This, from Chris Harris at MTVnews.com's "Metal File."

For metal, hardcore and hard-rock fans, the last two years have brought some long-awaited, never-thought-we'd-see-'em reunions. Bands such as Carcass, Snot, Overcast, Pestilence, Living Sacrifice, At the Gates, Possessed, Rage Against the Machine and Suffokate — among others — have all been resuscitated, as members have put aside their various differences, with some groups staging rather successful comeback tours. But the thing about reunions is that they don't always stick, lasting — in some cases — just two or three gigs.

Such has been the case for Long Island hardcore hellions Vision of Disorder, who've played just a handful of reunion shows since dissolving back in 2002. Frontman Tim Williams — who didn't languish in the wreckage left by V.O.D.'s demise, instead teaming up with guitarist Mike Kennedy to launch Bloodsimple — is looking forward to the band's upcoming reunion gig in New York on November 16 (the bill will also feature Overcast, Indecision and Nassau Chainsaw) but isn't so sure V.O.D.'s return will lead to anything more than feelings of nostalgia.

"Never say never, but reunions are short-lived; everyone knows that," Williams told Metal File this week. "Who knows what's going to happen, but for the time being, this will be it. We're going to do some shows, but V.O.D. will never come back the way it was. It'll never be like a full-time, full-on reunion, but there's definitely going to be some shows. Then again, if the right opportunities presented themselves to the band, and we all agree on it, I think we'll probably do some more shows, because we were pretty happy with the success and the turnout the last couple of shows have had. We're just very skeptical, and we want to be careful."

Williams and the rest of V.O.D. are playing November's show to celebrate the release of their first-ever DVD, "Dead in New York," which hits stores just five days before they'll be taking the Irving Plaza stage. The bandmembers started working on the effort two years ago, culling video footage they'd been shooting over the course of their entire career for what Williams said will be a must-have for any true V.O.D. fan. "Dead in New York" also features footage from the band's three most recent reunion gigs.

"It's just straight-up V.O.D.," he explained. "I've only seen it once, and I was drunk, but it's awesome. You're going to get a lot of behind-the-scenes V.O.D. stuff, a lot of stuff we'd taped throughout the years, and you're also going to be able to take home those three reunion shows, which were really powerful and amazing and in a small-club atmosphere, where V.O.D. has always been at its best. There's also some funny stuff in there and some stuff from when we were f---ing young as hell. That's always funny and interesting to see. In some of this footage, we were just children."

Williams said he hasn't completely ruled out recording new material with Vision of Disorder and said the band has yet to have a serious discussion about hitting the studio. But the more he talked about V.O.D.'s future, the more open he seemed about taking the reunion to the next level.

"If something comes along with V.O.D., which it might, we're going to be very careful," he insisted. "We're very wary of contracts, because we made some serious mistakes when we were younger, which we don't intend on repeating. I also feel V.O.D. is in a position to do one-off deals with labels within our realm, and that's where we'd feel safest. That said, I think there will be some other V.O.D. stuff in the future, but I don't want to say anything more about it."

But then, he did say more. "It feels like it might be the right time," he said. "I'm just sick and tired of being on everybody else's time. If V.O.D. will do anything, we're going to make the calls, and we'll do it when we feel the time is right. If we record, it will be on our terms — not on any timeline dictated by management or a label timeline. It's going to be on our terms, and we feel we've earned the right to pick and choose our battles."

Williams did say it's possible the band could release a live CD, given "Dead in New York" was initially conceived as a DVD/CD set; audio recordings of those reunions gigs exist, along with a bunch of other studio material that Williams doubts will ever see the light of day. So, again, Williams isn't sure what the future might hold, but it could very well include some sort of album release. For now, Williams is concentrating on his own solo projects.

