Have you finished checking out all the photos we posted from Download 2004 yet? Well, like you, we’re still going to gigs this week – last night, the London Astoria for a great show by Bullet For My Valentine, Hatebreed, and Anthrax. m/ 20 or so new live HATEBREED photos now posted HERE. Go look. Then, head over to THIS PLACE for several brand new photos of new RR/Ferret band ZAO, from their recent official photo shoot. We’ve also added the band’s logo and their new artwork for forthcoming album ‘The Funeral Of God’… 47 minutes and 26 seconds of passion and fury that can only come from the strongest of believers, and the most desperate of givers. We also invite you to join us in the preamble to their darkest, most heartfelt album to date and listen to 3 new songs HERE. Zao are currently headlining the Ferret Music tour with Scarlet, Remembering Never and Twelve Tribes in the USA.

As you may know, a b-side from Slipknot’s Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) release – “Don’t Get Close” – was featured on Activision’s MTX Mototrax game released earlier this year (technically marking the first sounds heard from the new Slipknot recordings). But what you might not know, is that there are some cheat codes that can be used in the game… 86657457 – This code allows players to race as a Slipknot maggot, on a customized Slipknot motorcycle. 23F7IC5 – This passcode lets users see a short Slipknot movie. True. Check it out.

Machine Head sticksman returns from abroad…. “What’s up?! Well, after a week of sleeping I’m ready to write a diary, so here goes. First show, a headline show in Brussels. The day starts off great, I usually get up early and head to the show with the crew, I don’t know why, I just like seeing the whole thing come together and I get to hang out with my buddy Turtle! The crew start loading the gear into the venue and guess what? Our genius bus driver forgot to get my drums and some guitar cabs before he left London!!!! After the driver and Bus Co. got a verbal reaming from our Tour Manager we had to find a drumset in Brussels!! So the kit arrives and Turtle and I scramble to make it work. A true Spinal Tap moment!!! Next we played the Rock Hard Festival in Germany, We got our drums back for this one so it’s a good day, We headline and tear it up, thank you, good night! Next show is in Belfast, Ireland. We haven’t played there in a long time. We have a day off and learn that Britney Spears is playing down the street so we do? We do what any real Heavy Metal Band would do… Try to go! It didn’t happen, our booking agent over there didn’t get back to us in time so we sat down in the bar watching all the mom’s and daughters come in looking for Britney, Turtle actually got mistaken for her a few times and signed some autographs! Next day we show up at the venue and I walk in with the crew, a perfect place for a Machine Head show, it looks like it holds about 1,200 people and it already stinks inside!!! The show ruled!!! I think it was the hottest show we’ve ever played and the crowd was SICK!! Towards the end of the set someone decided that the sound board needed a beer, not good, no more P.A.!! We still had 4 songs to play so we turned our monitors toward the crowd and finished the show! God we’re awesome!! Next was Download Scotland, didn’t get to see much of the day, after we were done we had to load up a bunch of our stuff and fly to the next show in Germany cause we wouldn’t have made it in the bus. We drive to the airport in Glasgow, the crew loads up 45 pieces of equipment,we fly to London, crew loads gear into vans, stay at hotel for 3 hours, drive back to airport, crew loads gear on plane, fly to Frankfurt, Germany, crew loads gear into vans, drive for 2 1/2 hours to show… No sleep!!! We get to the Rock Am Ring festival and it’s POURING down rain, I gotta hand to our crew, after no sleep they were right up onstage getting everything ready while it’s freezing and raining The show was killer, Soil played while it was just pouring down rain sideways onto the stage, they were killer. Motorhead, Evanescence and Korn played too, I had never seen Evanescence before, Amy has got an amazing voice! Korn, what can you say, they’re an unbelievable live band, they had 50,000 people in the palm of their hands. Next day was Rock Am Park, pretty much the same lineup so it was cool talking to all the bands a little more. Next stop, Donington. This show for me was the one I was dreaming about playing, I would always hear about Iron Maiden and most of my favorite Metal bands playing the Castle Donington festival and now we we’re playing it!!!! The show is like a High School Reunion, everyone is there. First person I see when I got off the bus is Ahrue, we take a shuttle to the dressing room area and go our seperate ways, they’re onstage in about 45 minutes. I go up to the stage and start seeing everybody, talking with the Slipknot crew and watch Ill Nino rock for a little while, we get word that there’s been some problems with a band or two and we go on later now and Damage Plan is getting moved to the Main Stage and are going on right before us! I go up and say hi the DP guys talk to Vinnie and Dime for a minute, went over and said what’s up to the Slayer boys, their crew wasn’t there yet so they weren’t in the best of moods, but I was cause we were getting ready to play one of the coolest festivals EVER!!! The cool thing about playing a show like this is that for me the audience turns into the band and I’m the audience, a great experience and we were AMAZING if I do say so myself! After the show I was hanging out in the dressing room area and a guy who works for Metallica comes up and asks me if I knew any of their stuff… DUH!! At first I thought they were putting together a cover band for one the stages, then I heard that Lars was gonna be a no show!! I went straight to their dressing room and waited outside for my shot! They were already jamming with someone (I think Joey) so I waited and waited… never happened, Joey was doing pretty good in there and we had to leave before they went on but I heard he did killer, good for him, that’s any drummers dream come true! Next night was the Metal Hammer Awards, another High School Reunion! Hung out with everybody, Soil, God Forbid, Hatebreed, Damage Plan, In Flames, Mark from Chimaira, even hung out with Kerry King for a while and talked about music. A great night, drank about 43 Vodka and O.J.’s and even did a shot of Absinthe with Corey (God Forbid) and Mistress Julia. Went back to hotel and passed out for about 3 hours then off to the airport where after being on the plane for 3 hours they cancelled our flight!! mfg Mr. Demmel wasn’t having any of that, he went up and got us on the next flight out (they were trying to put us back in a hotel for the night) and we made it home. Life Fucking Rules!!!!!! Thank you, Good night!”

