Fresh from their appearance on the Alter Bridge and Shinedown UK tour, Halestorm have confirmed a run of UK headline shows for 2014. Dates are as follows below. Tickets priced £14 regionally and £16 in London (subject to booking fee) go on pre-sale for fanclub, Live Nation and O2 members from 9am on Wednesday 23rd October and on general sale from Friday 25th at 9am.

Southern rockers set UK release date for debut album after first ever UK show sells out in just under an hour.

Some albums you listen to and just don't connect with at all on any level. Sadly, Anunnaki, the Victory Records debut from Florida deathcore quintet Neurotic November is one of those albums. I can't put my finger on what it is because all the elements are there for a good listen but, even by the end of the first track, I'm struggling to keep paying attention.

Bloodstock Open Air Festival is thrilled to announce that Megadeth are confirmed to headline the Sunday night slot in 2014. This will be the thrash icons' first appearance at Bloodstock. In a career nearing 30 years and counting, Megadeth has sold more than 38 million albums worldwide, earning five consecutive platinum albums in the US and numerous accolades along the way, including 11 GRAMMY® nominations.

After a few aborted attempts, PureGrainAudio finally got Scar The Martyr/Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison on the phone at his home in Iowa right before he headed out on the road with Scar The Martyr on a U.S. tour opening for both Korn and Rob Zombie. Clearly excited by his new band, Joey talked about touring, his band members and, of course, the next Slipknot record.

At the end of "Dawn To Rise", the second track on the debut album from Aussie metallers A Breach Of Silence, vocalist Rhys Flannery unleashes the kind of power metal scream that would put most power metal vocalists to shame. Considering the Killswitch Engage-inspired metalcore they've dished out up to that point, it does leave you a little confused as to where exactly A Breach Of Silence sit. Are they metalcore? Are they power metal? It seems, having read their biog, they are powercore?

There is a place on the coast of England called Brighton. This coastal town was one of the most talked about on the UK music scene producing great venues, gigs and, most importantly, bands. One of those bands was Johnny Truant who, after critically acclaimed albums and jaw-dropping live shows, disbanded much to the disappointment of fans and press alike. Welcome then, Anacondas, a band who were born out of the ashes of Johnny Truant, having formed as a project at the tail end of the Johnny Truant story.

Bloodstock Open Air Festival have revealed that New Orleans sludge heavyweights Down are to headline the Friday night at Bloodstock 2014. The show will be a UK exclusive and sees the Phil Anselmo fronted outfit join recently reformed black metal titans Emperor as the second headliner to be confirmed for the 2014 metal festival.

Whilst everything about Los Angeles death metallers The Opaque is fairly generic, there is something likeable about their Black Dahlia-inspired rage that makes their Bow in Requiem mini-album worth a listen. Be warned though, you won’t get anything that reinvents the wheel and there are certainly better Black Dahlia Murder style bands out there but, hey, you can download it for pretty much next to nothing from their Bandcamp page so who are we to complain at generosity like that?

British metalcore kids Bury Tomorrow finish their touring cycle with a sold-out show in London before heading off for much bigger, brighter lights.

Organisers of the London International Tattoo Convention, which takes place at Tobacco Dock, 50 Porters Walk, London, E1W 2SF, over the weekend of the 27-29th September, have confirmed even more top artists are set to appear along already confirmed tattooists.

Following the recent release of their new album, 'The Wild Hunt', black metal titans Watain have announced a run of UK tour dates for the end of the year. The band will play the following shows.

Our first port of call on the Saturday is hard rockers Heaven's Basement who are making a bit of name for themselves with their frill-free hard rock and, by the looks of the swelling numbers as they smash through the likes of "Fire Fire" from their 'Filthy Empire' album, they’re a band who will soon by muscling their way up bills like this one.

Slayer brought Bloodstock to a crashing finale with their first ever UK headline festival slot.

Despite last year's horrendous weather causing all sorts of problems for Download organizers and weather reports ranging from pouring rain to thirty degree heat this year, it didn't stop eighty thousand rock fans from descending on Donington Park for the annual rock extravaganza.

I discovered Nashville-based alt-rockers The Nearly Deads completely by accident one day when their name popped up as I watched a video by Welsh rockers The Dirty Youth. So, intrigued, I gave their video to "Fact And Friction" a spin and have to give YouTube a thumbs up for turning me on to a great band who share a lot of similarities to the aforementioned Welsh outfit (and not just the female singer angle).

"We're not here to change the world..." sings Jaret Reddick as Texan pop-punk fools Bowling For Soup prepare to head into their twentieth anniversary with their new album before signing off with a bang and a smile on their faces with a farewell UK tour. It's kind of ironic then that, with the world ready to lose one of the most fun live bands around, the quartet put out the best album of their career.

It's very easy to lump Los Angeles alt-metallers Gemini Syndrome in with that whole Disturbed/Five Finger Death Punch crowd and write them off even before you've digested the initial angsty minutes of their new album, Lux. However, with a major label deal signed and a tour with U.S. metallers Five Finger Death Punch in the not too distant future, it’s clear that somebody somewhere is planning big things for the Los Angeles outfit.

Despite clocking in at little over twenty-eight minutes, the gut-wrenching experience of listening to Unloved makes it feel like a hell of a lot longer.

Reading quartet Attention Thieves have been quietly plugging away for a while now, building up a reputation through hard work while fellow Brit rockers such as Lower Than Atlantis and We Are The Ocean have been taking the British rock scene by storm. Well, with the release of this, their new EP, just around the corner, 2014 looks like it will be the year when Attention Thieves make the step up to join their fellow Brits on the bigger scene.