"I've been working on some things," he explained. "I'm working on putting together a book and some acoustic material for a possible acoustic EP release in the not-so-distant future. We'll see — it's something I've always wanted to do, but it's got to be really good. I really feel that the work I did with Bloodsimple was really solid, vocally. I set a new bar for myself on that last Bloodsimple record, so I don't want to follow it up with something I don't feel is as good, if not better, than that. But I've been writing poetry for eons, and I've got a lot of journals, too, from throughout the V.O.D. and Bloodsimple years. I've been compiling some poems and some essays for it. In a perfect world, I would like to release a book with a four-song acoustic EP to go with it."

As for Bloodsimple, Williams said they haven't broken up, contradicting rumors to the contrary. They're on hiatus, he said, but he doesn't see it as an indefinite one.

"Bloodsimple is just taking a well-deserved break at the time," Williams said. "Some things came up in everybody's personal lives that needed some attention, but we're a tight-knit family, and we all realized it might be a good time to step away for a little while, because Bloodsimple was at it for six years straight. I feel Bloodsimple is some of the best music I have ever been a part of, so my eyes are still looking towards the future, and when the time presents itself, I think we'll get back together and do some more shows and probably do some recordings."

So far, the group has written six songs for the disc and hopes to enter the studio later this year for a release in 2009. The yet-untitled disc will be the band's first since 2001's The Last of the Sane, but all that time apart hasn't changed Earth Crisis' motivation or approach.

"Our goals are the same as they were back in 2001," says frontman Karl Buechner. "Our goal as a band was to write songs that appeal to our taste in music, Hopefully, we can make our old fans happy and get some of the younger guys into some of these ideas too."

Earth Crisis will to play some of their new during their reunion tour, which launches tonight in Tuscon, Arizona and runs through March 23 in Albany, New York. The bill also features Sworn Enemy, Shai Hulud, Terror, Down to Nothing and Recon.

"People ask me what the [new] songs sound like," says Buechner. "The best way to describe it is it's a mixture between [1995's] Destroying the Machines and [1998's] Breed the Killers. Stylistically, it's most like songs from those albums."

Buechner hopes the return of Earth Crisis will help reinvigorate the hardcore scene, just as it did when they were around the first time. And, unlike some naysayers, he's convinced the music genre is alive and well.

"There's plenty of quality hardcore out there, but a lot of the bigger labels now are not supporting and nurturing the genuine hardcore bands," he says. "They're just going for the easy sell, for shock-value stuff, where these guys basically wear a costume and their music is pop — anything that will sell to seventh- and eighth-graders. Hardcore brought us up, it taught us a code of ethics, and it gave us a scene — a group of friends to unify with, to accomplish things with. I want us to be able to nurture that."

For the complete interview with Buechner, check out this week's Metal File.

"We were definitely inspired by all of those bands, and I always wanted to play technical death metal — but I wanted to take those influences and make sort of a musical collage, with elements from them all," guitarist Dylan Ruskin tells MTVnews.com's Metal File.

More important to Ruskin than creating a death metal gumbo was staying away from anything too formulaic. "We did not want this record to fit with any of the current trends," he explains. "There's deathcore, and there's a metalcore scene out there, and it's a complete trend. I don't want anything to do with that. We just wanted to write the most crushing and technical death metal we could come up with, and make little metalcore kids sh-- their pants."

In addition to demonstrating their musical diversity and originality, Ruskin wants Brain Drill to be a hammer to the jaw of anyone who thinks death metal is simple or primitive. "With this record, we wanted to show everybody that there's an underground genre of death metal that needs to be heard more," he says. "It requires 20 million times more talent [than most subgenres of metal]. It's harder playing arpeggios and gnarly riffs than it is to just play two open notes on the E string. Our biggest intention with this record was to crush people with our music and expand their minds beyond the limits of metalcore."
Ruskin is the first to admit that what his band does isn't for the weak-willed, but thinks fans of grindcore will quickly latch on to them.

On March16 in Buffalo, New York, Brain Drill will join the Black Dahlia Murder and Animosity on the road and they plan to stay on tour for months to come. After all, the stage is where Brain Drill really rip. "We end up playing the songs twice as fast," he says. "Sometimes, we get so anxious to play heavier and faster live that we accidentally end up playing it all much faster than it is on the album."