Download 2004 through the eyes of Cradle Of Filth frontman Dani: “I managed to see a few more bands than last time we were here in 2002, as our backstage area was right behind the main stage. I was surprised to see Opeth first. Didn’t know they were playing today? Great band. Monster Magnet got the crowd going and then it was our turn. í¢ä‰åñWe are never really sure what the fans are going to be like at something as big as this but for the thousands that were upfront chanting our name before we hit the stage it really helped pump up our adrenaline. As soon as the backdrop is lowered the fans really know we are only a few minutes away from appearing in the flesh. Bar the few technical hiccups, we hit stage like a bomb, opening with ‘Promise of Fever’ followed by ‘Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids’. í¢ä‰åñThen we treated our fans to the new track ‘Gilded Cunt’, which seemed to go down great. ‘Ghost in the Fog’ was the crowd pleaser and to finish was something we made a point of. WE ARE the most extreme band on the bill on a day like this, so why try be something we are not? ‘Ebony Dressed for Sunset’ was selected instead of ‘Cradle to Enslave’ and we finished the set with ‘The Forest Whispers my Name’. Two older, more extreme tracks that really emphasised us as being the black sheep of the day. A position we and our fans love and revel in. Oh, and this time there was no rain cloud. A great day for us and all.”

Tune in tomorrow to CD:UK to see a special clip of Slipknot at Download in News! Also, you can see the ‘Duality’ video being played on ‘Hot Shots’ on June 16th. NB: Tickets are now on sale for the Slipknot/Slayer tour in October – you can pick them up HERE.

