The legend returns. Dave Mustaine & Megadeth are back and in ferocious style with United Abominations – a jarring, shocking and absolutely awe-inspiring rude awakening to the heavy metal community! A record in possession of an arsenal of weapons sharpened and honed like no heavy metal album before it, with venomous raw aggression, political bite, razor-blade rigging and sheer song crafting, which all coalesce into a career landmark album.

Metalchroniques a French website have posted live photos of Trivium and Sanctity during their recent show at at Elys

Blabbermouth reports Max Cavalara, Soulfly frontman has posted a four track demo recording of a new song, entitled “Inflikted (After the Slaughter)”. The track is posted on the official Soulfly website, you will be able to preview and purchase the track between 1st May until 1st June.

The website states:

By allowing fans to hear his work as it is in progress, Max wants give his fans a better idea of how he writes, and he hopes to expand views of both writing and recording techniques. Max has used 4-track demos to write out his songs for the last 20 years, and over the course of the recording period, the simple structures captured in these primitive outtakes eventually morph into the complex 48-track recording that eventually hits record shop shelves all over the globe. Often Max records these songs immediately as he is thinking of them, which was the case with this song. In fact, Max was so frantic to get this song to tape that he reversed the pickup on his pair headphones to have something to scream his vox into because he didn't have time to search out a microphone when the vision came to his mind – a technique which, in the end, seems to only add to the aggressiveness of the song.

If you have been following the release of this 4-track closely, you have probably already noticed that Max has decided to change the working title of the song from “After the Slaughter” to “Inflikted (After the Slaughter)”. In the weeks and months to come, its is likely that this song and all of its counterparts that will eventually make it on to the next Soulfly album at the end of the year will go through many more changes – both in name and composition – and for this album, Max wants his fans to be along for the ride. It begins now!

Max has decided to allow fans to view his own handwritten lyrics and notes for “Inflikted (After the Slaughter)”, as well, and you can view these in each of the pictures at this location. Stay tuned to the site for more recording updates and go here to purchase “Inflikted (After the Slaughter)”. Proceeds for this song are donated to Doctors Without Borders; go to their site and feel free to donate on your own time.

Corey Taylor, Slipknot/Stone Sour frontman, recently gave an interview with Imhotep webzine, check out the excerpts below:

Imhotep: Did the success of STONE SOUR surprise you?

Corey: “It definitely took as by surprise, as we were expecting a success similar to the level of a debut album. As an artist, you're kinda afraid to hope for too much, but you definitely want that, but you're afraid to put your eggs on the basket. So when everybody responded to the album, we were like, 'Holy fucking shit, that's great man,' but then it just got bigger and bigger and we were like, 'All right'… It was very refreshing, we always had a problem with our debut album, because we always thought we could've made that album a lot better. There were so many things we left, and there were so many things that felt half-assed with that album. It always bugged us. We were proud of what we did at the time, but that's why we took so many steps to make sure that album was above and beyond the first album. We kinda said, 'Fuck it,' and went for broke. We weren't gonna hold it back this time. If you don't do that, then fuck it, you know, fortune favors the bold.”

Imhotep: Do you have enough time for both bands?

Corey: “It's all on your priorities, I've always said that if you prioritize everything, you'll have time to do everything. And now my priority is STONE SOUR. Now we've toured for almost a year already and are still gonna do so until October. But we wanna get it all in now, because last time we could only tour for nine months. We played Europe twice and America twice, so there were a lot of things we didn't get to do with that album. We are gonna go wherever we didn't get to go, and we're gonna do everything we want to do, and damn the consequences. I also let the other members of SLIPKNOT know that, before we left off with that band. But I've got a lot of support about that in SLIPKNOT, which is really cool, and vice versa, the guys in STONE SOUR know that SLIPKNOT is a priority for me as well. I take my time and do both and make sure it is what I want to do and not what I have to do.”

Imhotep: What if you had to choose between these two bands?

Corey: “I wouldn't. If somebody made me choose, I would walk away from both, let's put it that way. Or just do my own thing. It is my choice to do both, and it is like picking your favorite kid, you just cannot do it. It's not fair, music will always be a part of my life, no matter what. It doesn't matter if I'm playing acoustic at a corner bar or to a sold out audience in Finland, I will always do my best. So nobody's forcing me to do anything, because at the end of the day I am gonna do music regardless who I am with. Regardless who I am with, I will make music. That's it.”

Imhotep: Apparently you get to write more music in STONE SOUR than in SLIPKNOT.

Corey: “Lot of times yeah. Lot of times in SLIPKNOT that core of writing was already in place, I came in with lyrics and I've thrown a couple of riffs here and there, and I've helped out with some choruses and all that, but like musically. But with writing music, this band (STONE SOUR) is a venue where I can display what I am able. 'Through Glass' I wrote, 'Zzyx Red' I wrote, the majority of 'Made Of Scars', so it's really where I get to shine as a composer, shine as a writer. It is important for me. In SLIPKNOT I know that everyone in that band is so gifted, that I don't have to compete when it comes to that, but with this band it is a completely different thing, we all kinda write full songs and then bring them to the collective, and then it all kinda comes to what it is. But I feel to be more in the band with STONE SOUR.”

Imhotep: Does it irritate you that SLIPKNOT is always mentioned in connection with STONE SOUR?

