IRON MAIDEN, DIO, and MOTÖRHEAD will be teaming up for a two-month North American tour during July-September, reliable sources have informed BLABBERMOUTH.NET. Although no official word has yet come down on the matter, it is understood that MINISTRY and ANTHRAX are among the acts currently under consideration for the opening/support slots on the bill.

IRON MAIDEN have just completed work on the follow-up to 2000's "Brave New World" and are scheduled to embark on the European leg of their "Give Me Ed… 'Til I'm Dead World Tour" in late May.

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Sweden's IN FLAMES have finalized the track listing for their forthcoming EP, "Trigger", due shortly through the Nuclear Blast label. It is as follows:

01. Trigger (single Edition)
02. Watch Them Feed (new song)
03. Land Of Confusion (GENESIS cover)
04. Cloud Connected (Club Connected Remix)
05. Moonshield (C64 Karoke Version)

In other news, the band posted the following update to their official web site, www.inflames.com:

"Hello all, thanx a million for the GREAT support from both old and new fans on IN FLAMES/MUDVAYNE tour in the US . We had a great time , and as usual we met some ...

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Finland's NIGHTWISH will enter the studio on October 27 to begin recording the follow-up to last year's "Century Child". The band will once again use their own studio in Kitee to record the drums, bass and keyboards/synths, while the vocals and guitars will be recorded at Helsinki's Finnvox facility.

NIGHTWISH hope to complete the recordings by the end of March 2004 and issue the as-yet-untitled effort in early June.

"I am definitely feeling some pressure with regards to the songwriting for the new album, I won't even try to deny that," said NIGHTWISH keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen. "But I have already written one very good track, so I'm ...

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Swedish melodic metallers HAMMERFALL have announced the following summer festival appearances:

Jun. 27 - Bang Your Head - Balingen, GER
Jul. 04 - Sundsvalls Gatufest - Sundsvall, SWE
Jul. 05 - Toreboda Festival - Toreboda, SWE
Jul. 25 - Karlskoga Stranddagar - Karlskoga, SWE
Aug. 30 - Bloodstock Metalfest - Derby, UK

In addition, the band have lined up a three-date tour of the Czech Republic in late June.

The details are as follows:

Jun. 28 - Masters Of Rock, Vizovice, CZ
Jun. 29 - Centre of town, Jihlava, CZ
Jun. 30 - Hall Lokomotiva, Plzen, CZ

In other HAMMERFALL-related news, guitarist Oscar Dronjak recently poste ...

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The complete lineup and running order has been announced for Rock Hard Festival 2003, a two-day event set to take place June 7-8 at Amphitheater in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. It is as follows:

Saturday, June 7:
01. GOD DETHRONED
02. TRIBE AFTER TRIBE
03. CIRCLE II CIRCLE (feat. guest appearance by Jon Oliva)
04. TROUBLE
05. NEVERMORE
06. KREATOR
07. ANTHRAX
08. BLIND GUARDIAN (headliner)

Sunday, June 8:
01. DARKANE
02. THRESHOLD
03. SOILWORK
04. CANDLEMASS
05. BOLT THROWER
06. DEATH ANGEL
07. IN FLAMES
08. SAXON (headliner)

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RIOT guitarist Mike Flyntz and ex-RIOT frontman Tony Moore have joined forces in a new band called FAITH AND FIRE. The band, who are completed by bassist Danny Miranda (BLUE OYSTER CULT) and drummer John Miceli (RAINBOW, MEAT LOAF), have just begun recording final tracks at Paul Orofino's Millbrook Studios for a 13-song CD slated for a summer 2003 release.

Among the tracks set to appear on the CD are the following:

01. Accelerator
02. Fallen
03. Villanelle
04. Faith And Fire
05. Ready
06. Angel

For more information, including MP3 samples, visit the band's official web site at www.faith-and-fire.com.

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GAMMA RAY have pushed back the release date of their double live album, "Skeletons In the Closet", from the end of May to August 25.

The mixing of the album is not yet complete owing to the late delivery of the unmixed audio masters from the mobile studio in Spain. The initial problems occurred during the live recording process at which, it was later discovered, the two recording machines were not linked for a large part of the show and therefore not synchronized. As well as this some of the audio files were "lost".

Subsequently, it has taken two engineers a long time to recall the "lost" files and re-align the machines so the recording machines were running in ta ...

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NIGHTRAGE, a brand new Swedish melodic death "supergroup" consisting of drummer Per M. Jensen (THE HAUNTED, INVOCATOR), melodic vocalist Tom S. Englund (EVERGREY), main vocalist Tomas Lindberg (AT THE GATES, THE CROWN, guitarist Gus G. (DREAM EVIL, FIREWIND), guitarist Marios Iliopoulos (EXHUMATION), and bassist Brice Leclercq, have signed a deal with Century Media Records. The group's debut album, "Sweet Vengeance", was recorded and mixed by Fredrik Nordstrom at Studio Fredman in Gothenburg. It is due later in the year.

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ANATHEMA guitarist Daniel "Danny" Cavanagh has posted the following message to the band's official web site:

"The demos for the next album(s) are coming along well. [Bassist] Jamie [Cavanagh] arrives in England today 29th of March to start rehearsals for the gigs and for the albums too. He has some great new material. Similarly do the rest of the guys. There is such a wealth of songs that our biggest difficulty is gonna be to make one album from all the great stuff on offer. Not sure of the title yet, but the plan is to make it this year in time for an autumn release. Song titles include: 'The Natural Disaster', 'Closer', and 'Flying'. We are getting along very well now and the albums should be strong when they are done. We hope to go into a studio in May/June for a couple of weeks, mapping out everything that we have, jamming live and just generally being creative. After that, we'll see what the best album we can make is, and go forward to do that."

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UFO bassist Pete Way has issued the following statement regarding former EUROPE guitarist John Norum's addition to the group:

"John is a very good friend of [UFO singer] Phil [Mogg ] and myself, a guitar player we both admire, and we have talked about playing with him for a long time. I can't tell anything exact about UFO at the moment because it is still being put together. It is difficult to be specific about things at this time, because everything is still in the earliest stages. We can't be more specific because we can't risk endangering our people on the ground. (laughs)"

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