Chimaira is currently in the studio recording…and during the off-time from the studio, surely soaking in the beautiful February/March weather in the greater Cleveland area. Check out www.chimaira.com for a couple recent video clips of guitar tracking. Oh, and last but certainly not least, check out www.chimaira-music.de. The Germans, not only do they love David Haselhoff, but they love Chimaira too. How to describe the site? Diese Seite ist der Anlaufpunkt jedes Chimaira-Fans in Deutschland. But, of course…hopefully you speak German, and if you do, looks like this is a site is well worth your time. As they say, Vielleicht sieht man sich bei der n퀌_chsten.

This brilliant, if not slightly amusing article, is yet another to praise Open Hand’s latest album, You And Me. CHOICE QUOTE: Each song has its own hook so catchy that only a frontal lobotomy will get it out of your head. CLICK HERE to read the whole artcle. REMEMBER: OPEN HAND – YOU AND ME – OUT NOW

In celebration of Roadrunner Records’ 25th anniversary, the 2005 Road Rage tour will feature 3 of Roadrunner’s rising metal stars, Trivium, 3 Inches Of Blood, and Still Remains. These acts represent the future of the metal genre. A name that millions of people around the world have grown to trust, Roadrunner Records developed the Road Rage tour as a way to give legions of metal heads around the world a chance to see the best and brightest that the label had to offer í¢ä‰åäóì in the past, featuring 36 Crazyfists, Killswitch Engage, Ill Nino, Chimaira, & Spineshank. For the third time the Road Rage tour will do just that as the tour slams the United Kingdom from May 1st – 18th. The group of bands that have been assembled for the 2005 Road Rage tour are the heaviest and most diverse in its history. 3 Inches Of Blood whose dual vocalists sing about vikings, pirates and knights slaying orcs, released their debut album Advance & Vanquish in late 2004. Ascendancy, the album by Trivium that will be out March 14th, is so technical and hooky it is a wonder that the music is brought to you by guys 19, 21 and 22 years old who, by the time the tour starts will have toured with the likes of Slipknot, Dillinger Escape Plan, Danzig, Fear Factory, & Chimaira. Still Remains is one of the newest members of the Roadrunner family and they will release their Roadrunner debut album Of Love And Lunacy on May 2nd. Produced by GGGarth, it is already garnering rave reviews. Tickets will be flying shortly for the cheapest ever Roadrage fee of 퉌£7 (퉌£9 London). Buckle up and get ready to enjoy the ride! Pit stops are as follows: Sun 1st May – Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall Mon 2nd May – Liverpool University Tue 3rd May – Manchester Academy 3 Wed 4th May í¢ä‰åäóì Glasgow Garage Thu 5th May í¢ä‰åäóì Cardiff Barfly Tue 10th May í¢ä‰åäóì Leeds Cockpit Wed 11th May í¢ä‰åäóì Nottingham Rock City Thu 12th May í¢ä‰åäóì Stoke Sugarmill Fri 13th May í¢ä‰åäóì Oxford Zodiac Sat 14th May í¢ä‰åäóì Brighton Concorde 2 Sun 15th May í¢ä‰åäóì Colchester Arts Centre Tue 17th May í¢ä‰åäóì Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms Wed 18th May í¢ä‰åäóì London Garage Stay tuned for more Road Rage news and events.

Only a few days now until the release of Trustkill Video Assault DVD Vol1(07/03/05), a killer DVD featuring 12 promo videos from the likes of ‘Eighteen Visions’, ‘Poison The Well’, ‘Throwdown’, ‘Open Hand’, ‘Hopesfall’ and many more. The tracklisting is as follows: 1. Roses Are Red – White And Gold 2. Bleeding Through – Love Lost In A Hail Of Gunfire 3. Eighteen Visions – Waiting For The Heavens 4. Most Precious Blood – The Great Red Shift 5. Throwdown – Forever 6. Nora – I Should’ve Sent Flowers 7. Open Hand – In Your Eyes 8. Hopesfall – The Bending 9. Eighteen Visions – You Broke Like Glass 10. Armsbendback – The Arms Of Automation 11. Poison The Well – Botchla’ 12. Bleeding Through – On Wings Of Lead Excited, you should be, but this is only the beginning. Check out what Kerrang! had to say about the release… THERE’s AN impressive wealth of talent on US label Trustkill and this DVD (released through Roadrunner in the UK) is a must for metalcore fans. Then inclusion of just a dozen videos may initially seem a touch miserly, even at the knockout price of 퉌£8, but the real draw here is the live footage included amongst the extras. Another 15 songs are secluded away here and they easily shade the promo clips. If you like Poison The Well, Hopesfall and Eighteen Visions are your bread and butter then there’s a veritable feast on offer here. – Mark Griffiths, Kerang! If you are, as Kerrang! suggests, up for the veritable feast you may like to enter our TRUSTKILL COMPETITION for the chance to win a Trustkill t-shirt.

