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Technical metal pioneers Shadows Fall have been added to this year's Sounds of the Underground Tour. The band will play the final co-headline slot, alternating with already announced bands Chimaira and Every Time I Die and headliners Gwar.

"It is going to be another summer of insanity for the boys in Shadows Fall and we couldn't be more stoked," says Shadows Fall singer Brian Fair. "Not only are we looking forward to partying with our friends in Darkest Hour, Every Time I Die, Chimaira and Gwar, but also to check out some killer music at one of the summers most diverse festival tours. We are planning on playing a set that will include songs from the early days of Shadows Fall up to our new album threads of life and leaving a wake of devastation behind. So bust out the sun screen, put the beers on ice and get ready to rock cuz the Shads are coming back to town."

Shadows Fall will be touring to support their new album Threads of Life, which came out April 3.

Other groups on this year's Hot Topic Presents Sounds of the Underground Tour include: Job For a Cowboy, Necro, Darkest Hour, Amon Amarth, The Acacia Strain, The Devil Wears Prada, Heavy Heavy Low Low, The Number Twelve Looks Like You, Goatwhore, This Is Hell, and 2 Cents.

The festival has also announced surprise guests in select cities. Thrash metal veterans Testament will play before Gwar at the Starland Ballroom on July 14 in New Jersey. Mushroomhead will close the show in their hometown of Cleveland, Ohio on July 21 and will also perform as special guests in Columbus on July 22, Chicago on July 23, and Minneapolis on July 24. Skatecore pioneers Suicidal Tendencies will close shows in San Jose, California on August 3, Irvine, California on August 4, and Mesa, Arizona on August 5. Modern thrash titans Lamb of God will headline a recently added date on August 11 in Louisville, Kentucky and will be joined by special guests Hatebreed and Behemoth.

This year's Sounds of the Underground launches July 6 in Dallas and runs through August 11 in Louisville.

Anyone for Shadow's Fall's "Enlightened by the Cold" video?:

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It's another slow week for new metal, but that doesn't mean there's nothing that'll frazzle your synapses. Case in point, the gurgle-icious new Vomitory album, Terrorize, Brutalize, Sodomize (Metal Blade). The band's fourth disc is their first in 15 years to not feature guitarist Ulf Dalegren. He has been replaced by Peter Östlund, and to our mangled ears, there's no a whole lot of difference. The disc is raw, savage and destructive and features the best production of Vomitory's splattery career, courtesy of Rikard Löfgren, who, we have been assured, is no relation to Nils. Even the slow most parts of this album are brutal. This is modern death metal at its finest.

Beyond the Sixth Seal - The Resurrection of Everything Tough (Metal Blade) This Weymouth, Massachusetts band released an album and an EP before breaking up in 2003. Recently they reformed as the side project of The Red Chord guitarist and vocalist Mike McKenzie and bassist Greg Weeks. And though they're not going to tour and are no longer anyone's main priority, their second full-length album, The Resurrection of everything Tough, is a powerful return, combining the ferocity of post-hardcore and noisecore with the gleaming thrust of Scandinavian melodic death metal.

Also of note:
Deadlock -- Wolves (Lifeforce)
The Fall Of Troy - Manipulator (Equal Vision)
Tub Ring -- The Great Filter (The End)

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The best metal band that never existed, Spinal Tap, will reunite at London's Wembley stadium to perform at the Live Earth concert on July 7.

"They're not that environmentally conscious, but they've heard of global warming," director Rob Reiner, who co-wrote and directed the legendary 1984 film, "This is Spinal Tap," told the Associated Press. "[Guitarist] Nigel [Tufnel] thought it was just because he was wearing too much clothing -- that if he just took his jacket off it would be cooler."

The London concert will also feature Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Beastie Boys, Madonna, Black Eyed Peas and others. A simultaneous show at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey will feature Smashing Pumpkins, Fall Out Boy, Kanye West and others. Live Earth concerts will also be staged on July 7 in Shanghai, China; Johannesburg, South Africa; Sydney, Australia; Tokyo, Japan; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In addition to playing Live Earth, the members of Spinal Tap -- singer and guitarist David St. Hubbins (actor Michael McKean), guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) recently got back together with Reiner to film a 15-minute mockumentary Spinal Tap update. The clip, which debuted on Wednesday at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, reveals that since Spinal Tap's last reunion, Hubbins has worked as a rap music producer, Tufnel has been a ranch hand for miniature ponies and Shearer has been in Internet addict rehab.

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England's dark, ultra-heavy goth-metal band My Dying Bride aren't scheduled to play these shores any time soon, but thanks to a heads-up from Blabbermouth.net, we can point you to a full live concert from April 20 at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, Holland.

The show features songs spanning My Dying Bride's career, from their first full-length album, 1992's As the Flower Withers right through to their ninth album, A Line of Deathless Kings, which came out in October.

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The correct answer is c) Sargatanas Reign.

The Swedish band began in 1997 when guitarist Kristoffer Andersson, Marcus Lundberg and drummer Stefan Kronqvist got together and started playing run-of-the-mill black metal as Sargatanas. Before long, they added bassist Johan Ericsson and their music evolved into a more original form of technical death metal. Tragedy struck when Ericsson died from an undisclosed cause.

