COHEED AND CAMBRIA will release their forthcoming album ‘Year Of The Black Rainbow’ not only as a standard CD and digital release, but also a CD/DVD Special Edition, with the DVD featuring a Behind The Scenes of the recording of Year Of The Black Rainbow ‘documentary’.

As with the other editions, this will be available from April 12th.

OPETH main man Mikael Akerfeldt has spoken about his involvement with the God of War: Blood & Metal EP on the Decibel blog.

“I got the question a while back whether Opeth would be interested in contributing a song to this game, God of War III.”, writes Mike, “As far as I remember, I said ‘kinda yes’ right away, since delivery was still months away. I didn’t know the game. Even though I’m a gamer myself, I’d never really heard of it, but I figured we could contribute since a few of us are into it, and just overall, we felt ‘Why not?’ I wanted to try my new home studio for this which had just been set up.

On “The Throat of Winter”: The opening chord sequence is something I wrote on the last tour we did, and I had another project in mind for it. I just thought it had a nice ring to it. I knew the other bands would go for something heavy and we’ve always like to do the opposite to other bands, so we decided to go with something softer. It has attitude though it’s devoid of any Whitney Houston influences. Recording it was quite simple, the song is simple (but odd) and the sound is simple… everything about it just came together in a heartbeat more or less. I like it. It’s odd but it sounds like Opeth.”

You can read the whole whole blog HERE, and get your digital-only copy of the EP on iTunes now!

Opeth will embark on a limited-city 20th anniversary tour at the end of the month. As part of this, they will play the Royal Albert Hall, London on April 5th. Get tickets HERE.

THEORY OF A DEADMAN hit the UK in April for a run of headline shows! If you caught them last time, you’ll know they’re not to be missed. If you missed them, don’t make the same mistake twice!

Dates are as follows and tickets are on sale now! Pick up tickets HERE.

Sat 3rd Apr – LEEDS Met Uni SU
Sun 4th Apr – GLASGOW ABC
Tue 6th Apr – WOLVERHAMPTON Wulfrun Hall
Wed 7th Apr – LIVERPOOL O2 Academy
Fri 9th Apr – LONDON Electric Ballroom

Digital single So Happy will be released on April 4th to coincide with the tour. The track is from current album Scars & Souvenirs which is available now (Click HERE to buy on-line).

And if you want a taster, click on the player below and you can see the video for the track. Theory get all the hot chicks…

In this latest instalment of the MACHINE HEAD ‘Discography’ series, Robb Flynn talks candidly about 2001’s Supercharger, an album that saw some criticism, a member of the band leaving, a banned video and eventually to the band parting ways with Roadrunner.

In the clip below, you can see Robb talk about the album’s recording and how the differing directions of the band members shaped the album and his personal take on the album.

Head HERE to play catch up on any of the other parts of the series you may have missed.

Supercharger can be picked up on-line HERE, now.

Back on Tuesday we brought you part 1 of our recent interview with Mike Kroeger from NICKELBACK. In that interview (which you can find HERE if you missed it), he chatted about the reception of and the touring for their current album Dark Horse and what keeps the band motivated.

In this second and final part (see the player below), Mike tells us about the early days- before Silver Side Up propelled them to super-stardom- what (if anything) they would like to regain from those early days and how it felt when things blew up for the band. He also touches on what the band have planned for the rest of 2010…

You can pick Dark Horse on-line HERE.

TOTAL ROCK’S Sophie K caught up for a chat with BLEEDING THROUGH’S Marta Peterson recently to talk about being a woman in a man’s world and the band’s forthcoming album ‘BLEEDING THROUGH’.

The video interview can be viewed below and if you are wanting to check out some new material from the band, they have 2 brand new tracks up here- their Official MySpace. Check them out!

The album is now available for pre-order HERE.

COHEED AND CAMBRIA have revealed the new animated extravaganza that is the video for ‘The Broken’, the first to be released from their forthcoming album Year Of The Black Rainbow.

In a MySpace world exclusive, you can see the video HERE.

‘The Broken’ will be released as a digital single on the 4th April.

Pre-order the album on-line HERE.

Four UK tour dates, click here– the band are due to hit these shores in June!

The new issue of Kerrang! has hit the newsagents and in this weeks issue there’s a plethora of Roadrunner artists!

Pick up this weeks copy for your chance to win a guitar and a lesson from MADINA LAKE in an exclusive Kerrang! comp, plus also in this issue you’ll find a cool 2 page feature on the man, the legend SLASH

KIDS IN GLASS HOUSES are to release an acoustic version of their current single / video track Matters At All on March 21st. The track will be available as a digital single on all the usual platforms.

Check out the track in the player below!

The track is taken from the bands forthcoming second album DIRT which is released on the 29th March. You can pre-order the album on-line HERE.

The band will embark on some signings around the release of the album. Dates are as follows and full details / conditions can be found HERE.

29/03 – HMV Cardiff, 5pm
30/03 – HMV Manchester, Arndale Centre, 5pm
31/03 – HMV London, Oxford Circus, 5pm

The band will hit the road again in the UK this coming May on a headline run, kicking off May 2nd. For the full list of dates, venues and on-line buy links, point your mouse in THIS DIRECTION.

August 1999 saw MACHINE HEAD release their 3rd studio album- The Burning Red. The first album to feature guitarist Ahrue Luster and with a new producer- Ross Robinson, the band introduced some new elements to the band’s music. In this 3rd part of Discography with Machine Head, Robb Flynn talks about the albums new direction, both lyrically and musically and it’s reception upon release.

Head back HERE to catch up on the previous two parts.

Pick up The Burning Red on-line HERE.