He's not kidding. Watch the band's full six-song set from Portland performed in a mere 18 minutes:
BRAINDRILL LIVE NOVEMBER 25th 2006

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"There's a lot of hype about it right now that makes it more of a novelty than I like," the singer tells MTVnews.com's Metal File. "But I think it's ultimately a really good thing that people are getting into metal that doesn't suck. There's no reason that old-school metal shouldn't be played anymore. I enjoy listening to that more than what's coming out today."

Warbringer's seeds were planted in 2005 in Ventura, California, when Kevill was at a friend's house listening to Manowar. Inspired by the galloping beats and thunderous rhythms, the two decided to form a band that was just as primal and powerful. "You know how on that first album [1982's Battle Hymns] Manowar signed a pact in blood?" Kevill says. "Well, we decided to do that, too, because we wanted to make sure we didn't flake out and suck."

A month later, his friend bailed on their contract, but Kevill persevered. He found a guitarist named Viktor, and while he only lasted a couple of months, Viktor later introduced him to guitarist John Laux and his bass-playing brother, Andy. Then, Kevill recruited drummer Adam Carroll from another band, Zombie, and when Carroll decided to switch to guitar, they brought in his ex-Zombie bandmate Ryan Bates on drums. At first, the band called itself Onslaught, then they discovered there was already a British group with that name, and that it had released three influential thrash albums in the '80s.

"Some people gave us flak for not knowing that, but we were 17 and 18, and just discovering that music," Kevill says. "It's not like anyone gave us a thrash-metal encyclopedia. So Adam and I were looking anywhere we could find cool-sounding names, and we decided war and thrash metal are like peanut butter and jelly. So I was attaching the word 'War' to anything I could think of."

The band arrived at the "Bringer" suffix one day when Laux was flipping through a list of different monsters from the video game "Diablo II" and came across the screen name Painbringer. "We had already been [trying to come up with a name] for three hours," Kevill says. "So, we were like, 'Warbringer! Good enough. We're done.' "

Warbringer recorded a four-song demo and played shows in Los Angeles with Merciless Death, Fueled by Fire, Dekapitator and Toxic Holocaust. Then they wrote a new batch of songs and tracked their debut EP, One by One the Wicked Fall, in October 2006. The disc caused a buzz in the underground and earned Warbringer a deal with Century Media, which signed the band at the end of the year. Warbringer recorded War Without End in fall 2007 with veteran producer Bill Metoyer (Slayer, D.R.I.), and while they were stoked by his interest in their music his skill behind the board, they were initially a little weirded out by his personality quirks.

"He has this huge stash of pornography at the side of his studio," says Kevill. "And he kept inviting us to check it out, and we were all like, 'Okay, this is kind of strange. We just met the guy.' So, we were kind of apprehensive about it. But then after a few days in the studio, some of us started looking at the magazines, and he goes, 'Oh, good, I was getting worried about you.'"

Warbringer recorded War Without End in July and August of last year, and for the most part, the tracking was smooth and without incident. The mixing of the album, however, was another story. "Bill spent a few weeks mixing the record, and then his computer took a massive crap," Kevill says. "He lost everything he did and had to start over. We almost didn't get the record out in time."

At first, the band planned to call the record Combat Shock, then changed the title to War to End All Wars, a line from one of the featured song lyrics. Finally, though, they decided they didn't want the word "war" on their album cover three times, so they settled on War Without End — not realizing it was a line from Metallica's "No Remorse."

"When somebody pointed that out to us, we went, 'Ah, sh--, not again?' Kevill said. "But we decided to go with it anyway."

Now, check out Warbringer's video for "Combat Shock":

For the rest of this week's metal news, check out MTVnews.com's Metal File.