Amongst your web travels, please check out HitThePit.com for an interview with Wednesday 13. The interview took place on February 28th. ———————— Derek: Hey bud, thanks for taking the time to speak with me. Last time I spoke with you we had an in-depth conversation about the love affair between Lady Jay and Flint in GI Joe. Will you finally admit that you had a thing for Lady Jay? Wednesday 13: No, Actually I preferred the Baroness, but her accent was so fucking annoying. Derek: (Laughs) Agreed! Besides you had no shot, she was porking Destro! So tell me how you namesake will differ from Murderdolls musically. What does it mean to have complete control over the direction of the band, and what is your ultimate vision for the band? Wednesday 13: I don’t think this a major departure from what I’ve done in the past. Murderdolls, musically was like my old band Frankenstein Drag Queens but the image was a lot different. This is a combination I think of everything I’ve done. I do what I know, and I haven’t tried to take on a new style. I just wanted something that I was a 100% in control of, so far everything has been like a complete computer print out of the vision I have in my head. Derek: Is Murderdolls still alive and well? Wednesday 13: Murderdolls is on a hiatus for now. We all have different things going on and no one knows when we will be getting back together to do another album or tour. Derek: What is the one song you are most excited about with Wednesday 13, and why? What does it mean…..please tell me you did a song about Constantine….what a great movie! Wednesday 13: There is no one song that I’m particularly excited about. I’m just excited about the whole record all together, I’m really proud of it. I love every song on the album and they were all carefully selected form a selection of about 100 songs I wrote for over a year. The first single “I walked with a zombie” is a favorite of mine and after seeing the finished video of the song it’s on a new level for me. Derek: Have you ever gotten a chance to play with the Misfits, and if not what would it mean for you to do so? Wednesday 13: I opened for the Misfits with my old band in 1998. Believe it or not, I wasn’t even a fan of them at the time and even though I’m a fan now and enjoy all of their stuff, they are not the reason I play music, or horror related themed songs. Actually, Alice Cooper has been my inspiration for what I do, as well as Twisted Sister, Motley Crue and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family..,..and Cobra the enemy!!! Derek: This is a question that might be a bit personal. But what is wrong with religion? I mean really? What is your opinion on it, and with the Pope about to kick off, what would you do if you were offered the dead Pope’s job? Wednesday 13: Religion is okay, if you keep yours to yourself and don’t shove it down everyone’s throat. I live in the bible belt of North Carolina where there is a church on every corner and an I love Jesus bumper sticker on every car, so I’m basically surrounded by it. If people need religion to make themselves complete and happy, then I have no problem with it, just dont throw it on me. The Popes job looks boring as fuck, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t want it. Derek: (laughs) Awesome! Any lasting impressions you would like to leave folks with about Wednesday 13. Wednesday 13: I just want people to have fun when they see my show or listen to my music. If your looking for the answers to the worlds problems you’ve came to the wrong place. Derek: Last question! Is Megatron more powerful then Optimus Prime? (laughs) Wednesday 13: Of Course Megaton is more powerful. Heres a question for you…is Starscream from Transformers voice actually that of Cobra Commander?? Derek: Good question I have always thought that it was the same person, but was far to lazy to do the research. But great observation! Best of luck with things, and hope to see you spooking around New England soon. Wednesday 13: Thanks! ———————— REMEMBER: Wednesday 13 Transylvania 90210 in stores 11th of April Also to celebrate the release A Monster Masquerade Ball will be held on April wednesday 13 at the London Islington Academy gig. See what we’ve done there, clever eh. The person at the gig with the best ghoul/horror attire will win two tickets to the aftershow to meet the band, a signed CD/poster, plus one of Wednesday’s super-limited ‘Devil Doll’ puppets. So start roaming camden for your attire, and if you havent got a ticket for the london show yet CLICK HERE and snap to it.

