On Thursday October 11, two days before MTV2 Headbangers Ball premieres the new Trivium video for "Becoming the Dragon" on air, the clip will debut right here on the HBB Blog.

In an interview with Revolver, frontman Matt Heafy, who is half-Japanese, said the song is about the Japanese mythology about koi fish and dragons. "The sory says the koi fish spends its life struggling against the current and it reaches up to a thing called Dragon’s Gate up the Yellow River. If the koi can make it over the waterfall, then God grants the power of that koi fish to become a dragon. So it’s very much about Asian mythology, but it works really well with life. It could be about a person’s struggle through life to become all they wanted to be or all the strive to be."

The video for "Becoming the Dragon" was directed by Ramon Boutviseth, who got his big break when he won Papa Roach's "Make Your Own 'Forever' Video" contest in June. While the Roach had already shot their own performance video, they were so taken by his submission they asked him to mix the live footage with his original storyline. Boutviseth has also shot videos for Sanctity's "Beneath the Machine" and "Beloved Killer," which will debut here next week. he has also filmed clips for Seemless' "Cast No Shadow" and "Daylight Dies' "Lies that Bind."

Until Thursday, here's Trivium's "Anthem":

Every Time I Die are currently on tour with Underoath plugging their new album, The Big Dirty, which came out September 4. Now, here's singer/lunatic Keith Buckley's witty repartee about picking HORSE the Band's "New York City" as the Bang of the Week:

"Here is my story about why I love HORSE the Band's video for 'New York City.' We would not be a band if it weren’t for these guys. Their wildly uninteresting and self proclaimed innovation is what keeps us going. As thought provoking as the golden girls -- HORSE the Band: call us!"

Exodus drummer, Paul Bostaph, was all ready to play on the band's follow-up to 2005's Shovel Headed Kill Machine, then original drummer Tom Hunting -- who had taken a leave of absence due to anxiety -- wanted his job back and Bostaph was out of a gig.

It was sort of a case of history repeating itself, since Bostaph joined Slayer in 1994 to replace the departed Dave Lombardo, who later returned. Bostaph has also played for Forbidden, Systematic and now he has rejoined Testament, the band he briefly was with before joining Slayer.

Bostaph's return to the Testament fold came after Nick Barker (ex-Cradle of Filth) was unable to contribute to the album due to Homeland Security and International Work Visa issues. The new Testament album is tentatively scheduled for release next spring and will feature the band's first studio recordings of new songs since 1999's The Gathering. It also will be singer Chuck Billy's first new album since recovering from cancer and returned guitarist Alex Skolnick's first stab at new Testament material since 1992's The Ritual.

Up for some old Tesatement? Here's "Practice What You Preach":

Former Anthrax singers Joey Belladonna and John Bush won't be contributing to the band's new album, and Slipknot/Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor wanted to help out but has been forbidden from tracking vocals. So, what the hell is up with the thrash metal pioneers?

Well, guitarist Scott Ian, drummer Charlie Benante and bassist Frank Bello have spent the last eight months writing and fine-tuning a batch of new songs, which Ian said are a natural progression from the band's under-appreciated 2003 album, We've Come for You All. But there's only so much they can do without a singer.

It's not a situation they ever expected to be faced with. After all, towards the end of 2006, following a successful reunion tour with Belladonna, it looked like nothing was gonna stop Anthrax from making a comeback with the singer who brought them into the public eye.

"We tried," Ian told MTVnews.com's Metal File. "Halfway through the tour, everything had totally gelled, and we started talking about doing a new record. [Guitarist] Danny [Spitz] was gung-ho about it and Joey seemed to be as well. I thought that nothing would have made him happier. But when the tour ended, we started having conversations about making a record and moving forward, and we spent three or four months where we just couldn't get an answer from Joey to the simple question, 'Do you want to make a record, yes or no?' Not that he wouldn't call back, but he wouldn't answer the question. Our question was always answered with a million other questions. For some reason, Joey thought things were weird on the reunion tour financially. He had his own guy look at the books. Everything was good. But after three or four months of asking this guy and feeling like we were starting to become a doormat, we gave him an ultimatum, and we still didn't get an answer. So we concluded we're not making a record. It's impossible because there's no communication." Read more...

One of the leading forces in Christian metal is Demon Hunter, a band as driven by it's love for volume as by its higher calling. You'll see what we mean on Thursday when we debut the new Demon Hunter video for "Fading Away." The song comes from the group's upcoming album, Storm the Gates of Hell, which comes out November 6. In addition to conjuring unearthly sounds up his larynx, frontman Ryan Clark spends lots of time creating wild art work for some pretty big metal bands. And now he's gonna tell you all about it:

Some of you may not know what I do on a daily basis, and some of you may assume that I spend most of my time on a tour bus driving around the country, rocking faces off every night. Although I do spend some time every year doing just that, truth be told, most of my days are spent behind a desk, designing album artwork, posters and more for a lot of bands that you may have heard of.

