the Metalfest stages this year, with almost 100,000 fans in attendance.

Metalfest 2012 will be expanding to nine events in eight countries. In addition to the five locations from this year, there will be Metalfests in Italy, Poland and Croatia, with a second Metalfest in Germany set to take place in Loreley.

Metalfest 2012 dates:

May 31 - June 2, 2012 - Mining, Metalfest Austria
May 31 - June 2, 2012 - Dessau, Metalfest Germany/East
June 1 - June 3, 2012 - Jaworzno, Metalfest Poland
June 3 - June 5, 2012 - Zadar, Metalfest Croatia
June 5 - June 7, 2012 - Milan, Metalfest Italy
June 7 - June 9, 2012 - Loreley, Metalfest Germany/West
June 7 - June 10, 2012 - Pratteln, Metalfest Switzerland
June 9 - June 10, 2012 - Plzen, Metalfest Czech Republic

Note: BLIND GUARDIAN will not play Metalfest in Dessau.

GOD SEED — the Norwegian band featuring former GORGOROTH members King (bass; real name: Tom Cato Visnes) and Gaahl (vocals; real name: Kristian Espedal) — will release a concert DVD, "Live At Wacken", in Europe on October 21 and in North America on October 25 via Indie Recordings. The set will include footage of the group's infamous live show from the 2008 edition of the Wacken Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany where they performed on the main stage in front of 75,000 screaming fans.

The Wacken performance was a reconstruction of GORGOROTH's controversial "Black Mass" show from Krakow in 2004 filmed in a TV studio in Kraków, Poland. The concert featured sheep heads on stakes, "crucified" nude models, satanic symbols, and eighty liters of sheep's blood. The band came under fire for violating Polish anti-blasphemy laws as well as Polish animal-rights laws, resulting in a police investigation with allegations of religious offence and cruelty to animals. The band went free of all charges and at Wacken 2008 they recreated this now-legendary show in all its glory.

This spectacular show is made available as a live CD, including the film of the entire show on DVD. The album is only available in a deluxe digipack edition and holds liner notes from the band about the process of recreating this special show.

"Live At Wacken" features session players Nick Barker (drums) and Ice Dale (guitar) alongside King and Gaahl.

GOD SEED came to life after Gaahl and King lost a court battle in early 2009 against guitarist Infernus (real name: Roger Tiegs) over the rights to the GORGOROTH band name.

Commented King: "GOD SEED represents a more spiritual side to us than what GORGOROTH did. GOD SEED represents the will to grow; the will to be the super man, so to speak. I think it's a suitable name for what we will represent in the future. I am also aware of the fact that we use the word 'God' in the name. It will challenge the weak minded in the respect that we in the past used the word Satan a lot, but it's all about the same thing. The God within man, and the God within nature. I never believed in a Christian force named Satan. I believe in the God within man."

SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor says that it's "still too soon" for the band to be thinking about recording a new studio album following the death in May 2010 of the group's bassist, Paul Gray.

SLIPKNOT completed a European festival run earlier this summer, which marked the band's first live gigs since Gray's passing.

Taylor has been ambivalent about doing a new studio album, although percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan and drummer Joey Jordison have been much more confident about the band recording again.

Taylor tells U.K.'s Kerrang! magazine for this week's cover story, "It's still too soon. At least that's how I feel. I'm not ready to make a SLIPKNOT album. I think there will be a day when we do. But for me, doing it now wouldn't make sense.

"You can't do a three-week tour then jump into the studio, especially after something like this. It makes more sense to do a few more tours and reconnect as a band first.

"If we jumped right in, it wouldn't be about the absence. It would be about the rest of us. We were the nine, but there's a piece missing. We should allow people to pay their respects before we come out with new music. We should do this right."

Jordison told The Pulse Of Radio not long ago that he thinks the band's next album could be its most intense. "We're a family, and losing a family member sucks," he said. "But you can't help that, but you need to move on and I think that what we're gonna do might be the most powerful thing that we've ever created."

SLIPKNOT's last record, "All Hope Is Gone", was released in 2008.

Taylor and Crahan confirmed last week that SLIPKNOT will tour the U.S. sometime next spring.

