Memento Materia is putting out a new compilation in November called "Electropop Heroes of the North Vol 1" which will include a broad selection of Scandinavian electronic artists such as The Knife (new single "Handy-Man"), Bobby, Daybehavior, Apoptygma Berzerk, Colony 5, Statemachine, Alice In Videoland, and Pride and Fall. The comp will also feature exclusive tracks from Michigan, Backlash, Z Prochek and more.

Okay, I think things here are pretty much back on track. After further discussion with my webhost it appears that yes, they bungled the switching of a hard drive this past weekend and lost about 5 days worth of database data. Luckily, Google had it cached and I've been able to recover most of it exactly as it was before. I'm still a bit peeved at the situation, but there's not much I can do. Anyhow, I only have one day's worth of data to recover and that ain't bad. Also, anyone who signed up for the newsletter after Monday needs to do so again, too. So yeah, now let's get back to your regular programming...

Magnus was kind enough to send me some pics from KVLR's recent show with Logh at Scharinska Villan in Umeå this past Saturday. Check 'em out.

Hardcore Superstar has posted a bunch of pictures and video clips from their recent video shoot for the track "Honey Tongue".

Morten from A-ha is thinking of going into the bakery business. No really! Read this.

Thearkworld.com has posted yet another live video from the band's Stockholm show on April 30, this time it's "Joy Surrender".

Backdraft has recruited Greg from Raging Slab to be their new singer. The band plans to concentrate on songwriting this summer and will enter the studio sometime in July to record an new album for an October release.

Parasol/Hidden Agenda Records will release Club 8's latest record "Strangely Beautiful" on June 17 in the US. It's the band's fifth album overall, the third to see a domestic stateside release. In care you didn't know, Parasol are the people who introduced The Soundtrack of Our Lives to the States along with other acts such as Thirdimension, Ronderlin, Acid House Kings, Starlet, Mans Wieslander, Permer, Lasse Lindh, and Waltz For Debbie.

IndieWorkshop lauds the US release of "C'mon Let's Pretend" from the Sahara Hotnights. If you thought the 2nd album (the first one released in the US) was good, you ain't heard nuttin.

PopMatters reviews the new retrospective comp from Division of Laura Lee.

Pitchforkmedia.com gives the thumbs-up to Junior Senior.

Sparks of Seven has confirmed their summer tour schedule:

07/04 - Fjällbacka, Mega Wakeboard Contest
07/10 - Arvika, Arvikafestivalen
07/23 - Stockholm, Fritz Corner, Kulturhuset w/José González
08/01 - Hässleholm, Sommarfesten
08/02 - Lindesberg, Augustibuller
08/07-09 - Rasslebygd, Emmabodafestivalen

Check out the entire program for the Stockholm Jazz Festival right here.

SVT has published the summer schedule for the program "Allsång på Skansen":

06/24 - After Shave, Buddaboys, Per Gessle and Jerry Williams & The Boppers
07/01 - GES (Glennmark, Eriksson and Strömstedt), Sanne Salomonsen and Staffan Scheja
07/08 - Alcazar, Håkan Hellström, Kalle Moraeus/Bengan Jansson, Robyn and Tommy Körberg
07/15 - The Ark, Björn Skifs, Jill Johnson and Micke Nord
07/22 - Charlotte Nilsson, Jeerk, Ludvig Andersson, Per Myrberg and Style
07/29 - Barbro "Lill-Babs" Svensson, Black Noise, Fame, Jörgen Mörnbäck and Rigmor Gustavsson
08/05 - Benny Anderssons orkester & Helen Sjöholm, Carola, Lasse Berghagen and Robert Gustafsson

The Knife has given two songs to Robyn for the American edition of her album "Don't Stop The Music"? Read more. (from Musikjournalen, in Swedish)

Randy, Nasum, The Haunted, Raised Fist, The Pricks, The Liptones, Sparks of Seven, Bowser, Misconduct, Orange Crunch and Alice in Videoland have all been added to the Augustibuller lineup.

Green Carnation's new album "A Blessing in Disguise" is gathering all sorts of accolades including Album of the Month in the magazines Terrorizer, Metal Hammer, and BW&BK. They play the Quart Festival on July 5.

