In Flames have released their new video, "Delight and Angers," which was directed and produced by Patric Ullaeus, who has worked on all of the band's recent videos as well as clips from Dimmu Borgir, Lacuna Coil and others. The track comes from the band's latest album, A Sense of Purpose, which came out in 2008. Click "more" to watch the vid. Read more...

Let's raise a glass to Swedish metal veterans In Flames, who won the Swedish "Grammi" award today in the "Best Hard Rock" category for their album A Sense of Purpose. The other bands that were up for the award were Meshuggah for obZen, Millencolin for Machine 15, Opeth for Watershed and Sabaton for The Art of War. Read more...

Tomorrow night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, In Flames will wrap up a U.S. headline tour. Then, the band members will return to Sweden to take some time off for the holidays. We talked to bassist Peter Iwers backstage before the group's December 7 gig in New York City and discussed the current tour with Gojira and 36 Crazyfists, how the departure of All That Remains from the bill affects the show, In Flames' plan to stay on tour for all of 2009 and how Christmas in Sweden differs from Christmas in America. Click "more" to watch: Read more...

Two dates before Gojira's final U.S. show of 2008, frontman Joe Duplantier is in high spirits. The band will be playing a major New York City gig in just about an hour, but the Frenchman shows no signs of anxiety as he chills with some friends in his dressing room at Terminal 5. 36 Crazyfists are about to take the stage and their room is buzzing live a hornet's next, which makes the low-key Duplantier smile. Soft-spoken and polite, he prefers to save his energy, anger and ferocity for the stage, where it spills out in bubbling fountains.

He'd never say as much, but the throat problems of All That Remains frontman Phil Labonte, which forced the band to drop off the bill, have been sort of a blessing in disguise for Gojira. First, having three bands play instead of four has enabled Gojira to play for almost an hour, and more significantly, it has put them in the more visible direct support slot.

Amidst drinking, talking and other voluble backstage activity, we pinned down Duplantier and talked to him for a few minutes about the In Flames tour, the importance of the French metal market, the upcoming animated video for Gojira's next single "All The Tears" and plans for the upcoming Christmas day. Click "more" to watch the interview: Read more...

Ex-Black Dahlia Murder guitarist John Kempainen, photo by Jon Wiederhorn

Touring in a rock band just ain't what it used to be. With zoning restrictions at play and real estate prices through the roof, it's getting harder to get gigs at decent places, show attendance and merch sales have dropped with the nosediving economy, the dawn of filesharing has rendered album royalties nonexistent, and now many labels want a cut of touring and merch profits, meaning bands have to tour all year long just to pay the rent at apartments and homes they're hardy at. No wonder a growing number of musicians are throwing in the towel.

On November 29, The Black Dahlia Murder lost guitarist John Kempainen, who had been with the group since 2002 and appeared on the band's debut full-length, 2003's Unhallowed. Apparently, Kempainen quit on the eve of a tour launch with Misery Index and Soilent Green and the band has carried on as a four-piece. According to the band's label, Kempainen was tired of being on tour for ten months out of the year and wanted to spend more time with his friends and family. Read more...

We've been waxing rhapsodic about Gojira's new album, The Way of All Flesh since mid-August, and now fans can finally hear it for themselves. The disc doesn't come out in the U.S. until October stream, but the band has posted 10 of the 12 tracks (the other two are coming shortly), which rip like a fishnet stocking. Click "more" to hear it, see tour dates with In Flames and check out our podcast interview with frontman Joe Duplantier. Read more...

Aw, c'mon. We would never really strangle a little girl -- unless you didn't put your brains in gear and choose an act from last week to return to the next "Headbangers Ball." You've got a tough choice to make (not the thing about the little girl... we know you're do the right thing). There are some pretty righteous videos in the running, including the Architects "Always," which was an exclusive for the "Ball."

As always, past winners and old videos are not eligible. In other words, pick exclusively from the list below and only select one act. Feel free to include a description of why your choice should win. The best entries will be quoted when we announce the winner. Only one vote allowed per IP address. The polls are open now through Wednesday at 3 p.m. Click "more" to see the list of this week's contestants: Read more...

photo by Jon Wiederhorn

Okay, boys and girls -- or as Brooklynites like Pete Steele put it, goyels -- it's time to vote for your favorite new video from last week's show to return this week. Or as we like to say in campaign land, your vote counts.

On our last show, we had some pretty-bad-ass premieres including Children of Bodom's "Smile Pretty For the Devil," "Avenged Sevenfold's "Unholy Confessions" (from their new DVD and CD combo "Live at the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough") Five Finger Death Punch's "The Way of the Fist" and Unleashed's "Black Horizon."

Chose one or pick another new video from last week. Remember, if you don't pick from the list below, your vote won't count. Also, only one selection per IP address. Voting runs from now until Wednesday afternoon at 3 p.m. EST. Click "more" to see all of this week's choices: Read more...

The excellent thrash metal documentary/sociology study, "Get Thrashed: The Story of Thrash Metal," comes out on DVD on Tuesday, September 16. For our final promotional clip for the movie, director Rick Ernst has supplied us with a batch of outtakes of bands from various subgenres of metal talking about how they discovered thrash and the importance of the genre. We'll get to the video soon, but first here's Ernst talking about this week's clip.

With over 100 hours of footage filmed for "Get Thrashed," we couldn't possibly squeeze it all on one DVD - although we tried! Thankfullyk, we have the Internet and HeadbangersBlog.com, which allow us to share clips that are not on the DVD. That's right, you can only see this footage right here and this exclusive clip covers a lot of ground.

For starters, Slipknot's Corey Taylor talks about being a thrash fan in Des Moines, Iowa where apparently you really had to work to find thrash albums in the '80s. Contrast that with my experience growing up in New York at the time, and I could almost always find the thrash classics.
Several artists talk about the initial run of "Headbangers Ball." While the show didn't feature a ton of thrash videos, the ones they did play forever changed the lives of many artists watching back in the day. Personally, when I was growing up I didn't have cable, so each and every thrash video I saw on "Headbangers Ball" at a friend's house was a treasure. It was pre-Internet and a music video was as close to going to a show as you could get without physically being there. Yes, thrash fans would begrudgingly sit through non-thrash videos just to see Exodus' "Toxic Waltz" or my personal favorite, Vio-lence's "World in a World." We bitched about it then, but it is a badge of honor now.

Thankfully, today's new breed of thrash influenced bands and fans don't have to work as hard or wait as long to get their thrash metal fix. It's at the tip of their fingers -- on call 24/7 -- and they don't have to wait. It's instant gratification and its awesome -- for the most part. As Lemmy so eloquently sang, "Sometimes the chase is better than the catch".
Now click "more" to watch our final "Get Thrashed" clip: Read more...

You should know by know that if you want to vote for "Your Vote Counts," you have to register to be a part of the MTV Community. Here's how:

Sign up at the bottom of the screen and under "Profile URL" type something to identify you — preferably some word that includes a couple numbers. This will be attached to a long URL address that will be your private address for the site. So, go do it now or suffer the fate of your peers, whose idea of "ass-kicking" might not be quite as astute as yours.

This week's "Headbangers Ball" aired the premiere of the new In Flames video "Alias," which, we're guessing, will be a shoe-in for this week's contest. But a democracy's a democracy, so there are also other new videos for viewers to chose from. Click "more" to see the complete list: Read more...