After close to ten years as a guitarist in Iced Earth, the time has come for me to step away. Some of you know, but many do not, that I have a child with Autism.  In the past I had a great support system that has allowed me to pursue a career in music. That is no longer the case and it has forced me to make a difficult decision. I’ve always believed that family comes first, and now it is time for me to focus on that.  

The multi-platinum Grammy-winning rock band KORN have unveiled the strange and fascinating video for “Insane” today (August 22). Directed by Ryan Valdez, it’s a ghastly take on post-mortem photography or ‘momento mori,’ the practice of preserving loved ones after death with images.  

OSLO – Mortiis will issue the fourth free download single, “Geisteskrank,” in support of The Great Deceiver on August 26 at www.mortiis.com.  

As TAKING BACK SUNDAY gear up for their upcoming US tour through intimate clubs this September and October, the alt-rock quintet are unleashing “You Can’t Look Back”, the second single and video from their seventh album TIDAL WAVE (Hopeless Records; release date: September 16, 2016).  

Originality isn’t just rooted in some new sound an artist creates. Oftentimes, the simplest change in instrumentation is enough to make a band with a familiar sound become fresh to the listener of a genre that’s been long played out and often mimicked countless times. Take Beyond Creation, for example: not only is their songwriting tight, but that emphasis on a fretless bass and instrumental sections gave tech death the kick in the teeth it needed.  

Guitar icon ZAKK WYLDE today has debuted an all new music video for his latest single “Sleeping Dogs” featuring Slipknot / Stone Sour frontman COREY TAYLOR. The track has gone on to become the most successful active rock radio single of Wylde’s career reaching as high as #22 in the U.S. and #11 in Canada. Directed by long time collaborator Justin Reich, the video can be seen below.  

If you told me that one day Carcass and Deafheaven would be doing a tour together, I’d shrug it off. Probably the same way I would have said that they would never tour with Lamb of God, either, but that happened, as well. Now in an effort to prove me wrong, both of those bands have banded together for what is without a doubt an amazing, albeit questionable tour in recent memory.  

Temple of the Dog – the Seattle supergroup featuring Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell, Pearl Jam’s Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, and Mike McCready, and drummer Matt Cameron (who plays drums with both Soundgarden and Pearl Jam) – has reunited and will tour for the first time ever since forming in 1990. Listen to the band’s previously unreleased track “Black Cat” below… On September 30th UMe will release a special Temple of the Dog 25th anniversary reissue collection of their landmark album, newly mixed by Brendan O’Brien. The collection will be available in four configurations, including a four disc Super Deluxe, a double LP, a two CD Deluxe, and a single CD. Physical... 

I spoke to my friend recently about the state of music being released this year and expressed some concern: I don’t actually love anything that has come out so far. Make no mistake, 2016 is a great year overall and everything has generally been really, really good. My reviews say enough. Yet I still haven’t found an album I’ve listened to and fallen for it. By this point last year, I had amassed enough albums that I had come to love, and it was apparent I’d have plenty to pick from at the end of the year. Almost all of my favorite bands have released albums this year, but aside from the Death Fortress album, I’ve been having more and more difficulty finding anything that I’ve truly loved.  

Multi-Platinum rock band, Candlebox, will be headlining U.S. dates in November before heading over to the UK and Europe for a headline tour in January 2017 in support of their recently released sixth studio album, Disappearing In Airports.  Jeff Angell’s Staticland will be the special guest.  

Metallica will release their eleventh studio album, Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, on November 18th, via Blackened Recordings. The 2 CD / 2 Vinyl set is the Grammy® Award winning Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s first studio album since 2008’s multi-platinum Death Magnetic. Hardwired…To Self-Destruct is available for pre-order at www.Metallica.com starting today in various configurations including: CD, Vinyl, Digital, Deluxe, and Deluxe Deluxe Versions. The albumis produced by Greg Fidelman, who engineered and mixed Death Magnetic.  

When you forget about sub-genres, there’s actually two kinds of successful musical acts in the world. Either an artist manages to constantly push their sound and develop as they go, which hopefully means they’re getting better, as well. The other group consists of the ones with a winning formula, in which they know how to make their fans happy and keep drawing in new ones to keep ascending in fame. Either way, artists who have found success know which of the two categories they fall into, and as such they will thrive off of it so long as they are doing well for themselves.