Few ten year old metal bands have been through as many label changes as New York's hardcore chuggers Sworn Enemy. First there was State of Mind, the Stillborn, Elektra, Abacus and now Century Media. But through it all the band members have stuck it out, whether it seemed like they were on the verge of falling apart or breaking into the mainstream.

"We've come really close [to breaking through], but it's a battle that can't be won, man, and we ain't stopping," guitarist Lorenzo Antonucci told MTVnews.com's Metal File. "A lot of bands would have given up already, and we just don't, because we came from sh--. Every band comes from something, but how this band has built its fanbase, and what we have as a band today... I've truly had some of the hardest days of my life being in this band, and I would never want to relive it. We slept in vans for months at a time, not eating for days, and it was horrible."

Lorenzo hasn't given up on his need for noisy self-expression, but he has come to the realization that he's one of the last embers of a long burning flame. "Really, hardcore is dead in the U.S.," he said. "Who's big in hardcore at the moment? Name one band, man. I think a lot of the bands in the scene now would agree that hardcore's dead."

Antonucci isn't about to blame any single individual or label for his group's failure to ignite a new hardcore revolution, however he admits that not having a longterm, supportive label has been a major setback.

"We put out our first two demos with [Stillborn], and [the label's owner and Hatebreedd frontman Jamey Jasta] calls us one day, while we're on some sh---y tour, and he's like, 'Dude, I think I got you guys signed to Elektra,'" Antonucci said. "We thought he was kidding, but long story short, we thought it was going to be the biggest thing for us, and it turned out not to be. We were a small fish in a big pond, and they didn't promote us at all. We had no press, but we were touring our asses off. Then they let us go, because Elektra was folding — that set us back a good year. See, if you're not in people's faces, and you kind of disappear, and you're still trying to build momentum, you just lose that momentum. We sort of just died off after Ozzfest and then signed with Abacus. We hired a publicist, and we thought we were the big fish in the little pond, and we'd move forward. But, again, we didn't have any press, no promotion, and we weren't getting on any big tours. We were on that Anthrax 10-day reunion tour, playing to a bunch of 40-year-old men who [couldn't] give a sh-- about Sworn Enemy."

Maybe 2008 will be the year of Sworn Enemy. As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis is now managing the band and he recently co-produced their new record, Maniacal, with Life of Agony's Joey Z. And, Sworn Enemy have a high-profile tour coming up with the reunited Earth Crisis, Terror, Shai Hulud, Down to Nothing and Recon (dates start February 29 in Worcester, Massachusetts).

"I feel like we're on the brink, and we're almost finally able to survive off the band," Antonucci said. "We'd love to be a part of any of the summer festivals, but we just never get the chance because I think people don't see the band as something that's going to bring something to the table. We're just so hungry, and we're still here, [whereas] bands that were on Sounds of the Underground two years ago aren't around anymore. We need people to start paying attention to us, because we're not going anywhere."

Read the complete Sworn Enemy interview and plenty of music news on this week's Metal File on MTVnews.com.

It's 2 p.m., and Protest the Hero singer Rody Walker is still lying on the floor of his Toronto apartment, fighting off a hangover. Last night, he and a friend split 40 ounces of whiskey then went out for dollar shots, and today his liver is paying the price.

Rody's alcohol binge wasn't in celebration of his band's new record, Fortress, which comes out tomorrow (January 29). It was just part of his regular routine of fighting off the boredom that comes with being a liberal, young hyperactive adult in a predictable, conservative world. Protest the Hero's zany progressive thrash metal is Walker's other outlet for amusement -- which explains the music schizophrenic clash of speed, abrupt rhythm changes, dissonance, melody and emotion.

"We all just get bored really easily so we’re always trying to do something that will keep our interest," Walker told MTVnews.com's Metal File. “When we write a record, we want something that will still keep our attention a couple years down the line, but it never works."

In other words, 30 minutes after Protest the Hero finish recording a new batch of songs, they're pretty much sick of 'em. And that's a problem for a band that has to promote its albums with lengthy tours.