The Peepshows just posted a couple photos from their recent tour with The Hellacopters. Check them out here.

Voice of a Generation just posted a bunch of new pics, too. Theirs are from the band's recent shows in Marburg and Berlin.

The Cardigans have revealed that their upcoming performance at the Rock am Ring fest on June 6 will be webcasted by WDR Rockpalast. Go to their homepage on that date to view the stream. The band will also be doing a live chat the same day at 8:30pm mid-european summer time.

As hinted at before, Norway's St. Thomas is starting to make headways in the UK. "Hey Harmony" is the Album of the Week for the Sunday Times and the magazine Bang gave it a 5 out of 5. Here's the full review from the former:

Looking back on the success of "Harvest", Neil Young famously commented that he had found himself in the middle of the road and, not much liking it there, "headed for the ditch". While many of us have enjoyed the erratic, ditch-bound career that followed, those who own "Harvest" and no other Young albums should consider getting better acquainted with St. Thomas — aka Norwegian Thomas Hansen — whose quavering falsetto, simple mixture of folk and alt-country and tendency to leave a chorus just sort of hanging there all recall Young at his kindest and gentlest. Hansen had his own middle-of-the-road moment when his previous album, "I'm Coming Home", made him a star in Norway. He reacted in the traditional way — drinking too much, behaving badly at gigs and ending up in the tabloids for all the wrong reasons. But you wouldn't know it by listening to "Hey Harmony". Light, fluffy, upbeat and irrepressibly catchy, the songs suggest a sunny view of the world. The musicians — including Howe Gelb and various Lambchop members — play with tasteful simplicity. And when Hansen sings "we're having a Sunday party, come on over and be our friends" it sounds like an invitation you should accept.

Nasum has posted an extensive tour diary on their site with photos and video footage from their recent trip to Finland. Definitely entertaining. Also, for those that missed it, Shane Embury of Napalm Death and original Nasum member Rickard Alriksson recently joined the band onstage at their record release show this past weekend. See pictures here.

In Flames reports they have completed pre-production on six new songs at their house/studio in Denmark. They plan to spend about another week there writing and recording before heading back to Sweden where they will record the actual album this coming fall. Check out some pics from the so-called "Tuborg Sessions" right here.

The first dates of the rumored HIM tour supporting Ozzy Osbourne have been announced:

09/05 - London, Wembley Arena
09/07 - Birmingham, NEC
09/08 - Rotterdam, Ahoy
09/10 - Oberhausen, Arena
09/13 - Helsinki, Arena
09/15 - Stockholm, Globen
09/16 - Oslo, Spektrum
09/19 - Zurich, Hallenstadion
09/20 - Salzburg, Stadion
09/22 - Stuttgart, Schleyerhalle
09/24 - Vienna, Stadthalle
09/25 - Munich, Olympiahalle

Godsmack opens the shows and HIM plays right before Ozzy for about 45-50 minutes. After this tour HIM also plans to head out on their own around Europe on their own tour. More info when I get it.

Export Music Sweden is planning an outing in Tokyo, Japan for October 16-19. The event has been dubbed 'Swedish Style' and details are currently being worked out in conjunction with the embassy. No bands have been announced yet, but I'll be sure to keep you posted. Read this for more.

Digfi.com has published the schedule for Stockholm's Popaganda fest which takes place this coming weekend. Be sure to check it out so you don't miss the bands you intend to see.

Bands now added to the Avrikafest tour with Kamera now include Quit Your Dayjob, Alice In Videoland, Kristian Anttila, Don Juan Dracula, Nina Natri and Kitty.

And speaking of Avrika, here's some more bands added to the regular fest bill: Fireside, Mikael Wiehe, Paola, Moneybrother, Dub Sweden, USCB Allstars, De Stijl, Seven, the Monotypes, Love Olzon, Franke, Kristian Anttila, Nine, Dozer and TPIKSA.

Fireside, Burek V, David & The Citizens, Cult of Luna, and Heikki have now all been confirmed for the lineup of the free Trästock festival which takes place at Nordanå in Skellefteå on July 17-19.