Twelve Tribes scorching new album is released on Monday June 14th and can be purchased from HMV, Virgin, MVC, Music Zone and your local official ‘Roadrage’ store for around 퉌£9.99. Metal Hammer says: “Like the twelve tribes of Israel, Dayton Ohio’s Twelve Tribes have spent a while wandering in the wilderness. Their first demo was recorded seven years ago. Many disappointments, setbacks and frustrations followed, but Twelve Tribes kept going. Where contemporaries became media darlings, they turned instead to the basements and garages where they begun to hone their craft. On this, their first full-length release, it’s apparent that the time has been well spent. The fusion of melodic metal with elements of rock are as distinctive as they are exciting. Complex rhythm structures and unusual chord progressions are effortless dropped into the grainy mix of metalcore. Early influences, such as Faith No More, have now been completely assimilated into the music. The epic chord structure of ‘Baboon Music’ and soaring choruses of ‘The Train Bridge’ are testament to this. The album’s standout track, the catchy and brutal ‘Venus Complex’, deftly slides from crunching aggressive verse to uplifting melodic chorus, while displaying influences as diverse as Slayer and Smashing Pumpkins. Similar to Cave In, Twelve Tribes can dally with art-rock textured guitars í¢ä‰åäóì on tracks such as ‘Backburner’ and the excellently titled ‘Godshaped War’ í¢ä‰åäóì without diluting the power of the music. And there’s subtle elements of Rage Against The Machine’s trademark whisper-to-roar vocals on the wiry album closer ‘Flight Of The Patogen’. The wandering is over and Twelve Tribes have found the Promised Land and yay, it is good.”

Roadrunner U.S. are currently compiling the follow-up to last year’s ‘MTV2 Headbanger’s Ball’ double CD. Once again, it’s set to include 40 tracks from the coolest, cutting-edge heavy acts around and is due to be in stores late August. You can now watch ‘HBB’ in the UK, fronted by Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta, on MTV2.

The Download festival is over! Did you have a metal as fuck time? Send us in your tales from the festival… best emails may get a little something in the mail if you include your name and address. We warmed up for Download @ Donington by taking in London shows for 36 Crazyfists and Cradle Of Filth, both last Friday (June 4th). You can check out photos from both shows – 36 CRAZYFISTS HERE and CRADLE OF FILTH HERE. As for Download, don’t know about you lot, but with 8 of our bands playing over Saturday and Sunday (5 on the main stage), the staff here were running around like headless chickens all weekend! And yours truly was running in and out of dusty photo pits, while dodging flying bottles (always entertaining). One of our (many) highlights was watching Joey Jordison fill in for Lars with Metallica – was it worth spending over 2 hours getting out the car park after? You bet! We’ve posted up a few photos of the historic event in the Slipknot gallery, so do check ’em out. Did you know, in Germany after Download, Metallica presented Joey with a laminated set list from the night, with his name next to all the songs he played? True. Click on the below links to see our photos from the weekend. 36 CRAZYFISTS CRADLE OF FILTH DIRTY AMERICANS ILL NINO (and speaking of Ill Nino, did you know that the guys were in the UK til Wednesday, and took in the Drowning Pool, Soil, & Damage Plan show on Tuesday night in London? Cris even joined in for a few numbers!) HATEBREED MACHINE HEAD SLIPKNOT SOULFLY.

No, we are not talking about getting sunburnt (groan)… We are talking about the newly confirmed 8-date UK tour for our Ferret guys Scarlet, hitting these shores in August, with their buddies Hopesfall and Nora too. Pick up your tickets for the following dates: AUGUST 9 – LONDON UNDERWORLD 10 – LEEDS JOSEPH WELL 11 – MANCHESTER NIGHT AND DAY 13 – LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY 14 – NOTTINGHAM ROCK CITY 15 – SHEFFIELD CORPORATION 16 – OXFORD ZODIAC 17 – CARDIFF BARFLY

Come October, you will be able to catch both Slayer and Slipknot in the same night – on `The Unholy Alliance` tour. Confirmed dates are as follows: OCTOBER 3 Glasgow SECC 5 Birmingham NIA 6 Manchester MEN Arena 8 Cardiff International Arena 9 Hammersmith Apollo 10 Hammersmith Apollo There will be an opening act TBC and Slipknot will close all shows. Tickets go on sale this Wednesday!