"Right now, I don’t ever want to play those songs on [our last album] Kezia again," said Walker. "And I know we’re going to have to when we tour, which sucks. We hate being labeled, but if we have to be called something, I think ADD metal applies."

Protest the Hero entered the studio with producer Julius "Juice" Butty in mid-June and spent about a month layering dozens of tracks for Fortress. Then, Butty worked closely with Walker on the vocals. If it sometimes sounds on the record as if the singer is about to fall down, chances are, he was – just not always from nervous exhaustion.

"I got drunk every day, which was fun," Walker said. "To start off, I’d take shots of whiskey or scotch to clear my throat. And then, basically, I just continued doing it until I couldn’t stand in the booth or I was too drunk to continue."

In the studio, Walker sang his own melodies, but bassist Arif Marabdolbaghi wrote the lyrics. When Protest the Hero first got together in 1999, Walker wrote his own s--t, but then Marabdolbaghi brought some lyrics into a jam session and floored everyone with his poetic style. "Arif is just so talented," Walker explained. "He’s a literature master. When he was 17, he went to a [Fyodor] Dostoevsky symposium in Switzerland and was the youngest person to ever be invited to one of those. It’s kind of funny. This time, [guitarist] Luke [Hoskin] and I were like, 'Hey, man, can you write a party song about how we want to drink beers and f--k bit--es?' And Arif came up with this really complex lyric for 'The Dissentience’'about smoking weed that was all metaphorical. That was his idea of a party lyric."

Of course, Fortress isn't a party album, it's a concept record loosely divided into two parts: "On Conquest and Capture" and "Isosceles." And, though there's not any real storyline, the lyrics address numerous cerebral themes.

"Its really a look at past, present and future through the battles that have been fought and are being fought and supposedly will be fought," Walker said. "It goes through Genghis Khan and Flidais, which is from Irish Mythology. A lot of the themes are centered around goddess worship because these days people seem to only want to be worshiping Allah and Jesus Christ and all these strange male figures. And in the past we used to very much worship female figures. So it’s very much about bringing back the femininity to God."

But just because the dudes in Protest the Hero are smart doesn't mean they don't all know how to party. "Dude, I'm basically just a functioning alcoholic," Walker says. "I spend all my time wasted and rarely know the day or time. And our rhythm section -- those guys are usually blazed out of their trees on weed. Basically, I think we're just a really complicated party band. Only our drummer [Moe Carlson] doesn't drink. He throws up after two beers."

Here's the latest batch of news nuggets from MTVnews.com's hallowed Metal File:
Queensrÿche frontman Geoff Tate and Blackmore's Night singer Candice Night will star in the upcoming horror movie "House of Eternity," which is slated for a fall theatrical release. The film, by New York independent production company Fires at Midnight, is about a newly married New York City couple who move to a country home in North Carolina, unaware of its sullied history and the evil that lurks there. Tate will make his acting debut as Alder Grayson, the story's villain, and Night will play his wife, an innocent woman whose fate is determined by the superstitious minds of the 1700s. " 'House Of Eternity' contains something for everyone," Night said in a statement. "[There are] memorable characters struggling against powers far greater than they; desperate, heart-pounding action [scenes]; innovative approaches to classic horror; even humor and a forlorn love. Plus there's a villain who will become timeless." Jonathan Williams and Jarrod Feliciano are directing "House of Eternity," and J. Andrew Colletti is the writer and executive producer.

Droid, Ill Niño, Soil and Bobaflex will launch the Guerilla Carnival Tour on January 31 in Cleveland, with dates running through February 24 in Sayreville, New Jersey. "We are really excited to get back out on the road, and the Ill Nino guys are good friends of ours, so it will be great to see them rip it up every night," Droid singer James "Buddy" Eason said in a statement. "I really like the fact that all the bands on this tour are a little different than each other musically. Get ready. Here comes the pain."

