New COC Album Tentatively Set For April Release

Sanctuary Records has set an April 5, 2005 tentative release date for the new Corrosion of Conformity album, entitled "En Los Brazos Del Dios." Songtitiles set to appear on the CD include "En los Brazos del Dios", "Never Turns to More", "Stone Breaker" and "World on Fire". Producing the album is C.O.C.'s longtime collaborator John Custer. Besides working on four of the band's previous albums, Custer also produced C.O.C. bassist Mike Dean's track on Dave Grohl's Probot project and C.O.C.'s contribution to "Nativity In Black", the Black Sabbath tribute compilation. Playing drums is New Orleans' Stanton Moore, skinsman for the renowned jazz-funk combo Galactic.

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Maiden, GNR Members To Appear At Benefit Concert

Members of Iron Maiden, Andrew WK, Murderdolls, Type O Negative, Disturbed, Poison, Guns N Roses, AC/DC, Orgy, Danzig, Fear Factory, W.A.S.P., Bang Tango, Quiet Riot, Beautiful Creatures, Cinderella, Lynch Mob, Danger Danger, Ministry, Misfits and Great White are among the musicians that have reportedly been confirmed to appear a benefit concert on Thursday, January 20, 2005 at the Hard Rock Café in Beverly Hills, California to raise funds to pay for the surgery and medical treatment of Raven Nicole Robinson, a two-month-old girl born with a very large hole in between the right and left pumping chambers of her heart.

According to a posting at RavensHeart.org, "[Raven's] condition is called Ventricular Septal Defect. Large ventricular septal defects cause problems, as the pressure in the right side of the heart decreases, blood will start to flow to the path of least resistance. This leads to congestive heart failure and must be treated. The most important sign of congestive heart failure is the baby's growth.

"Babies who have significant congestive heart failure will have failure to thrive and will have difficulty maintaining a normal weight gain in the first few months of life. Such is Raven's case, at birth she weighed 7 lbs. 7 oz. She is now [four] months old and struggles with every swallow; [Mother] Misse often feeds her with a medicine dropper and anticipates the usual vomiting that follows. Raven has just reached 8 lbs. She is on numerous medications to try and prolong her life until surgery."

Read the full article at RavensHeart.org.

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Headline News

Withering Surface Quits

Since the foundation of the band in 1994, Withering Surface committed them selves to melodic death metal. Seen by many as the Danish pioneers of the genre, they gained a large following from the early stage.

Lots of great experiences and events have taken place for the band. Most memorable are the concerts at the Roskilde Festival in 1999 and at Wacken Open Air in 2002, the tour with Dimmu Borgir and Old Man's Child in 1997 and the tour with Opeth and Arch Enemy in 2002. Plus of course the joy of having created, recorded and released the four albums, "Scarlet
Silhouettes" (1997), "The Nude Ballet (1998), "Walking On Phantom Ice" (2001) and "Force The Pace" (2004).

However, in December 2004 the five current members, Nikolaj Borg (drums), Jacob Krogholt (guitar), KB Larsen (bass), Allan Tvedebrink (guitars) and Michael H. Andersen (vocals) jointly decided to split up the band.

The most obvious reasons for the split are lack of inspiration and different opinions on the mission for the band.

The band would like to thank all the people who supported the band during the last decade and hope their music will live on forever. All (ex-) members of Withering Surface will continue with other musical projects.

The band will play a farewell concert in Copenhagen in the beginning of 2005.

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Aurora Borealis Line-up Changes & Recording Update

Aurora Borealis has finally started work on the 5th CD and the lineup has come full circle at long last. Tony Laureano (Nile, Dimmu Borgir, AngelCorpse) will be drumming as well as collaborating on writing of the new material. Tony played on the very first Aurora Borealis cd in 1996. Recording will be done at Nightsky Studios beginning January 31st. Any interested labels etc should contact Ron Vento at Aurora4dth@aol.com.

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The Haunted To Headline Scandinavian Tour

After their extraordinarily successful US tour with Damageplan (our sincere condolences to all relatives of the victims of the tragic incident – R.I.P., Dimebag) and labelmates Shadows Fall, the Swedish five-piece will now start to devastate Europe.

On January 26th 2005 The Haunted will head out for the “Close Up Made Us Do It Tour” as headlining act all over Scandinavia together with supports Totalt Jävla Mörker & Insision. The last show of this leg will take place in Arhus (DK) on February 13th. Afterwards the guys have a few days off to hang out at home before they fly to the UK in order to tear down the walls of the English clubs. The headlining tour will start February 24th and run up to March 7th with support acts Martyr AD & Dead To Fall. More European tourdates will be announced soon.