We are now almost finnished with the recordings. We have until sunday this week and then we take a break for 3 weeks before we enter again for the final mix in mid June. It sounds very fuckin' great and we can't wait to release this fury upon your souls. It has gone very smooth in the studio, no problems at all and everybody is working their asses off. When we're not beating our instruments we are kickin' eachothers asses in Tekken 4 and the undisputed champion is for the moment Janne. We have now tuned down the guitars even more to get a more deadly sound to the songs and it fuckin' working, and the fast songs have become even more faster than the pre-production we did. As I'm writing this I have only one more song to do vocals on and that's "Dawn of Emptiness" , a mid tempo song that's gonna end the album along with the instrumental piece "The Endless Gate". Marcus has also some solos left to do and the shit he's done so far has fuckin' blown me away.

That's The Crown's vocalist Johan Lindstrand discussing the band's progress on the new album "Possessed 13" from their message board. The tentative release date is set for September.

Gåte's new single "Statt opp (Maggedulia)" has been postponed one week due to 'transport complications.' It now will come out on June 16.

Elin Sigvardsson will contributing her version of "You're A Big Girl Now" to the upcoming "May Your Songs Always Be Sung" Bob Dylan tribute. Other artists on the comp include Chris Whitley and Elliot Murphy. She also posted a quick note on her website with regards to what she's up to now. (in Swedish)

Jettie has announced that Stefan Juhlin has left the band. They say there's no hard feelings and they're all still friends, they just grew apart. His positioned won't be immediately replaced, rather they will continue on as a three-piece for now. In other news, the band's CDEP "Some Stories We Trust" recently came out on Kasual Records and they're already hard at work on new material.

Better late than never, the Seattle Weekly has published a feature on Righteous Boy, the side project of Cardigans bassist Magnus Sveningsson. Apparently Future Farmer Records just put out the record in the US this week.

Also by way of Cardigans Country, comes this Q&A session with Nina Persson from Exclaim!, a Canadian webzine.

Some of the bands scheduled to play Metalfest Vienna which takes place in Austria from August 23-24: In Flames, Lacuna Coil, Amon Amarth, Katatonia, Finntroll, Borknagar, and Vintersong. More info here.

Supersilent is now confirmed for the Internationales Jazzfestival in Saalfelden, Austria on 08/30. They are also playing Parkteatret in Oslo on 05/31.

Thearkworld.com has put up a video of the band playing "Angelheads" live from Stockholm on April 30. The website also has posted Ola, Jepson and Lasse's favorite records, so head on over to check it out.

Interested in the upcoming Soundtrack of Our Lives shows in Slussens? Well, tsool.tk has got a bilingual guide just for you.

Mando Diao has reportedly already sold 16k copies of their album on import in Japan before the official release date of June 18. They'll also be heading over there to play the Summer Sonic festivals in Tokyo and Osaka in support of the release before returning for a headlining tour this fall. As for the rest of the world, Mute will be releasing it in the US on August 26, France on June 24.

Bobby is having a record release show at Club Mondo in Stockholm on May 26 where they will play two five-song sets. Get tickets by emailing galesbury@hotmail.com.

CNN will be broadcasting a Swedish music special on the program 'The Music Room Show' which is set to air six times between June 27-29. More details when I get them.

Great news for the US! V2 just announced they will release Fireside's latest album "Get Shot" over here on July 22! Will they tour in support? We can only hope.

Dub Sweden's new single next week is for the song "Ice In My Fire" and you can listen to it here. The b-side will be the song "Things That I'm Scared Of".

