..."it was good for us."

Revolver magazine reports in its February 2007 issue that BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE's latest album, "The Poison", catapulted the band into the U.K. limelight. Within no time, they found themselves being mentioned in the same breath as AVENGED SEVENFOLD and TRIVIUM, two other young bands that wear their love for old-school metal on their tattooed sleeves.

"The three biggest bands of the moment, that have got the biggest buzz and are making the biggest impact, are us, TRIVIUM and AVENGED," BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE frontman Matt Tuck told Revolver. "We've known them for, like, two years now, but we really got close with them this summer, when we all opened for METALLICA in Europe and played a lot of the same festivals. We're all very ambitious young men — we all have the same goals. And there's no rivalry. We all hang out, get drunk, and it's just cool. There's no bullshit.

"It seems like it's kind of meant to be, like it's part of a cycle," he continued. "You've got GUNS N' ROSES, METALLICA and IRON MAIDEN, and now there's us, TRIVIUM, and AVENGED. AVENGED have the GUNS N' ROSES thing, TRIVIUM have the METALLICA thing, and we've got the MAIDEN thing. It just seems right, in a spooky way."

In addition to the aforementioned METALLICA gigs, BULLET scored what Tuck describes as "dream-come-true" opening slots with GUNS N' ROSES and IRON MAIDEN in 2006. They also opened a U.S. tour for ROB ZOMBIE and LACUNA COIL, though their participation in that particular endeavor came to a premature close after Tuck posted a rant on BULLET's official message board calling the ZOMBIE camp "money-grubbing fucks" for forcing the other bands on the tour to sell their T-shirts at inflated prices.

"A fan was bitching on our web site about the T-shirt prices and how short our set was," guitarist Michael "Padge" Paget explained. "They were doing price-matching on the shirts, and it was all totally out of our hands, so Matt just kind of told him the truth of how it was. And that was then put up on Blabbermouth [See previous BLABBERMOUTH.NET stories: Story#1, Story#2, Story#3, Story#4], and someone e-mailed it to Rob Zombie himself. It was a misunderstanding, but Zombie wanted us off the tour, so we left."

"I'm not proud of it, but it didn't hinder us in any way at all," Tuck said of the Zombie incident. "If anything, it helped us — the album sales shot up the week afterward! And then, the three weeks we had back home because of that, we wrote a whole bunch of new songs that are going to be on our next album."

...seriously, be a member of f*cking Glassjaw!

According to MTV.com, the reunited GLASSJAW are offering fans a chance to become the band's next ex-member. The winner will be made an official member of the band, get kicked out, then will be listed as an ex-member on the band's web site and even receive a phone call from an actual former member of GLASSJAW. More information on the contest can be found at the band's MySpace page.

GLASSJAW singer Daryl Palumbo recently told MTV.com about GLASSJAW's upcoming CD, "The band is totally reinvigorated . . . We've been writing, we've been rehearsing every day, and we've got some new shit together. I can't wait to get back out there, because GLASSJAW's me. It's my personality. It's a huge part of me — being that angry and playing those songs and being in that mood. I need it, I need it — absolutely need it."

"With GLASSJAW, it's been about 13 years in the making, and I think that we'll get that product out of us that we've wanted all these years," Daryl said. "For this particular band, at this particular point in our career, to get the four of us in a room — I think some beautiful shit's gonna happen. But it's going to take a little while. We still have to finish the writing and the recording, and I have lots to do with HEAD AUTOMATICA in the next year. It's going to be a balancing act for me, so it's going to take a minute. Both records will happen at the right pace, but I would like to have them both out next year. That would make me so fucking happy."

Watch Rob Flynn and the boys fill you in on how it's all going

Enter the studio with MACHINE HEAD in part two of "The Blackening Sessions", a behind-the-scenes look at the band as they record their upcoming album, "The Blackening". Head on over to the "Media" page of the band's official web site at this location to watch the clip.

