Your latest ‘choicy’ bits to read, chicken. SLIPKNOT – Metal Hammer í¢ä‰åäóì Cover story – Total Guitar (Aug 2004 í¢ä‰åäóì Eric Clapton cover) í¢ä‰åäóì Mick & Jim’s guitar tips (on covermount CD as DVD enhanced element) MACHINE HEAD – Metal Hammer í¢ä‰åäóì 4-page ‘Access All Areas’ feature from Download KILLSWITCH ENGAGE/CHIMAIRA – Big Cheese í¢ä‰åäóì 3-page ‘NWOAHM’ tour feature – Metal Hammer í¢ä‰åäóì 9/10 live review 36 CRAZYFISTS – Powerplay í¢ä‰åäóì 9/10 live review DIRTY AMERICANS – Powerplay í¢ä‰åäóì 9/10 live review NICKELBACK – Powerplay í¢ä‰åäóì 9/10 live review ZAO – Metal Hammer í¢ä‰åäóì 9/10 one page album review & lead ‘Incoming’ piece. – Terrorizer í¢ä‰åäóì 7.5/10 album review – Big Cheese í¢ä‰åäóì 4/5 album review

Have you got your tickets yet? The most awesome double Trustkill act Hopesfall/Nora tour kicks off on Monday! Don’t miss out… full UK dates are as follows: 9th August, London Underworld 10th August, Leeds Joseph Well 11th August, Manchester Night & Day 12th August, Glasgow King Tuts 13th August, Liverpool Union 14th August, Nottingham Rock City 15th August, Sheffield Corporation 16th August, Oxford Zodiac 17th August, Cardiff Barfly Following the tour, Roadrunner will be re-releasing Hopesfall album ‘The Satellite Years’ on October 4. Tracks will include (bonus audio & video still to be added): 1. Andromeda 2. Waitress 3. Dead In Magazines 4. Dana Walker 5. Decoys Like Curves 6. A Man Exits 7. Redshift 8. Only The Clouds 9. Escape Pod for Intangibles 10. The Bending

One of the first releases under our new Trustkill/Roadrunner partnership will be the Most Precious Blood album ‘Our Lady Of Annihilation’. Due out on October 4, tracks include: 1. The Great Red Shift 2. Collusionist 3. Quit Pattern 4. Growing Square Eyes 5. Your Picture Hung Itself 6. Funural Photography 7. Life During Wartime 8. It Runs In The Blood 9. So Typical My Heart 10.Why Hyenas Laugh 11.Closure Additionally, it is likely the CD will be enhanced with a couple of videos! Details to come… Most Precious Blood are also touring the UK later this year! Full UK dates are: 23/09/2004 – Underworld, London 24/09/2004 – Phoenix, Plymouth 25/09/2004 – Pits, Milton Keynes 26/09/2004 – Barfly, Glasgow 27/09/2004 – University, Newcastle 28/09/2004 – Star and Gater, Manchester 29/09/2004 – RMS, Merthyr Be sure to check em out!

Why Eighteen Visions of course… Roadrunner will be re-releasing the album ‘Vanity’ by Trustkill band Eighteen Visions on October 4th. The tentative tracklisting for the album is as follows: 1. Vanity 2. Fashion Show 3. One Hell Of A Price Fighter 4. I Don’t Mind 5. A Short Walk Down A Long Hallway 6. Gorgeous 7. You Broke Like Glass 8. The Critic 9. In The Closet 10.Sonic Death Monkey 11.There Is Always 12.Love In Autumn Additional audio & video tracks are still being confirmed. You can catch Eighteen Visions live in October as they are soon to tour the UK in support to 36 Crazyfists! See them at: 3rd Oct – LONDON Mean Fiddler 4th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì LEEDS Cockpit 5th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì NEWCASTLE University 6th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì GLASGOW Garage 7th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì EDINBURGH Venue 8th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì MANCHESTER MDH 10th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì BELFAST Limelight 11th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì DUBLIN Music Centre 12th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì CARDIFF Clwb Ifor Bach 13th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì WOLVERHAMPTON Wulfrun Hall 14th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì OXFORD Zodiac 15th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì LIVERPOOL University 16th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì SHEFFIELD Corporation 18th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì EXETER Lemon Grove 19th Oct í¢ä‰åäóì PORTSMOUTH Wedgewood Rooms Tickets are on sale now, priced 퉌£10 in London and 퉌£9 regionally. You can buy tickets online from www.aloud.com.

August 11th, The Key Club, Los Angeles with Daijabou. If you are in Los Angeles then don’t forget to check out this performance by Temper featuring Jonny Santos (former singer of Spineshank). If you haven’t heard their 2 demos online then check out http://www.tempermusic.com.

This week Obituary launched its second official website. Now joining the Trevor Peres run www.slowlywerot.net is the new John and Donald Tardy run www.obituary.cc. Drop by, check it out, drop the band a line. Other than that, Obituary is currently writing material for an upcoming 2005 release.

