Finnish folk metallers ENSIFERUM will embark on a tour to South Africa at the end of October 2010, for the first time in the band’s history, in support of the band’s latest album, From Afar (released via SpineFarm Records).

ENSIFERUM’s main supporting act for the tour will be South African melodic death metal outfit RIDDARE AV KODEN. Each show will also feature a host of local supporting acts, that includes WARTHANE, AGRO, PLEDGE DEFIANCE and HAGGIS & BONG.

Confirmed ENSIFERUM South Africa tour dates and venues are below:

October 27 – Durban @ Burn Nightclub
October 28 – Fourways @ Cool Runnings
October 29 – Weltevreden @ Rumours
October 30 – Boksburg @ The Black Dahlia

Go to SMNnews

Calling all SOILWORK fans in Australia! We’re going to be hitting DOWN UNDER for Australian tour dates this October!

Soilwork Australian Tour October 2010

October 21 – Brisbane – The Hi Fi
October 22 – Sydney – Manning Bar
October 23 – Melbourne – The Hi Fi
October 27 – Adelaide – Fowlers Live (All Ages)
October 28 – Perth – Rosemount

Go to SMNnews

With every new LORDI album comes a brand new look for the band and now with the imminent arrival of the band’s fifth studio album Babez for Breakfast, LORDI has new masks to reveal. This time their costumes as well as the music on the new album have a hint of the golden 80’s.

The main architect of the costumes and the head of the band, Mr. Lordi, describes the outfits as follows:

The new masks are meaner than the earlier ones.  They are also more colorful than before. They have something old, a lot of new, borrowed stuff and even blue! Amen has returned from Deadache-album look back to our first album Get Heavy. Lady Awa has undergone such a fashionable cosmetic surgery, which has made her look younger. Kita is a retrospective of himself and Ox has animalized even more. And I have brought snakes with me.”

Lordi’s fifth studio album Babez For Breakfast will be released on September 14, 2010 in the US, September 15 in Europe and on October 27 in Japan. The album was recorded in the beginning of 2010 in Nashville, Tennessee with producer Michael Wagener (who mixed Master of Puppets).

The first single from the album “This Is Heavy Metal” will be released digitally on August 10. Music available at: http://www.myspace.com/lordi.

Go to SMNnews

Sweden’s melodic death metal masters SOILWORK will be ripping up Australian shores for only the third time this October. SOILWORK will be touring on the back of the release of their eighth studio album, The Panic Broadcast.

Soilwork Australian Tour October 2010

October 21 – Brisbane – The Hi Fi
October 22 – Sydney – Manning Bar
October 23 – Melbourne – The Hi Fi
October 27 – Adelaide – Fowlers Live (All Ages)
October 28 – Perth – Rosemount

Go to SMNnews

SHRINEBUILDER announces Baltimore date:

November 13 — Baltimore, MD @ Sonar

The highly anticipated SHRINEBUILDER full-length features the patented skills of Scott Kelly of NEUROSIS, Dale Crover of MELVINS, Scott “Wino” Weinrich of ST. VITUS, THE OBSESSED, SPIRIT CARAVAN, and Al Cisneros of SLEEP channeling their energy into one massive culmination of spiritualized, doomed-out rock. The record was released October 27 on Neurot Recordings.

FLYLEAF and Shockhound are giving away 30 pairs of free tickets to Lacey and the boys’ secret Shockhound Sessions performance, which will be taped somewhere in the Los Angeles area on the late afternoon of Tuesday, October 27.

To win your free pair of tickets to the taping all you need to do is A) be a registered Shockhound.com user, and B) be among the first 30 people to correctly answer all five of the Flyleaf trivia questions at Shockhound.com

All winners (16+) will also automatically be added to the list for Thursday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Show performance.

GWYNBLEIDD has revealed a third new track from its upcoming debut full-length, Nostalgia, hitting stores October 27 on BlackCurrant Music. The song, “Thawing Innoncence,” can be heard over at Metal Underground.

Victory are running a :30 spot in support of DESTROPHY’s self-titled album, which will be out at the end of the month on October 27. The ad should be in heavy rotation on Headbangers Ball over the next four weeks:

Taiwanese metallers CHTHONIC just kicked off their North American tour in support of their new album “Mirror of Retribution”.  The tour features Satyricon, Bleeding Through and Toxic Holocaust and runs through October 27 in Montreal, Quebec.

Bassist Doris Yeh comments:

“After 2 years, we finally have our new album ‘Mirror of Retribution’ out on Spinefarm Records, and this is our second North American tour. We’re very excited to see the fans here, and we just met the members of Bleeding Through, they’re very nice people, but including the members of the band and staff, there will be a total 15 people on the bus!! Whew! That will be a huge family on the bus!”

Take 4 in WOLFMOTHER’s Transmissions From The Cosmic Egg shines a little light on the new players in the WOLFMOTHER traveling roadshow. We hear the stories about how Andrew Stockdale came across these wandering minstrels and how they came to join the band…. Cosmic Egg will hit stores October 27: