Open Hand have launched an ecard for the release of their new album You And Me, out Feb 7. You can hear 2 songs in full, and samples of more, as well as other cool stuff, by clicking HERE.

Calling all ghouls and boils! Wednesday 13 (vocals, Murderdolls) is returning to sink his fangs into the rock world’s throat once again with the ‘April Ghouls’ tour í¢ä‰åäóì the London date naturally falling on Wednesday 13! Catch the creepy quartet (Wednesday 13, Pig, Kid Kid, and Ghastly) from dusk til dawn at the following locations: APRIL Mon 11 í¢ä‰åäóì MANCHESTER Academy 3 Tue 12 í¢ä‰åäóì BRIGHTON Concorde 2 Wed 13 í¢ä‰åäóì LONDON Islington Academy Thu 14 í¢ä‰åäóì BIRMINGHAM Academy Fri 15 í¢ä‰åäóì GLASGOW Cathouse Sat 16 í¢ä‰åäóì NOTTINGHAM Rock City Tickets are on sale now from all usual box offices and online agents, priced 퉌£9 regionally, 퉌£11 London. All shows are for ages 14+. With Murderdolls compatriot Joey Jordison on the road with Slipknot, the Murderdolls are temporarily on hiatus! What’s a ghoul to do, besides stroke the disc for the recently certified Silver debut Murderdolls album? Why write more songs of course! And so to coincide with the tour, Roadrunner Records will be releasing Wednesday 13’s spooktacular debut solo album on April 11. True to form, Wednesday has stitched together a morgue-full of influences í¢ä‰åäóì horror films, cartoons, punk and heavy metal í¢ä‰åäóì into a monster-mosh of an album, ‘Transylvania 90210: Songs of Death, Dying and the Dead’. Fans of White Zombie, Rob Zombie, AFI, Alkaline Trio, & The Murderdolls, as well as metal, punk, and horror in general will find the record at once refreshing and outrageous. With his sallow complexion and raven dreadlocks, Wednesday may look like a grim goth at first glance, but the singer/guitarist is more a throwback to the days of Alice Cooper and Twisted Sister, when rock music had no more pretentious aspirations than being over-the-top, escapist fun. With song titles like ‘I Walked With A Zombie’, ‘Elect Death For President’, and ‘I Want Youí¢ä‰åŒ_ Dead’, Wednesday 13 is set to take over the world, one brain at a timeí¢ä‰åŒ_ Wednesday 13 debut album ‘Transylvania 90210: Songs Of Death, Dying, And The Dead’ in stores April 11.

Very few tickets left for the Twelve Tribes & Killswitch Engage tour! Wolverhampton – SOLD OUT Glasgow – SOLD OUT Northumbria – Rumour has it, there might be FOURTEEN tickets left for this… fight amongst yourselves… going, going… gone! Manchester – SOLD OUT London – SOLD OUT

With albums such as Alive Or Just Breathing and The End Of Heartache, Massachusetts quintet Killswitch Engage have placed themselves at the forefront of a mini musical movement that the press have dubbed the “New Wave Of American Heavy Metal”. Meanwhile, guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz’s production work for extreme hardcore acts like Norma Jean has also ensured that Killswitch Engage’s name is never far from the heavy music headlines. As the band embark on another UK tour, which coincides with the re-release of their eponymous debut album, musicOMH.com caught up with bassist and founder member Mike D’Antonio to discuss old skool metal and life on the road. Read it HERE.

The first review of the new Trivium is in… and it’s a whopping 9 out of 10! The below review is from Planet Loud… “Having been around for over four years and having shared stages with metal heavyweights like Danzig, Iced Earth and Machine Head, you’d except the Roadrunner debut from Florida metallers to be something of a cracker. And, fuck me, it is just that. Blasting you with both barrels, it would seem that this New Wave Of American Heavy Metal scene has found itself a new star. With solos that come from listening to the early Metallica albums waaay too many times, Ascendancy sets its stall out early on with the relentless Rain. Pounding kick drums and a groove the size of a mountain, you can sum everything that is great about this album up in the first five minutes. However, that’s not to say that the thrashers shoot their wad that early on. Far from it. Instead, they maintain the fury for the duration of the album – through the grinding battery of Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr and onwards until the ferocious Declaration brings this metal masterpiece to a close. Sure you can pick up the influences of bands like Killswitch Engage, Fear Factory and Unearth albums but there is something about Trivium that makes the experience of listening to their rage, all that more satisfying. Vocalist Matt Heafy, at the wise old age of 18, gives most metal vocalists a run for their money with some of the most corrosive vocals you’ll hear on a metal album while also managing to switch to a cleaner more melodic style when the music calls for it. A breathtaking perfomance from a kid who is almost a decade younger than most of his peers but, like his band, ten times better! So metal they shit early Metallica albums!”

To raise money for the childen affected by the Asian tsunami, lots of UK radio stations have got together for a special all day show today as well as running some amazing auctions on eBay for cool donated prizes. Included in the auctions is a special Nickelback package – bidding currently at 퉌£255 and counting… You can bid for: 1 x Fully Signed – Chromolin Master Poster Artwork – for the current album ‘The Long Road’. Original UK poster artwork, A1 size, the only one in existence. Fully Signed Back Catalogue – 3 albums – (each album is signed by the band): 1 x signed copy of ‘The Long Road’ album 1 x signed copy of ‘Silver Side Up’ album 1 x signed copy of ‘The State’ album You will also get a Nickelback T-Shirt, 5 UK Nickelback Stickers, 1 old ‘Aftershow’ pass from the bands last tour, as well as a Nickelback guitar plectrum (from Ryan Peake). To check out this auction (and more), click HERE.