Corey: “It used to, to be honest, but it is kinda my fault, because I helped build that band to where it was, so at the end of the day, the only person I can blame is myself. I kinda look at it like the superhero syndrome, the one person being jealous about the alter ego. But I can't do it, I used to kinda get upset about it but then I noticed when I was doing SLIPKNOT, I got a lot of STONE SOUR questions, so the way I look at it is that it's very symbiotic. Right now, I can't have one without the other.”

Imhotep: What does music actually mean to you?

Corey: “Music, to me, is so many different things. On a bad day it is a vehicle to vent, on a good day it is a form of communication, and all the days in between it is enjoyment. But for me it is important never to forget what it feels like to be a music fan. And that's an important thing. Lot of people get into this business, achieve a level of success, and they basically forget why they loved music in the first place. They become very atypical, they become very egotistical, but for me it has always been more about the music to begin with. The fame can go away, the money is very very very temporary, the chicks are the fucking bullshit, the music is the thing that lasts a really long time, and that's the thing I've never forgotten. It has always been more about the legacy, than about the immediacy. I wanna leave something behind, something that people remember. There are so many temporary bands today that are such fucking bullshit. Not enough people want to make something astounding, not enough people want to go for the extraordinary, and that's what fucking bothers me. But it also pushes me about music, and at the end of the day, music is always going to be the thing that saved my life, music is the thing that has made my life chaotic, I definitely don't get a lot of sleep, but what are you gonna do. Music is so fluid, it is so many things wrapped up as one.”

Read the entire interview at Imhotep.

SOURCE: BLABBERMOUTH

Dave Mustaine spoke recently to CausticTruths.com about the motivations behind UA.

Well Megadeth has had political records for ever, explains Mustaine. All you need to do is look at the titles: Peace Sells, But Who’s Buying, The System Has Failed, The World Needs a Hero. The majority of the music has always been political in nature. And a while ago, there was something that had happened in New York where a Russian ambassador from the United Nations had driven through a stop sign, drunk as a skunk and killed a dude and got off because of diplomatic immunity. You know what? If that was MY kid, I don’t know if I would be satisfied with that. I absolutely have to tell you, I don’t know if I would be satisfied that a guy could kill my kid, driving drunk, and that just because he’s a diplomat from another country that he would be exonerated.

So that made me really start looking at what the UN was all about. And the more I would watch politics, I would see most people don’t really give much credence to the UN. They just kind of think it’s a figurehead. Well, it wasn’t created to just be an empty figurehead. It was created to promote peace and keep people from going to war against one another. And there’s a new movie coming out called You And Me that I had a chance to participate in and when I saw the trailer for it I said I absolutely want to say something as a person that travels from country to country.

You know we went into Serbia, and I watched out the window of the bus as we drove from disaster area to disaster area, getting to the place that we stayed, and these kids were so poor, brother, we had to sell our t-shirts for I think five bucks that night, and they usually sell for like $25 to $30 just so that we could show them that we love them and we support them and that heavy metal knows no boundaries and it’s color blind. You know we went there as four musicians that don’t really care about politics. All we care about is just bringing the music to them and them standing up for themselves. I myself find that a little bit incredulous after you take a swipe at the UN, to say that we don’t, that we don’t care about politics but that’s my own particular feelings and my opinions and I’m not pushing that on anybody, I never have. Even though I got involved in Rock The Vote in America back in 1992 and I went to the White House, and I’ve shaken hands with the President. I’ve never told any of our fans how to vote. I just say do vote.

For more from that interview

Check out the Megadeth E Card

Wanna know the track that Mike Portnoy believes best sums up Dream Theater’s forthcoming album?

Morley Seaver of CausticTruths.com recently spoke to drummer Mike Portnoy regarding the band’s songwriting process.

“I don't know if we've ever had one song that could really sum up what DREAM THEATER is about because there are so many sides to the band. I guess the big epic songs are always the ones that tend to show all of the different sides. So I guess if I could only play one person one song, if they had 25 minutes to spare, I'd play both parts of 'In The Presence Of Enemies' from the new record because that's really going to show the full spectrum. Usually the shorter songs, something like just 'Forsaken' or 'Constant Motion' isn't going to really give the big picture. It'll just give you a little taste of one side of what the band is.”

For more from this interview

Slipknot’s M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan appeared on Fuse’s ‘The Sauce’ last week, you can see the clips by checking out the links below:

Part 1 – YouTube

Part 2 – YouTube

SOURCE: BLABBERMOUTH

Head on over to the rather excellent Mike Portnoy Forums to check out the RR love that DT fans are now feeling – and this is still a month before the album's even released!

“Systematic Chaos” will be released on Monday June 4 and will be available in two formats: regular-edition CD (cover) and a special-edition CD and DVD (cover), including a rather nice making-of documentary, and a completely awesome 5.1 Surround Sound mix of the whole album!

Last week we pointed you to the campaign our Australian buddies started about Machine Head's The Blackening. We're going to point you at the discussion for it again and show you some pictures from around Australia here. Our Australian sisters and brothers have started the “Best Album Ever?” campaign to discover whether fans agree.

What do you think is the best metal album ever?

For a short time only, you can hear DevilDriver in all their glory on the Kerrang! Podcast. LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE HERE.

DevilDriver join Norwegian metal behemoths Dimmu Borgir on their Invaluable Darkness tour throughout North America. Also supporting are Kataklysm and Unearth. Tickets for all shows are available HERE.

DevilDriver's next album, The Last Kind Words, is due out July 31st. Take a look at the cover art HERE.

www.devildriver.com