Nice to see you out and about, as usual, Joe!  Thanks for the read : )

		Bazooka Joe wrote:
		Scorpions Hard At Work For New Album Vocalist Klaus Meine of German hard rock legends SCORPIONS has issued the following update: "Dear fans, the last few months on the road just flew by — and as always, it was fantastic and exciting to play for you. But now we are back in our studio in Hannover with our Swedish producers Mikael 'Nord' [Andersson] and Martin Hansen [the team behind THE RASMUS' "Dead Letters" CD] to work on our new album. We have a lot of new songs and are very much looking forward to the creative time ahead of us. Hopefully, when this time comes to an end, we will be able to present another awesome album that rocks and finds a place in your heart. If everything goes as planned, our new album will be released to the public spring of 2010. "There's more: This October, the world wide release of our new DVD, 'Amazonia –Life in the Jungle!' will be heading your way." Added guitarist Rudolf Schenker: "It is such a great feeling to be back in the studio and creating something new and genuine. As early as the first recording day with my bandmates, I realized pure creativity is in the air. I am sure that our new album will surprise all our fans. We are up to something big, so let your curiosity get the best of you!" Stated guitarist Matthias Jabs: "Now that our 'Humanity World Tour' is over and we toured the world twice very successfully, it is time to record new songs, to write new songs — songs that come from the heart and relate to our fans' emotions around the world. I am very excited about recording our new album with lots of energy and feeling. As always though, the bar is set very high, especially as I like to measure it with our albums 'Blackout' and 'Love at First Sting'." SCORPIONS recently extended their record deal with Ariola, which is part of the international media conglomerate Sony BMG Music Entertainment. The band's latest CD, "Humanity - Hour 1", was produced by James Michael and co-produced by songwriter/producer Desmond Child, who has worked with such high-profile pop/rock artists as AEROSMITH, BON JOVI, ALICE COOPER, KISS, RICKY MARTIN, CHER, MICHAEL BOLTON and BONNIE TYLER. The Best Buy edition of "Humanity - Hour 1" includes an exclusive track, "Cold". "Cold" was previously included on the Japanese pressing of the CD along with another bonus cut, a radio edit of "Love Will Keep Us Alive". Rudolf Schenker will release his official German-language autobiography, "Rock Your Life", in Germany on October 14. An English-language version is also planned. More details will be revealed soon. An 18-minute interview with SCORPIONS frontman Klaus Meine conducted by the band's webmaster Wolfgang Strauß on January 10, 2009 in Cologne, Germany can be viewed below. http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=50149982

New Slayer Album Releasing November 3rd

California thrash metal veterans SLAYER will release their new album, "World Painted Blood", in the U.S. on November 3 (one day earlier internationally) via American Recordings/Columbia Records.

The final track listing for the CD is as follows:

01. World Painted Blood
02. Unit 731
03. Snuff
04. Beauty Through Order
05. Hate Worldwide
06. Public Display Of Dismemberment
07. Human Strain
08. Americon
09. Psychopathy Red
10. Playing With Dolls
11. Not Of This God

"As we're so excited about 'World Painted Blood'," said the band's drummer, Dave Lombardo, "we wanted to do something special for the packaging, and have been working with some really cool ideas. They've taken time to get just right, and with our headlining the Mayhem tour for most of the summer, it's just taken that much longer to get all these great ideas exactly the way we want them."

There will be three different editions of "World Painted Blood" —a limited-edition CD with multiple CD covers, a deluxe edition CD/DVD, and a high-quality, 180-gram vinyl edition; specifics for all editions will be detailed shortly.

"We hope our fans will like everything about 'World Painted Blood' as much as we do," Lombardo continued. "Recording this new album has been one of the greatest experiences we've had as a band. We were together during the writing process more than we had been for past albums, we worked more collectively, everyone's suggestions and ideas were heard and considered, and that camaraderie is definitely heard in the new album."

Former Metal Edge editor-in-chief Phil Freeman has written the first track-by-track review of "World Painted Blood" for MSN Music's Heavy Metal Superfan site. After describing each of the album's 11 tracks in detail, he concludes: "A lot of people say SLAYER hasn't really been great since 'Seasons in the Abyss'. Those people are wrong. The Paul Bostaph years had a lot to recommend them ('Diabolus in Musica' is a seriously underrated album), and 'Christ Illusion' showed that SLAYER could experiment with dissonance and melody, and kick their own playing and songwriting up a notch when they wanted to. The bandmembers have given a lot of interviews talking about how a lot of this album was written in the studio. Listening to it, you can't tell. That's really impressive. Much the way METALLICA's 'Death Magnetic' combined the thrash of their early years with the hard-rock grooves of their 1990s work, 'World Painted Blood' builds on the success of every SLAYER album before it. It's not a legacy-polishing effort; it's the next step in a still-ongoing journey. Highly recommended."

Read the entire review at this location.

SLAYER recently made another track from "World Painted Blood" available for streaming at Hot Topic's ShockHound.com web site. The limited-edition single, a Kerry King composition, is titled "Hate Worldwide", and is available exclusively as a CD-single at Hot Topic stores.

"It's a really cool track, and Tom's voice sounds incredible on it," said King. "The last line in the song's chorus is '..spread a little hate worldwide,' and that's what we've been doing for 25 years."

"World Painted Blood" was recorded in Los Angeles over two time periods, during October 2008 and then between late January and March 2009. The CD was produced by Greg Fidelman, who's spent time in the studio with METALLICA, THE GOSSIP, THE (INTERNATIONAL) NOISE CONSPIRACY, SLIPKNOT and others, and executive-produced by longtime SLAYER colleague Rick Rubin, who suggested Fidelman for the project.

SLAYER — Araya, guitarists King and Jeff Hanneman, and Lombardo — recently co-headlined the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival with MARILYN MANSON, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, and BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE, among others.

New Songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6mRcjBjRMs&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eroadrunnerrecords%2Ecom%2Fblabbermouth%2Enet%2Fnews%2Easpx%3Fmode%3DArticle%26newsitemID%3D126335&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub2RGIWw5cM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eroadrunnerrecords%2Ecom%2Fblabbermouth%2Enet%2Fnews%2Easpx%3Fmode%3DArticle%26newsitemID%3D126335&feature=player_embedded