Undeterred, the band -- now called Sargatanas Reign -- replaced him with bassist Niklas Samuelsson. Soon, Marduk bassist Magnus "Devo" Andersson joined Sargatanas on vocals and in 2001 the released their debut, the seven-inch EP "Hellucination." The same year, they followed with the full-length Euthanasia... Last Resort."

Andersson left Sargatanas Reign to focus again on Marduk and was replaced by Jonas Matsson, who debuted in 2005 on the band's second album Bloodwork - - Techniques of Torture. The revolving door continued to turn when Samuelsson quit for personal reasons. Instead of hiring a new member, Matsson, who still sings, has picked of bass duties as well. Sargatas Reign are currently working on songs for their third full-length record.

Horse the Band

They've jokingly labeled their own music Nintendocore and sarcastically referred to their new album, A Natural Death, as "the futility and arrogance of creation and destruction, the overwhelming scale of space and time, and the brutal majesty of nature, the horror of birth and the beauty of death." And, zany experimental metalcore outfit Horse the Band have also created an Internet sitcom"Lawrence and Friends," which involves a love triangle between a sugar cube, a suicidal pencil and singer/songwriter Carla Hassett.

But just because the band members emphasize their senses of humor as much as their love for noise doesn't mean these Los Angeles oddballs don't rip. Their songs mix chaotic metal, electronic videogame noises and abrupt rhythmic shifts to create a sound that's totally brutal and can be easily enjoyed simply as a showcase of aggression. However, the band's comic element is right there for anyone who's interested.

Take the new track "Murder," the lyrics of which are self-explanatory -- kind of. "The kids have been loving it," says frontman Nathan Winneke. "I tell them it's a song about killing white people, and they go crazy," he tells MTV.com's Metal File. [The lyrics were written from the perspective of an American Indian in 1847], So it's OK."Needless to say, Winneke doesn't hold much sacred, least of all himself. As interesting and unconventional as Horse the Band are, the singer claims the music is simply the byproduct of misspent youth, inexperience and random chaos. "We're very reckless and immature and have no idea what we're doing," he says. "We should probably break up as a band, because all we're going to end up doing is killing ourselves. But hopefully, it will be funny."

For the complete interview with Horse The Band and more metal news than you can fit into a corpse-free casket, check out MTVnews.com's Metal File.

Horse the Band's "Birdo":

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Galactic rock and metal explorers Mars Volta will make their television debut with a single song, 13-minute performance on the April 27 episode of "The Henry Rollins Show."

In the weeks to come, the forefather of indie punk will present several other prominent noisemakers. The Stooges will act as both the sit down guests and the musical guests on May 4, ex-Soundgarden and ex-Audioslave belter Chris Cornell will perform on May 11, crazed screamo demolitionists, Blood Brothers, will be Hank's music guest on May 18 and Peeping Tom, which is fronted by ex-Faith No More singer Mike Patton, will grace the show on June 1.

Musical performances from the past and present Rollins shows, including songs by Slayer, New York Dolls and the Rollins Band, can be viewed on IFC.com.

For the music video of Mars Volta's "The Widow," look no further:

Matt Heafy of Trivium

Earlier in the week, when we posted a full Hatebreed set from 2006's Download Festival, we promised there would be more to come. In an effort to not disappoint, here's the complete Download set from Trivium.

What's pretty wild is that, in the UK, Trivium are one of the biggest modern metal bands, and when they play they're practically treated like their heroes, Metallica. As a result, the band's killer performance that day reflected the energy and excitement of the crowd, which was filled with tens of thousands of screaming headbangers.

Sadly, the show was recorded before Trivium released their excellent 2006 album The Crusade, so it lacks some of their best material. Even so, it rocks like an epileptic demon. The setlist features: "Rain," "Like Light to the Flies," "Drowned and Torn Asunder," "Suffocating Sight," "Ashes," "Ember to Inferno," "Detonation," "A Gunshot to the Head of Trepidation," "Dying in your Arms," "Pull Harder on the Strings of the Martyr."

Many British journalists called Trivium one of the highlights of the festival. Now you can judge for yourself.

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This spiderwebby logo belongs to a sinister band that has been around since 1997 and has been through several lineup changes (there's your hint). Actually, looking more closely at it now, the design resembles a scribbled spider with a tattoo on its back. Or maybe it's a tick with eight legs -- or a horseshoe crab that sacrificed its tail to Beelzebub. Whatever, here are your choices:

a) Argatana Seign b) Sarcayanas Beion c) Sargatanas Reign d) Cannibal Corpse
Stay tuned tomorrow for the answer.

Until then, enjoy 1349's "Sculptor of Flesh":

MTV2 Headbangers Blog Proudly Presents the Exclusive Premiere of Type O Negative's "Profit of Doom" video:

Their new album "Dead Again" is in stores now!!!

See the video here all day, catch it again on Headbangers Ball Saturday 4/28 10pm on MTV2!!!