Guitarist/vocalist Ola Lindgren of Swedish death metal veterans GRAVE has tapped TRIPTYKON's Norman Lonhard to play drums on the upcoming recording from Lindgren's solo project called GREY HEAVENS. Ola says, "I'm super-stoked and I'm sure it will be amazing!"

Lindgren in 2009 stated about GREY HEAVENS, "For many years I have had plans to do a project to explore different sides of extreme music with ideas that simply would not fit in my main band.

"This is a more dark and experimental side of my musicality and shows a different approach to metal than just the straightforward death metal that has been my main inspiration and which has resulted in the eight GRAVE albums in the past 21 years."

Three demo songs from GREY HEAVENS — "Primitvs", "Abandoned Quest" and "Grey Heavens" — can be streamed below. Ola said about the two-year-old recording, "The drums for this promo are programmed, everything else is played/screamed and recorded/mixed by me."

THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN frontman Greg Puciato and Max Cavalera (SOULFLY, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, SEPULTURA) recently took part in another songwriting session for their collaborative album in Cavalera's home base in Phoenix, Arizona.

Puciato, who returned home with a demo CD of four tracks, wrote on his Facebook page over the weekend, "[We were] demoing heavy music the best way possible…at blistering volumes, no headphones, guitars and mics everywhere, all plugged in at all times, sweating and uncomfortable like we're fifteen in a garage again. Maybe haven't heard Max sound this pissed since [SEPULTURA's] 'Chaos A.D.'"

In a recent interview with Sweden's Metalshrine, Max stated about his collaboration with Puciato, "Greg loves NAILBOMB and he's trying to get me to do a NAILBOMB kind of project. He's saying we can do something very similar to NAILBOMB where the both of us sing, like me and Alex [Newport of FUDGE TUNNEL did in NAILBOMB] and what we had and it will be what me and Greg have. We're gonna share the vocals and I think the drummer from MARS VOLTA might be the drummer and the bass player from CONVERGE might be playing bass and we're looking for a guitar player right now. But it's gonna be like a project, not a band like CAVALERA CONSPIRACY or SOULFLY. It's gonna be just a one-off album, something heavy to put out there. Something that me and Greg like to do. I had a great experience with him working on 'Rise Of The Fallen' [song from the latest SOULFLY album] and we became good friends and he started calling me about this 'NAILBOMB part 2' idea and I couldn't say no. I just thought it would be great and I'm really looking forward to it. I'd like to do as much music as possible, so he came with a new project for me."

Puciato joined SOULFLY on stage at the 14th annual "D-Low Memorial" on August 28, 2010 at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe, Arizona to perform the song "Rise Of The Fallen". Fan-filmed video footage of his appearance can be viewed below.

3 haben die Arbeiten an ihrem neuen Album The Ghost You Gave to Me fertiggestellt! Der Longplayer wurde in den Applehead Studios (Coheed and Cambria, Morningwood, Straylight Run) in Woodstock, NY, aufgenommen. Dieses sechste Album der Band seit 1999 ist ein riesiger Schritt nach vorne für die Jungs, selbst wenn alle Trademarks der Band nach wie vor intakt sind – viele musikalische Höhepunkte und Täler, leuchtende und erhabene Refrains stehen direkt neben düsteren und kräftigen Passagen, die von Gartdrumms aggressivem Schlagzeugspiel vorangetrieben werden. Darüber thront das akustische wie elektrisch perfekte Gitarrenduo Joey Eppard und Billy Riker. The Ghost You Gave to Me zeigt 3 von ihrer inspiriertesten Seite!

Surft mal rüber zu http://www.metalblade.com/3 und checkt die erste Single "Numbers" an und werft auch einen Blick auf die Vorbestellmöglichkeiten!

Nach Veröffentlichung von Revisions und diversen Tourneen mit Porcupine Tree sowie Dream Theater, Opeth und Between the Buried and Me im Rahmen der Progressive Nation Tour, kehrten 3 mit sprudelnder Inspiration nach Hause zurück. Joey Eppard, Billy Riker, Daniel Grimsland und The Gartdrumm begannen unverzüglich mit Demoaufnahmen ihrer Ideen, die schließlich zu The Ghost You Gave to Me führten. Es dauerte gar nicht lange, bis die Songs ein Eigenleben entwickelten. 3 veränderten sich dabei raus aus dem klassischen Schema eines Rocksongs und hin zu einm cineastischen Format. Joey Eppard meint dazu: "The songs told us where to go and the instrumentation followed. We knew this record would be our most progressive but it would be on our terms, and in our own way. As always songwriting and melody are the driving forces behind the sounds capes we generate. I think the biggest challenge was to rise to the occasion lyrically with so many musical scene changes. What I found was that I had to let go and allow the words and melody to be as creative and original as the music, if not more so. In a progressive situation this can be time consuming and indeed the bulk of my efforts were focused on exceeding my own lyrical standards. For example, "Only Child," an eight minute epic that traverses a myriad of musical scenes has enough great lyrics for half a record."

