Rumours are surfacing that Rage Against The Machine will be joining up again.
Tom Morello, now with Audioslave, spoke to Billboard magazine about the likelihood of a reunion of the band which split in 2000. It is said that Zach De La Rocha and his former bandmates are on good terms and if the reunion was to happen, Coachella would be the venue for it.
Coachella’s spokespeople have said nothing about it, but fingers crossed!
British based metallers Chokehold have issued the following update regarding their sophomore effort ‘Sweet Sense of Genocide’:
“Just a quick update to let you know that we’re approaching the end of the writing process for our new album, which we have decided to title ‘Sweet Sense of Genocide’. The sessions have gone incredibly well, and with Dave ‘Love Hammer’ Andrews joining us on guitar we really feel we’ve begun to unlock a whole new dimension of the Chokehold sound. The band is a tighter, more determined unit than ever before, and we’re chomping at the bit to get this thing out there.
We hit Warehouse Studios in February for the recording and can’t wait lay down what is sure to be a monster of a record. Steve ‘Geezer’ Watkins will be in the hot seat and we’re delighted to have him on board. If anybody can maximise the full potential of this beast, it’s undoubtedly him. Rest assured that it shall represent a huge step forward both musically and personally as we push into the new year and beyond.”
Chokehold’s debut full-length ‘The Killing Has Begun’ was released in April 2006 via Casket Records. Produced by Nick Hemingway (Cancer, Fony, Desecration) the album received a string of sterling reviews both at home and abroad, with the song ‘Faith of Fear’ and its subsequent video receiving airplay on Total Rock Radio and Scuzz TV alike. Kerrang! Magazine also awarded the band a favourable 4K review for their role as headline act on 2006’s Casket Lullabies Tour alongside labelmates Sinocence and Sandstone.
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones are continuing to release unreleased material.
The band, who have been on hiatus since 2003, have been putting out rare and unreleased tracks online and the latest offering is a different recording of Another Drinking Song. The track, which comes from their well known album Let’s Face It, is now up on their myspace page.
Beck is to release an extended version of The Information, which was put out last year.
The new version of the record will feature three additional songs, a lyric book and six remixes.
In addition to the tracks, there will be two videos added – the Patrick Daughters directed Nausea and Michel Gondry’s Cellphone’s Dead. This new version is out on February 27th.
Maximo Park have announced that their second album will be called Our Earthly Pleasures.
The follow up to A Certain Trigger will be out on April 2nd and the band will release the single Our Velocity on March 19th. The band are to headline the Shockwaves NME Awards show on February 21st. The tracklisting for the album is:
‘Girls Who Play Guitars’
‘Our Velocity’
‘Books From Boxes’
‘Russian Literature’
‘Karaoke Plays’
‘Your Urge’
‘The Unshockable’
‘By The Monument’
‘Nosebleed’
‘A Fortnight’s Time’
‘Sandblasted And Set Free’
‘Parisian Skies’
Funeral For A Friend’s Matthew Davis will take his side project, The Secret Show, on tour.
The group, which pays tribute to Country heroes, will see their album Impressionist Road Map released on February 5th with the single, Lovers, following it on the 19th.
In support of these releases, the group will play the following dates:
February:
19th – Club Ifor Bach, Cardiff
20th – Borderline, London
21st – Barfly, Birmingham
Seminal death/grind legends Napalm Death are set to return to their roots on an impending UK pub tour. Bassist Shane Embury comments:
“We have the idea for sometime now to hopefully put together a U.K. tour of smaller clubs and pubs, as we haven’t really toured the U.K. as much as we would have loved in the past.
Occasionally, we have been to places as in Newtown, Wales where we met so many fans and saw such response to a local gig that they aranged there for some local bands that we got to thinking. Well, maybe we could do an extensive tour in smaller towns in the U.K. and play cities and towns that no one goes to.
“In a nutshell, we would love to hear from serious local promoters around the United Kingdom who would be up for such an idea. I know there’s an abundance of killer up-and-coming grind/hardcore/death metal bands who will hopefully be into playing their local towns with us also. I have heard from a couple of promoters over the past couple of months and we haven’t forgotten about you guys.
“Please only serious enquiries, but we would love to see this happen one day soon with killer local opening bands who can maybe help spread the word old-school style so we can all have some killer killer/fun shows.”
One of the most well known names in the mix tap scene has apparently been arrested by police under anti-piracy laws.
DJ Drama [aka Tyree Simmons], who is TI’s DJ, reportedly had a large number of CDrs taken from his offices.
There aren’t many details about this but apparently he has been bailed and another report claims that all the CDrs are going to be destroyed with Drama’s website being taken down.
Both Arcade Fire and Idlewild have changed release details recently.
Arcade Fire have changed their lead single from the new album from Keep The Car Running to Black Mirror with the release date due to be February 19th. The album is coming out on March 5th.
Meanwhile Idlewild have apparently put their new album and single back a week. Single No Emotion is now due out on the 26th of February with the album, Make Another World on March 5th. They will support these releases with the following live dates:
March:
12th – Newcastle University
13th – Manchester Academy
14th – Norwich UEA
16th – Wolverhampton Wulfrun
17th – Oxford Brookes University
18th – Leeds Met University
19th – Aberdeen Music Hall
20th – Perth Concert Hall
22nd – Northampton Roadmender
23rd – London Hammersmith Palais
24th – Bristol Carling Academy
Ewan McGregor is being lined up to play Kurt Cobain in a new biopic about the Nirvana star.
This rumour comes on the back of confirmation from Courtney Love that the film was in development and she also said 2 actors were being considered for the lead role. The film is expected to follow the Heavier Than Heaven biography by Charles R Cross.