THROWDOWN are about to enter the studio with producer Zeuss (HATEBREED, SHADOWS FALL) to begin work on their new album, “Vendetta”, and the band, as always, are on a mission. “We want to remind the hardcore and metal world what this music is and isn’t about, because some people seem to have forgotten,” proclaims singer Dave Peters, matter-of-factly. “We wrote these songs to crush all the trendy bullshit out there, and we’re going to do just that.” “Vendetta” follows the band’s landmark album “Haymaker”, a to-the-point tour de force slab of bludgeoning self-motivational venom that redefined the beautifully uncomplicated side of the metallic-hardcore genre when it was released in 2003. The album spawned the “Headbanger’s Ball” staple “Forever”, a new anthem to rally behind for a generation hungry for their own EARTH CRISIS or BLACK FLAG. And it opened doors for THROWDOWN to show up on the Ozzfest second stage and to hit the road with LAMB OF GOD, HATEBREED, FEAR FACTORY, NORMA JEAN and more. “Haymaker” drew favorable comparisons in the press to SEPULTURA and PANTERA while rightly aligning the band with the burgeoning Orange County hardcore scene and the so-called New Wave of American Heavy Metal embodied by bands like KILLSWITCH ENGAGE and SHADOWS FALL. “We make it a point to make each record twice as brutal as the one that preceded it and we were worried that we couldn’t do that after ‘Haymaker’. But two weeks into the writing process for ‘Vendetta’, we just had to laugh,” says Peters. “These songs destroy that album.” A few of the songs THROWDOWN will carry in their new arsenal when they enter Planet Z Studios next month include “Shut You Down”, “Burn”, “I’d Give My Life”, “This Discipline”, and the undoubtedly crowd-motivating sing-along ready “And We Rise”. Guitarist Matt Mentley, bassist Dom Macaluso, drummer Ben Dussault and Peters have spent the new year fine-tuning material they wrote over the past year, some of it on the tour bus and in the van. “We’re making the heaviest record of 2005, unless MESHUGGAH goes into the studio,” Dave says, laughing. “Then we’ll be making the second heaviest record of the year.” While people will have to wait until July to get their hands on “Vendetta”, there will be no break in the chances to see the band live. THROWDOWN will headline a two-week U.S. tour in early March with support coming from THE CHARIOT and IT DIES TODAY. And following that, they’ll be all over the U.S. and Canada with their friends in AS I LAY DYING. “Everyone has that one or two special records that makes them want to punish everyone that ever wronged them. We want to make that record for today’s hardcore and metal kids,” Dave says. “An album that does what PANTERA’s ‘Vulgar Display Of Power’ and SEPULTURA’s ‘Chaos A.D.’ did for us. We won’t be satisfied until we’ve made that album.” blabbermouth.net

Buffalo’s finest Every Time I Die have issued a tentative title for their next studio album. The record will be called ‘Gutter Phenomenon’. The band have also posted a clip of a new track entitled ‘Guitared And Feathered’ online. Log on to www.myspace.com/ferretmusic to check it out.

Prepare yourself for a hefty shot of ‘Nymphetamine’í¢ä‰åŒ_ The notorious and enthralling CRADLE OF FILTH will slink back into town in April for a clutch of headline dates. The first UK shows since last year’s Download festival appearance, the ‘Filth will be weaving their melodious plot at the following locations: April 13 – Portsmouth Pyramid 14 – Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall 15 – Manchester Academy 16 – London Forum Tickets will be on sale shortly from box offices and all usual online agents, priced 퉌£14 regionally and 퉌£16 in London. Support is to be confirmed. Roadrunner Records will be releasing a special limited edition package of the critically acclaimed Cradle Of Filth album ‘Nymphetamine’ on February 21st. The deluxe new package will feature new artwork, including a beautiful gold foil embossed digipak fold-out cover and an additional disc containing 6 extra tracks. These include 2 brand new tracks (‘Prey’ and ‘Soft White Throat’), a new version of the album’s title track (the ‘Deva-Fix version’) featuring the band’s backing vocalist Sarah Jezebel Deva, plus covers of Ozzy’s ‘Mr Crowley’, Bathory’s ‘Bestial Lust’, and Cliff Richard’s 1976 hit, ‘Devil Woman’. ‘Devil Woman’ also features guest vocals by the inimitable King Diamond. Also included on the disc is the promo video for ‘Nymphetamine’ as an enhanced element. An embalmed darkness awaitsí¢ä‰åŒ_

A note from Terror… “Hey everyone. First off, Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a good time. Sorry to everyone in San Diego. We couldn’t make the show due to circumstances out of our control. Next Wednesday we leave to go to Australia, And New Zealand for our second time. I cannot wait to get over there. Australia is definitely my favorite place in the world. The shows are amazing. The people are amazing. I’m siked! After Australia and New Zealand, we come home for a few days and then we are off to Brazil to play the Liberation fest. We are extremely excited to go there. This will be a first time for us. if you want more information on the site go here. Then we are off to Europe for 6 weeks with Agnostic Front and Diecast. Should be an awesome tour! In April we will be touring the US again. Keep checking our site for new announcements. We have some cool shit that we are gonna announce within the next couple weeks! Take care everyone.” -Doug