Here is Frontman Peter Dolving’s comment about the activities of the past months:

It’s been an insane, great, weird and sad year. We’ve received such a strong response to "rEVOLVEr" as we never have before and it feels - as you can probably imagine - well, like a lot of everything.

The spring of 2004 we did a tour in the UK with our brothers in Funeral For A Friend, playing for an audience completely new to us. I did that whole tour with four fractured ribs and it hurt like hell every night but we still had a good time. Seeing teenage girls screaming in the first row and watching as 2000 Emo-kids formed circle-pits as we played in Glasgow was amazing.

The six week US tour with Shadows Fall and Damageplan ended on a sour note with the slaying of Dimebag Darrell, but it was heavy fucking package, every show escalating the intensity as we all inspired each other to outdo ourselves, setting a new mark every night.

We intend to honour Dimebag’s memory by fucking shit up more ferociously than ever before and we look forward to seeing our fans throughout the UK – it’s a hard love thing, you know what I mean... If there was ever a mark for what we can achieve as a band - Well, this time we push the limits forward. See you there.

Close Up Made Us Do It Tour 2005 w/ Totalt Jävla Mörker & Insision: More...

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Russian Fans Swear Deep Purple is...Deep

Alan Cullison writes a piece about Deep Purple playing in Russia and what these aging rockers mean to the people there.

The crowd of long-haired men and women had been standing outside the Hotel Bashkortostan for hours, shivering against the sleet in their black leather jackets, when a cheer erupted. Through the main door teetered a sleepy man with a gray ponytail, surrounded by broad-shouldered bodyguards with ear-pieces.

It’s Roger Glover, bass player for Deep Purple. All but consigned to the dustbin of rock history in the West, the hard-rockers are a hot ticket in Russia’s hinterlands. For a generation of Russians now settling into the routine of midlife, the familiar chords of “Smoke on the Water” bring back memories of youthful rebellion against Soviet efforts to suppress heavy metal.

“Deep Purple is a higher form of life for us; it is genius, it is inspiration,” said Alexei Kuznetsov, 43 years old, who took a week off from his job at a gas-pipeline company to follow the band along the Volga. “This is like having Lenin alive again.”

Here in Russia’s rust belt, British bands with names like Deep Purple, Whitesnake and Nazareth compete with home-grown talent like Tchaikovsky. Four books about Deep Purple have been published in Russia, and a fifth is in the offing. In October, the band played in 17 cities in Russia and Ukraine.

Read the full article at Fort Wayne Gazette.

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Mastodon Plan European Tour In Early 2005

MASTODON have lined up the following European dates during February/March:

Feb. 09 - Glasgow, SCO - Cathouse/The Garage
Feb. 10 - Northumbria, UK @ Northumbria University
Feb. 11 - Birmingham, UK @ Acadamy 2
Feb. 12 - Manchester, UK @ Acadamy 3
Feb. 14 - Sheffield, UK @ Corporation
Feb. 15 - Oxford, UK @ Zodiac
Feb. 16 - London, UK @ Mean Fiddler
Feb. 17 - Exeter, UK @ Lemon Grove
Feb. 19 - Hamburg, GER @ Knust
Feb. 20 - Cologne, GER @ Underground
Feb. 21 - Berlin, GER @ Kato
Feb. 22 - Munich, GER @ Backstage
Feb. 23 - Vevay, SWI @ Rocking Chair
Feb. 25 - Milan, ITA @ Rainbow
Feb. 27 - Madrid, SPA @ Arena
Feb. 28 - Barcelona, SPA @ Mephisto
Mar. 02 - Brussels, BEL @ Abbox
Mar. 03 - Paris, FRA @ Boule Noir
Mar. 04 - Amsterdam, NETH @ Melkweg
Mar. 06 - Copenhagen, DEN @ Lille Vega
Mar. 07 - Malmo, SWE @ Kulturbolaget
Mar. 08 - Stockholm, SWE @ Klubben
Mar. 09 - Oslo, NOR @ John Dee
Mar. 11 - Helsinki, FIN @ Tavastia

MASTODON are continuing to tour in support of their latest release, "Leviathan", which was released in August via Relapse Records. The follow up to 2002's "Remission", "Leviathan" entered the Billboard Top 200 chart at No. 139.

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