How many times has Nickelback toured the US in support of their latest release? All the more reason to savor the moment, to celebrate that Nickelback is indeed currently touring the states this summer. That being said, check out THIS LINK and enjoy.

Congratulations going out to happy couple Mr & Mrs Decker! Tommy & Amie were married on August 1st. All here hope you both had a wonderful day! Spineshank bandmates Rob Garcia and Mike Sarkisyan were all suited and booted as part of the wedding party too…

The new September issue of Metal Hammer has just hit the streets. And we think you should go pick it up… here’s why: – free ZAO & SLIPKNOT tracks on the covermount CD – Mick from Slipknot on the cover, plus 7 page SLIPKNOT cover feature inside (pgs 42-48) – KILLSWITCH ENGAGE’s Joel & CHIMAIRA’s Matt talking about Slayer (pgs 39,40) – ZAO whole page 9/10 album review (pg 99) – SLIPKNOT top the poll for most eyebrow-raising live shows (pg 25) – Access All Areas with MACHINE HEAD from Download (pgs 32-35) – 3 pgs on Fury Fest from France featuring SLIPKNOT, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, HATEBREED, SOULFLY, FEAR FACTORY, CALIBAN, CHIMAIRA, TERROR, WALLS OF JERICHO, and a pile more… (pgs 54-56) – Incoming new band special on ZAO (pgs 74-75) – 2 page lead 9/10 live review for the KILLSWITCH ENGAGE/CHIMAIRA tour (pgs 112-113) And that’s not all! There’s also live reviews of both FEAR FACTORY and NICKELBACK, as well as a nice piece on Trustkill band EIGHTEEN VISIONS.

We’ve been telling you how awesome the new Zao album is, but don’t take OUR word for it. Here are 2 very recent press reviews… and don’t forget, it’s out on Monday. METAL HAMMER THE FUNERAL OF GOD (ZAO) [FERRET/ROADRUNNER] State of the art heavy metal 9/10 I’ll admit it – there are certain things that you actually really, really, look forward to reviewing and this was definitely one of those. Having totally bought into the US press ad campaign of: í¢ä‰åñWe ask that you join us in grieving at ‘The Funeral Of God,’ a 47 minute, 26 second Mass,í¢ä‰åŒ along with the powerful statue and cross imagery, the wide eyed fan in me was salivating in a way unseen since the death of picture-disc vinyl. To live up to that kind of vision Zao couldn’t simply be good, it had to be awesome, even genre defining. If that genre happens to be metalcore then never has there been a more required moment for sharpening and redefining, as band after band mix old hardcore riffs with trad solos and strained grunts into a lumpen, impotent grind. If the melodic end of the genre has been taken by Killswitch Engage then the extreme end of the Kingdom belongs to Zao. No question. Armed with the knowledge that extreme doesn’t always have to read ‘brutal’, ‘The Funeral Of God’ is Zao’s attempt to rise above the underground and in striving for that there can surely be few things more ambitious than a concept album based around God choosing to die with which to achieve that aim. It’s the kind of subject matter that could lead to considerable embarrassment but one that Zao tackle with something approaching total fearlessness. The influence pool may seem familiar doses of NYHC bludgeon, classic thrash riffs and damaging death metal beats, but the difference between them and so many of their so-called peers is in how Zao wrap it up into a concise and thoroughly contemporary beast. The end result is so much more than simply a sum of its parts. The dual guitars of Scott Mellinger and Russ Cogdell are razor sharp when required, cauterising on the riffs and beautiful in equal parts, while Dan Weyandt’s vocals sound equally commanding whether he be shredding his throat or squeezing the last drops out of his soul. There’s no death grunt to whining caterwaul here, the guy can really sing when he wants to. From start to finish the quality is relentless but for the best results and the most seamless examples of everything Zao can be then ‘Liveí¢ä‰åŒ_ From The Funeral Of God’ and ‘Praise The War Machine’ shine strongest – the riff coursing through the latter simply monstrous. ‘I Lay Sleepless In My Grave’ is the kind of epic finale that an album of this stature needs and indeed demands, bringing to an end a piece of art that you can both rock out to and bask in. By being brave enough to take the high road and take chances in the concept of what they could achieve, Zao have not only succeeded in re-setting the bar within their genre they have very likely crippled it as surely as they have transcended it. However if ambition breeds competition then let the new age begin. BIG CHEESE THE FUNERAL OF GOD – ZAO Christian metalcore legends return. 4/5 Despite having split up several times and having gone through more band members than Guns & Roses, Zao have retained their reputation as being one of the best metalcore bands in the world. Zao are committed Christians and they’ve done a concept album about God. Now there’s a surprise. The album explores the idea that that God has the hump with humanity because we don’t pay him enough attention so he decides to have an everlasting kip. Regardless of the ideological aspects of Zao, they make some damn fine and ferocious metalcore. It’s also surprisingly coherent as a concept album. The songs work well individually but the album definitely has to be listened to in one sitting for its full effect. The more melancholy and calmer tracks towards the end of the album give a nice sense of balance to the full on aural assault at the start. Zao haven’t sullied their good name.