We catch up with Still Remains singer TJ Miller and guitarist Jordan Whelan in this brief online discussion… RR: Hey TJ! Are you up in Canada now to start the US Roadrage dates? TJ: Nope. Still in Indianapolis. We will be on our way there today and arrive there tomorrow. Our first night playing was last night, and we’ll meet up with the other Roadrage bands in Canada to kick that tour off. RR: Cool. So… how was the show last night? TJ: It was awesome. Plus we have friends from there so it was a lot of fun. Jordan: Yeah the show was fun. The best part was the bowling though, we played in this old run down bowling alley – it was great! Weird really? RR: Bowling? Not while playing guitar, obviouslyí¢ä‰åŒ_? Jordan: Ha. Duckpin bowling. The pins are extra little, and you play with mini bowling balls. Back home I bowl maybe 3-4 times a week. RR: As long as you didn’t throw each other at the pins. What songs did you play for everyone? TJ: Let me think, off the new album: To Live And Die By Fire, Recovery, White Walls, The Worst Is Yet To Come, Bliss, I Can Revive Him With My Own Hands. We played 6 And 1 from our old EP too. RR: Awesome. Have you guys decided yet what song from ‘Of Love And Lunacy’ you’re going to shoot a video for? TJ: Yeah. It’ll be for The Worst Is Yet To Come. Not sure yet when we are filming it, maybe even before the New York show at CBGBs in a week! RR: You must be looking forward to the US Roadrage tour starting tomorrow. Or are you not so much a fan of touring? Jordan: I’m really excited. I love being on the road! REMEMBER: Still Remains release ‘Of Love And Lunacy’ Out May 2. Expect UK tour dates to be announced shortly.

Tel Aviv, Israel. A musically ignored place, at least by the metal community í¢ä‰åäóì until now! Roadrunner Records is proud to announce their latest signing, the Israeli band – Betzefer. Thundering double bass, smashing metal’n’roll-riffs and a singer who seems to literally eat his mike í¢ä‰åäóì welcome to the harsh metal world of Betzefer, who initially got together for a high school gig (Betzefer is an ad lib translation of the Hebrew term í¢ä‰åñBeit Haseferí¢ä‰åŒ, meaning í¢ä‰åñschoolí¢ä‰åŒ). í¢ä‰åñOver here our musical style has not often been recognized in the media,í¢ä‰åŒ says guitarist and songwriter Matan Cohen. í¢ä‰åñAlthough Israel is a small country and there are a lot of bands here in the metal scene, bands can’t tour Israel. There are three major cities that everyone will eventually drive to anyway, so there are just 2-4 metal events every month. And still there are so many cliches: as if Metal was something evil and rotten.í¢ä‰åŒ í¢ä‰åñOf course, our country has big political problems í¢ä‰åäóì but our music should help kids to think of something other than what they see on TV every day: we are entertainment!í¢ä‰åŒ states vocalist Avital Tamir. And they are so good that Betzefer are already one of the most popular acts in their home country. Drawing on their influences of Pantera and Sepultura, and produced by Kris Belaen and mixed/mastered by Tue Madsen (The Haunted, Mnemic), Betzefer‘s debut album ‘Down Low’ is a veritable sledge hammer. ‘Down Low’ will be released Europe wide on June 6. However expect a sneak preview on the site in April

Machine Head drummer Dave McClain has posted the following message on the band’s official web site: “We just got some rough footage of the DVD that was shot at the Brixton Academy [in London] in December. The footage came out great thanks to the fine people at Roax films, and will be edited by none other than Mike Sloat (‘Imperium’, ‘Days Turn Blue To Grey’)! No title as of yet since ‘Dave Plays Brixton’ got rejected by the other guys! Anyway, we’re gonna be putting a snippet of it up on the site pretty soon, and I’ll give you a hint about what song it is… as Robb says, ‘We’re gonna go waaayyy back to an album called ‘Burn My Eyeeeesss’! This song is called ___!'” REMEMBER: MACHINE HEAD – Through The Ashes Of England’ DVD Due for release on May 16th The DVD will feature their storming live set from Brixton Academy plus a whole host of cool extras.

abrasiverock.com caught up with John Tardy from the almighty Obituary to discuss their forth comming release (due June), oh, and also a little bit about country music? CLICK HERE to read the article. REMEMBER: OBITUARY – ALBUM – OUT JUNE

Killswitch Engage – The End Of Heartache – Out Now Featuring 6 bonus tracks, beautiful new embossed artwork by Mike D (Bass), plus videos for ‘The End Of Heartache’ & ‘Rose Of Sharyn’. Despite the stunning packaging, you should be able to pick up the special edition for 퉌£13.99 from HMV, VIRGIN, MVC, MUSIC ZONE, and your local ROADRAGE STORE Alternatively, buy online from AMAZON CLICK HERE to view the new artwork