Papa Roach are in their rehearsal studio writing songs for the follow-up to 2006's The Paramour Sessions and will begin recording shortly. "I can't really comment on what it will be like because we still have so much time," guitarist Jerry Horton wrote on the band's MySpace page late last year. "Rest assured that it will have groove."

Arsonists Get All the Girls — whose bassist Patrick Mason died November 30 at age 21 — have replaced him with their old friend Adam Swan. "All of us have known Adam for years, and we couldn't think of anyone else better fit for the job," guitarist Arthur Alvarez said in a statement. "Patrick will never be replaced as our bass player, but we are forced to move forward as he would have wanted. He will always be in our hearts." The band has also hired guitarist Derek Yarra following Nick Cardinelli's decision to pursue a different career. "We have no hard feelings and wish him the best of luck," Alvarez said. "He will always remain a close friend, whether it is in the band or not." Arsonists Get All the Girls' first show with Swan and Yarra will be February 9 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They have additional gigs scheduled through February 28 in Denver.

Kingdom of Sorrow, the side project featuring Hatebreed frontman Jamey Jasta and Crowbar/Down guitarist Kirk Windstein, will launch their first tour February 27 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Thy Will Be Done will open shows on the trek, which will run until March 7 in Detroit. "This tour will be killer," Jasta said in a press release. "If you like it loud, we hope to see you there. We are all pumped to be playing small clubs and bars." Kingdom of Sorrow's self-titled debut, co-produced by Jasta and Zeuss (Hatebreed, Shadows Fall), comes out February 19.

Static-X frontman Wayne Static married adult-film actress Tera Wray on January 10. The couple met at Ozzfest last summer.

Washington, D.C., metalcore band Darkest Hour will shoot a concert DVD at a show in Richmond, Virginia, on their tour with Cephalic Carnage, Emmure and Whitechapel. "The reason we choose Richmond is because, simply, motherf---ers in Virginia are crazy, and we wanted to document how Virginia parties for the world," the band wrote in a post on its MySpace page.

What could be better than a March 25 re-release of legendary Swedish melodic death-metal band At the Gates' classic 1995 album, Slaughter of the Soul, featuring six extra songs? The same disc with a bonus live DVD. The previously unreleased set was shot in Krakow, Poland, on December 30, 1995, when the band was touring with Unleashed. The DVD will also include the documentary "The Making of Slaughter of the Soul."

Brazilian thrash band Chaosfear have started pre-production for their second, yet-untitled album, which is tentatively scheduled for release later this year. The follow-up to 2007's One Step Behind Anger will feature the return of original guitarist Edu Boccomino. "We are very excited," drummer Danilo de Freitas said in a post on the band's Web site. "The songs have the same energy as usual, and I believe that they are more aggressive. With the second guitar, everything is sounding heavier and there is more focus on solos."

Keith Baxter, the original drummer for British folk-metal band Skyclad, died from liver failure in an English hospital on January 4. He was 36. Baxter played on five albums with Skyclad before joining the successful rock band 3 Colours Red and performing on two of their records. He also played with Elevation and Therapy?

The Indianapolis experimental Christian metalcore band write serious, tumultuous tunes about inspiration and salvation, but with enough angst and volume to appeal to fans of secular metal. Sinners and saints alike will be able to judge the band's merits when it drops its full-length debut, The Life I Know, on February 5.

"It's a really, really passionate album," drummer T.J. Sego told MTVnews.com's Metal File. "There are entire songs in there that just flat-out explain my life. This album is our hearts on tape. We love to play and hang with our fans, and we love our Lord and Savior, and that's basically what the album is all about." Of course, as with most bands of faith -- from Underoath to Demon Hunter -- Gwen Stacy have taken flack for being so outspoken about their religious beliefs. And while they strive to appeal to believers and nonbelievers alike, they harbor no ill feelings about those who judge them not for their music, but for their beliefs.

"We have a little 15-second thing that we throw into our set each night, which lets kids know our stance — that we play because we love Jesus," explained Sego. "But we're not about to judge them if they don't believe the same thing. We make sure that kids know that we're not there to ram our beliefs down their throats. We have our beliefs, and anyone who wants to know about them, we are more than prepared to share what we believe, but we won't look down at them if they don't."