I’ve designed album art for bands like Throwdown, Norma Jean, He Is Legend, The Chariot, Funeral For A Friend, Haste The Day, Zao, August Burns Red, The Agony Scene, 36 Crazyfists, and many, many more. To be totally honest, aside from being in a band, it’s the best job anyone could dream of... And I get to do both, which is phenomenal to me and I’m thankful every day for it. Read more...

Obviously both bands are legends, and each has its debate points. Judas Priest pre-dated Maiden by about six years and was the second most popular metal band in the early '70s behind Black Sabbath. The band's dual guitar sound and leather and studs attire ushered in the new wave of British Heavy metal movement, of which Iron Maiden also played a major role. Also, Priest's songwriting throughout the glory days of metal was untouchable: "Screaming For Vengeance," "Breaking the Law," "Living After Midnight" and "Some Heads are Gonna Roll" are just a handful of their legendary hits, and each achieved notoriety without relying on power ballad constructions or watered down production. And let's not forget vocalist Rob Halford, whose multi-octave, vibrato-laden voice is so powerful, he's widely called the "Metal God."

As for Maiden, their longtime singer is no slouch, either. Although he didn't join the band until 1982, Bruce Dickinson solidified Maiden's attack with mighty vocals that were part operatic croon, part banshee howl. Over the years, Maiden, too, have composed some of the most captivating songs in metal. Their galloping rhythms and sinuous guitar harmonies pioneered power metal and their stellar arrangements combined complex musicianship with timeless hooks on songs like "The Trooper," "Number of the Beast," "Aces High," "Flight of Icarus," and "2 Minutes to Midnight." Also, Maiden brought the world the most recognizable mascot in metal, the immortal zombie, Eddie. Now you guys duke it out. Leave your comments below. And look for more bar room argument topics in the weeks ahead:

The correct answer is: e) Twilight

According to the band's label, Twilight is a black mass gathering of only the most crucial and essential U.S. Black Metal artists of our time. Each Twilight devotee spends the majority of their time in isolation creating completely misanthropic dark art.

Individually, each of their reputations within Black Metal circles has reached cult status. Attempting to crush boundaries and tear into new new dimensions, these five artists have convened and created a completely unprecedented blackened metallic assault.

Indeed, there are remnants of the sound that each of their solo projects is known for. However Twilight as a entity has bludgeoned all preconceptions of their past works and delivered a mammoth new metal statement that demands to be heard.

The band features multi instrumentalists: Wrest (Leviathan, Lurker of Chalice), Aaron Turner (Isis), Hildolf (Draguar), Imperial (Krieg) and Azentrius (Nachtmystium).

The band's self-titled debut, which features Malefic (Xasthur) in place of Turner, came out in 2005. Twilight's follow-up is forthcoming.

photo by Matt West

It has been a wild week here at HBB Blog, and there have been some stellar highlights:

The biggest story was Phil Anselmo's Email interview about the new Down record.

And while it wasn't posted this week, we're still hearing from loads of Otep fans about Otep Shamaya's confessional guest blog about her passion for poetry.

Also, tattoo maestro Paul Booth wrote a crazy blog about an idea for a cannibal barbecue that apparently freaked out Sharon Osbourne.

And last but not least, we had the video premiere of Machine Head's "Now I Lay Thee Down" and the debut of A Life Once Lost's "Firewater Joyride."

Let us know what you thought of these features, as well as whatever other metal-related stuff is on your mind.

We're up to week three of our podcast series, and we've got a bunch more lined up for the coming weeks. However, we're always open to suggestions. If there's someone you'd like to hear from, drop us a comment. We want to make sure the HBB Podcasts cover all aspects of metal, not just today's top charting headbangers.

This week, we've got an awesome podcast with Black Dahlia Murder frontman Trevor Strnad, who sheds some light on the band's new dark, festering offering, Nocturnal. Topics discussed include: Black Dahlia Murder's decision to return to an old-school style of death metal, the band's love for Scandinavian metal bands and the influence of horror films. Strnad also talks about touring with Cannibal Corpse, working with eccentric studio master Jason Suecof and the band's new video for "What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse."

Speaking of which...:

Ready to rip?? Here's the HBB Blog premiere of A Life Once Lost's new video for "Firewater Joyride." The song comes from the band's album, Iron Gag, which came out September 18. The clip will make its television debut on this week's Headbangers Ball.