Our favourite Southern boys

Now featured on the front of the

Radio 1's Daniel P Carter is joining the rest of us in getting ready for the metal highlight of the year – Download Festival!

To celebrate the release of the amazing new DevilDriver album The Last Kind Words on June 18, you can grab exclusive signed numbered inserts when you buy the album from Play.com or selected Roadrage Stores – but I wouldn't hang around, these will go fast!

Not only that – if you get yourself down early to the DevilDriver show at the Camden Underworld on June 7 with your ticket and a copy of June's Metal Hammer (with Iron Maiden on the front), you may be lucky enough to get to hear the full album plus meet the band – but only the first 50 will be let in at 6pm, so no messing about or you'll be missing out!

On July 9, Nickelback will release a super-duper special edition of All The Right Reasons.

Roadrunner Records announces the signing of multi-platinum alternative rock band The Cult, the influential UK group who have built an extensive global fan base with hits such as “She Sells Sanctuary,” “Rain,” “Wild Flower,” “Love Removal Machine,” “Edie,” “The Witch” and “Rise.” A new studio album, the first since 2001, is currently being recorded in London with producer Youth (Verve, Primal Scream), who will be adding final touches and mixing. The expected release date for the yet untitled album is 25 September 2007 and will be released in conjunction with The Cult’s imprint label, New Wilderness.

The Cult, led by founding members vocalist Ian Astbury and guitarist Billy Duffy, will embark on a series of European arena shows with rock legends The Who starting June 5th. The band will be adding headline dates and festival appearances along the route, building on the overwhelming reaction to their 2006 sell-out world tour.

“We have always dreamed of finding a label that allows us artistic freedom and has the muscle to get the music to the people,” comments Astbury. “At the heart of this recording is an urban directness of savage rawness and an earnestness that is the centre of any great rock and roll band.”

“What’s especially great about The Cult,” A&R men Derek Oliver and Dante Bonutto state, “is their instinctive ability to live in the present, not just reflecting current taste but actually helping to shape it – something you can hear in Ian’s contributions to the UNKLE project. They have a magnificent and hugely influential history, but when you bring the classic and the contemporary crashing together in the way that Ian and Billy can, it gives real potential for this new album to be their most exciting ever.”

Following thousands of requests from UK fans on their MySpace page, fast-rising stars MADINA LAKE are pleased to announce their first UK headline tour! Bound to fly as soon as word gets out, fans can buy tickets from all usual agents and box offices, priced at

Whilst over here on their extensive UK tour, we caught up with Brock and Holt from Alaskan metellers 36 Crazyfists as they prepared to destroy London on the last leg of their world tour in support of the magnificent Rest Inside The Flames.

The womderful new Within Temptation video for the single The Howling is now available for selection on Kerrang! TV.

Our lovely Italian cousins have indeed been busy of late, and have been kind enough to share some of the love.