The gospel of Gwen Stacy will likely become more clear when they drop The Life I Know, on February 5 and the band will elucidate their message on a tour with Haste the Day, Scary Kids Scaring Kids and Drop Dead Gorgeous, which runs through February 17 in Gwen's home town.

For the complete interview with Gwen Stacy and more metal than you can fit in a really large garbage bin, check out this week's Metal File.

The band's guitarist, Christian Olde Wolbers, is currently focusing on producing other bands and is also working on a new project with Fear Factory drummer, Raymond Herrera, and Threat Signal singer, Jon Howard. And, singer Burton C. Bell is wrapped up with his new band, Ascension of the Watchers, which signals a departure from the type of industrial metal clamor of Fear Factory.

With roots in spirituality and surreal dreams, Ascension of the Watchers (Bell, keyboardist John Bechdel and guitarist Edu Mussi) write songs that are are melancholy and atmospheric, resembling '80s and '90s goth-rock bands such as the Mission UK, Swans, Fields of the Nephilim and Pornography-era Cure. The band's debut full-length, Numinosum, which comes out February 19, isn't really metal but it's still heavy -- at least in atmosphere.

"I've never really considered myself a metal guy," Bell told MTVnews.com's Metal File. "Yeah, I've been in a metal-industrial band, but the music I've always listened to has been much different, which is maybe why the vocals I did with Fear Factory were different than those of other metal singers. But I definitely wanted to do something much different this time. The music is completely personal, and it lets me try techniques I haven't previously had the chance to explore. We used to always say we were expanding the boundaries in Fear Factory. Well, now I'm really stepping out of the boundaries."

Still, Bell isn't ready to sign Fear Factory's death certificate just yet. "As far as I know, it's not over," he said. "I just wanted to work on some other stuff. I've been part of Fear Factory since its inception, and 17 years later I need to do something else for a while. And Fear Factory doesn't have a record deal, so there's no contractual obligation to move forward with that, so right now it's all about the Watchers."

For the complete interview with Bell and more metal news than you could digest with an iron stomach, check out this week's Metal File.

And for those lamenting Fear Factory's hiatus, take solace in the video for "Bite The Hand That Bleeds"

The original release date was March 4, but because of mixer Andy Sneap's hectic schedule, the band has bumped the disc to April 29. Frustrating for sure, but it also gives the musicians more time to fine-tune what's turning out to be their most creatively challenging and fulfilling record to date.

"We're reaching for the stars on this one," frontman Brock Lindow told MTVnews.com's Metal File. "Some of it is real heavy, and some of it is not so heavy. It's similar to what we've done in the past, but we stepped it up a notch in both of these areas. I am sure some people will be surprised by how heavy it is. I am just excited it's as heavy as it is. It does have the melodic side to it, too; I mean, we didn't want to take a right turn on anybody."

Lyrically, The Tide will be just as thought provoking. "The lyrics deal with a lot of things — from the war overseas to global warming ... but not necessarily those topics in one song," Lindow said. "I guess I was just trying to capture the mindset that everybody has these days, and I wanted to deal with those things that, on some level, we all deal with daily. I'm not trying to be Bob Dylan or anything, I just thought I'd touch upon things people go through in life."

Since Lindow still lives in Alaska and his bandmates are in Portland, 36 Crazyfists faced a unique songwriting challenge during the making of The Tide that only the marvels of modern technology could overcome. "They would write their music, send it to me in an e-mail, and I would go to my buddy's studio to record vocals for the demos," Lindow said. "Then I'd send it back. It was actually so easy, but at first, we were worried about it, that it wouldn't go very smoothly. But this is the best music these guys have ever written, and it's exciting stuff. I'm glad we're at the stage we're at with this band."

For the complete interview with Lindow and a rundown of the latest news, check out this week's Metal File.