MACHINE HEAD's sixth studio album, "The Blackening" is tentatively due on March 27, 2007 via Roadrunner Records (one day earlier internationally). The group recorded the new CD at Sharkbite Studios in Oakland, CA, with MACHINE HEAD frontman Robert Flynn returning to the producer's chair, and Mark Keaton once again handling engineering duties. Longtime MACHINE HEAD collaborator Colin Richardson (CANNIBAL CORPSE, TRIVIUM, BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE) mixed the record alongside Flynn in London. The band also tapped longtime MACHINE HEAD artist Paul Brown (MARILYN MANSON) to work on the album art.

"The Blackening" tentative track listing (not in final order):

01. Clenching the Fists of Dissent
02. Beautiful Mourning
03. Aesthetics of Hate
04. Now I Lay Thee Down
05. Slanderous
06. Halo
07. Wolves
08. A Farewell to Arms


In a recent interview with MTV.com, Flynn stated about the upcoming CD, "We really didn't want to play it safe on this record. We kind of came back from the dead with 'Through the Ashes of Empires', and the safest thing we could've done would've been to just stay in [that] vein and try to keep that formula because it worked last time. Not that there was a formula really. We just started writing and the music that we were writing just started going in this far more complex, intricate and layered direction. It's not like we sat there and intentionally did it. It just kind of [happened]. Pretty soon we ended up having 10-minute-long songs. But the thing that's really cool about it is, we're not just jamming on three riffs for 10 minutes. This is molten riffage — just 20, 30 crushing riffs per song."

MACHINE HEAD will team up with LAMB OF GOD, TRIVIUM and GOJIRA for a North American tour in February-April 2007. (NOTE: MACHINE HEAD will go on **before** TRIVIUM and will perform a 40-minute set every night.)

DEMISE OF EROS
‘NEITHER STORM NOR QUAKE NOR FIRE’

(STRIKE FIRST)
http://www.demiseoferos.com
Buy: http://www.breakmyears.com
Rating: [7]
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Pittsburgh fivesome Demise Of Eros certainly know their metalcore. Dual guitar harmonies, kick drums and rasping vocals are here in abundance, so if you enjoy gorging on Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine then you’re in for a feast. But for the less metalcore-obsessed, it’s the genre-hopping surprises that taste the sweetest. ‘Engraved On My Palms’ has shifting proggy rhythms, ‘Reach For The Sky, Punk’ drops into deep death growls before reaching an Opeth-style zenith, and end track ‘Of Ages Past’ incorporates some gothic piano work. Demise Of Eros also have a soft side, as evidenced by the smatterings of acoustic and Spanish guitar. If music be the food of love, Demise of Eros will soon be fighting off attention.

A STATIC LULLABY
‘A STATIC LULLABY’

(FEARLESS)
http://www.astaticlullaby.com
Buy: http://www.breakmyears.com
Rating: [6]
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The follow-up ‘Faso Latido’, A Static Lullaby’s ill-fated debut (and only) major label album, finds the Californian quintet sadly treading water. Following a massive line-up shuffle that saw the departure of three members, the band have failed to return with anything that marks them out in an increasingly turgid scene. That’s not to say that A Static Lullaby don’t play the screamo game with greater aplomb than their cohorts; unlike so many of the soundalikes who have risen and fallen since ASL’s inception five years ago, these guys are fine songwriters and don’t do it by numbers. The problem being that, regardless of their abundant ability and experience, this album by default sounds old. Still, worth a look-in if you cling dear to quality purveyors the format.

THE BRONX
‘THE BRONX’
(WICHITA)