Das Frontcover wurde vom hochtalentierten Colin Marks (http://www.rain-song.co.uk/) anfertigt.

The Ghost You Gave to Me Tracklist:

1. Sirenum Scopuli
2. React
3. Sparrow
4. High Times
5. Numbers
6. One With the Sun
7. The Ghost You Gave to Me
8. Pretty
9. Afterglow
10. It's Alive
11. Only Child
12. The Barrier

Roadrunner Records has announced a new worldwide partnership with Anthem Records and rock trio RUSH. The band will remain on Anthem/Universal Music in Canada only.

"We have tremendous respect for Roadrunner Records and what Cees Wessels and Jonas Nachsin have built on a worldwide level. After years of Roadrunner pursuing the band, Tom Lipsky presented a deal that worked and the timing was right. We wanted to be at a label focused on the rock genre — and that's Roadrunner," said Ray Danniels, manager of RUSH.

"In another life I worked with RUSH and their great management team more than 30 years ago and to have RUSH finally on the Roadrunner label is a dream come true. I am grateful for Ray Danniels' confidence in this new partnership," said Cees Wessels, Roadrunner Records Chairman.

"RUSH has a tradition of excellence and independence, both in the studio and on the live stage, and they remain as prolific today as at any point in their career. We are excited to be their label partners," said Tom Lipsky, President of Lipsky Music, LLC, who brokered the significant deal for Roadrunner.

The first release from RUSH through this deal will be various live configurations recorded during their highly successful Time Machine tour that wrapped earlier this summer. Details of the release will be revealed in the coming weeks.

RUSH bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee recently spoke to The Plain Dealer about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's upcoming 20th studio album, "Clockwork Angels", for which a release date has not yet been set.

"We've got about seven songs written," Lee said. He added, "When you hear the first two songs ['BU2B' and 'Caravan'], which we're playing live now, they definitely have a heavier sound. It's the heavier side of RUSH in the early going. But when I think of all the songs that we've written already, there's quite a lot of diversity there. I think — I hope — RUSH fans will like it. We're certainly going to work hard to make it a great record, as we always try."

Julie Westlake, vocalist for Kentucky-based rockers HYDROGYN, has released a video update on the status of the band's new album. You can watch it below.

HYDROGYN is recording its new CD in France with Patrick Liotard (guitarist and producer of the metal band POLARBITCH) for an early 2012 release.

HYDROGYN had a great outing with the "Judgement" release in October 2010 but due to Westlake's health, the band only played one show to support it. After careful consideration, it was decided to scrap the support of the release due to Julie's illness and the length of time the project had been out.

For this release, things will change up a bit as far as production. For the past two albums, guitarist Jeff Westlake has handled the production, engineering, mixing, etc., to go along with the writing and song prep. Jeff said he wanted a chance to just worry about the songs on this release with limited production going on from his end. Enter the team of Anthony Dura and Patrick Liotard (who co-wrote the song "Alone" on "Judgement"). Anthony and Patrick are stepping in and teaming up with Julie and Jeff for this project, not only from a production standpoint but also in the creation of the project itself.

"I love these guys and what they bring to the table," said Julie. "To be able to turn to them and have a new team in the mix for the entire process with fresh ideas and a great perspective as well is just priceless. We were all introduced by our French team at Musiconlights (Mike Jublin) back in 2007 and as time has gone on, we have gotten to know each other. The working part of the relationship is just a natural progression for us all and takes some pressure off Jeff for a change."

In addition, John C. Lawrence, who brought in the song "Too Late" for "Judgement", is also being enlisted again for some co-writing. "I love some of the stuff he has to offer and also he and Jeff have been friends for a very long time so it just seems natural to have him involved," said Julie.