Rating: [9]
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Deep down The Bronx must be feeling pretty smug with themselves right now; safe in the knowledge that they have not only recorded a damn fine follow-up to their 03 self-titled debut, they’ve also recorded by far the best punk rock album of 06, leaving all competition in the dirt.
In fact, if there is any band at all who think they’re good enough to challenge this album, please step forward, ‘cos I’m curious to hear anything surpass The Bronx right now. Starting off with some Swahili chant (or something like that), the quartet kick in with the frantic, relentless ‘Small Stone’ before laying waste with the agitated ‘Shitty Future’ and the bombastic groove, sleaze and dirty bass rumbles of ‘History’s Stranglers’. Albums never start off as well as this!
Matt Caughthran’s rasp controls the show as he erupts with the kind of conviction the likes of M Shadows and Matt Tuck could only dream of. Meanwhile, Joby J Ford demonstrates true guitarmanship without the OTT fret-wanking twaddle with which most of today’s players have become obsessed.
And yet this album is by no means a one-dimensional affair. Rather than rewriting their phenomenal punk rock masterpiece debut (recorded in Gilby ‘Guns N’ Roses’ Clarke’s garage), The Bronx have demonstrated they are by no means one-trick ponies. If they had repeated the formula that worked so well on the debut, then The Bronx would be written off as boring fuckers but, as with all great bands, reinvention is of the essence.
The subdued ‘Dirty Leaves’, complete with subtle keyboards, finds Mssrs Caughthran, Ford, Tweedy, and Vik exploring their musical horizons. ‘Transsexual Blackout (The Movement)’ is a hip-swinging boogie rocker and ‘Around The Horn’ is a bad-boy dirt-fest. Closer ‘White Guilt’, replete with slide guitar and Caughthran’s croons of “Too many lines, one too many times”, almost sounds like The Rolling Stones (hey, I did say almost), and ensures ‘The Bronx’ ends on a high. It’s all over in little more than 30 minutes, so there’s no room for aural diarrhea – just tonnes of confidence and damn good songs!
The Bronx will bludgeon your ears in a far more genuine and accomplished fashion than Avenged Sevenfold. And they don’t wear make-up either. If The Bronx haven’t changed your life already, then they sure as hell will do now!

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE
‘AS DAYLIGHT DIES’
(ROADRUNNER)

Rating: [9]
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It really should be getting boring by now. Four albums of metallic and melodic pre-screamo post-hardcore metal for the masses should be enough for the punters and the press alike. A backlash, if not already forthcoming, should be ready and waiting to greet any band who have the temerity to make records that affirm and enhance their original sound while breaking limited new ground. Fans should stray to the hot new sound and critics should vehemently froth and decry for all to hear. For any other band it would mean trouble. But for Killswitch Engage it is not. Their fourth record is nothing new, nothing revolutionary, and certainly nothing shocking – and from that description it sounds tired, tawdry and tepid. It is anything but.
‘Daylight Dies’ opens the album with trademark stomp and bombast, a blitz-like attack with chugging riffs and blasting vocals, and it takes until third track ‘The Arms Of Sorrow’ for the initial rush to subside, as the band introduce the more serene style for which they are known. This gives frontman Howard Jones the chance to showcase his vocal lift and register while guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz and company playfully throw a Botch-esque breakbeat under the singer to keep the undercarriage undulating, and ensure the track veers away from aping ‘Rose Of Sharyn’. It does sail close and of course it is no comparison to the stellar ‘My Last Serenade’, but the song is another excellent addition to the band’s burgeoning canon. The fifth track of 11 laid down, ‘My Curse’, with its sweetly picked guitar line and sulphurous mid-sections, provides the hook on which the whole album can hang. Epic, expansive and emotive, the effort is vintage Killswitch, the distilled essence of a band at their most musically articulate and confident. Truly outstanding. Following this, as a moment of poignancy sixth cut ‘For You’ is difficult to beat; Jones contemplates his life, his faith, and his position in the world more openly than on previous occasions, being eloquent but not exclusive, being deeply personal yet utterly universal.
These moments and more contribute to another album that defies logic from Killswitch Engage. How can they keep their sound so similar but so fresh? How do they keep their ship so steady? How can they keep getting better? Who knows. What is obvious is that Killswitch Engage are different, their sound matures but still retains all elements of its evolution; they laugh, joke, and act the fool, but their music is both credible and serious. Simply put, the rules do not apply to the Massachusetts quintet.
‘As Daylight Dies’ is similar to previous efforts, even samey at times, but it still sounds stunning. It should not make sense. It does.