Man, can Division of Laura Lee ever complete an entire tour? Seems that DoLL had to recently pull out of the current Turbonegro jaunt due to serious illness. The statement from the band:

Dear audience,
This tour has been amazing in all ways, fantastic audience, met some incredible people, everything was amazing until May 20.th in Zürich when Jonas was too sick to go onstage, due to fever and influenza. Hakan & I went onstage to fulfill our duties , but left the stage after 10 minutes of making noise.
David got seriously ill and it got even worse when he tried to go onstage. His illness became acute and he had to be taken to the hospital's emergency room where the doctor had to drug him for his pain and put him on an intravenous drip. David is ordered to be in the hospital for observation for the next 3-4 days and will not be able to fulfill his duties on the rest of the dates on this tour. Yesterday evening we were not even able to establish contact with David as he was on such heavy medication. Our tourmanager Erik Welén is sitting by David & will keep us updated. We are right now heading back to Gothenburg.
We'll keep you updated & again we are so sorry to cancel the upcoming dates in München, Köln, Bielefeld & Berlin. We'll be back.
Take care
Per Stalberg 22/5

The list of bands booked for Rookiescenen at Hultsfred fest has been announced: Alice in Videoland, Ayesha, Backroom Matches, Bad Monkey, Chastisement, Flickering Habit, Goto 80, Hank,I Love You Baby!, Illstar, Inglorious Bastards, Kitty & The K, Sparzanza, Subdive, The Ackermans, The Bones Band and The Family Truckster. More info here.

Here's something totally unexpected: Pitchforkmedia.com reviews the new album from Värttinä and likes it! I had no idea they'd actually cover world music, but I guess they're branching out. And the reviewer is even knowledgable on the subject, too. I'm shocked. And not to be outdone, PopMatters covers the album today, too.

Nicolai Dunger has been added to the Popaganda Fest on May 31 in Stockholm.

Kent's upcoming concert at Stockholm Stadium on June 6 is in jeopardy. In case you weren't already aware, there are some serious labor strikes going on right now in Sweden and the venue's gateworkers are involved. The concert organizers are trying to get an exemption request in to make sure it still goes on, but many are skeptical. If the Swedish Speedway Grand Prix is cancelled, than why would a Kent concert be different? Wait and see.

The documentary film "The Future Is Not What It Used To Be" on Finnish electronic music pioneer Erkki Kurenniemi is scheduled to be shown at the upcoming 50th Venice Biennale in June. After the screening, a special tribute concert will take place featuring Pan Sonic, Carl Michael von Hauswolff and man-of-the-hour Erkki Kurenniemi himself. For those unable to attend, there's a DVD out called "The Dawn of DIMI" that features said documentary along with various short films and animations, plus concert footage from the early 70s. More info here and here.

Got another exclusive mp3 today, this time from Norway's Cato Salsa Experience. Some of you Americans might remember them as one of the opening bands on The Soundtrack of Our Lives' first headlining US tour. Anyhow, the track is called "In Case You Need Deep Love" and it comes off the upcoming album "The Fruit Is Still Fresh" due out June 2. Download it on your right.

Two new summer dates for The Ark:

05/16 - Utekravallen, Linköping
08/02-3 - Ankkarock, Åminne, Finland

Slim Fit reports that their debut full length album has just gotten mastered and is getting ready to drop any day now.

Johan Bergqvist has posted the new cover art for his upcoming single "This Could Be Our Time". The single has been slightly delayed because of video production issues, but you can still download the track on the right.

It took some time, but The Wannadies will finally release a single for the track "Skin" in the UK on June 9 on the label Cooking Vinyl. Eventually the full album "Before and After" will even make it out over there, too. And to celebrate, the band at the Underworld in London on June 5.

The Cardigans are scheduled to be the guests on the MTV's new program 'Source' on May 11. And in other news, the band recently posted a diary of the video shoot for "For What It's Worth". Pretty neat.

David & the Citizens have a bunch of fresh, new t-shirt and other merch items for sale. Check 'em out over at the Adrian Records webstore.

69-Hard has found a replacement for departed drummer Bert Lundgren. Now playing with the band will be Mr. Sticky Bomb, also in Wilmer X.

P3 Musikjournalen reports that Magnus Carlsson's forthcoming solo album will be called "Ett Kungarike För En Kram". Look for it in June.

Funker Vogt, Haujobb, and Beborn Beton are among the acts just confirmed for the Sonic Havoc festival in Stockholm on May 10. More info: www.tinitus.com

Zero Music Magazine reports that the 'synthpunk' band Alice in Videoland have signed a recording contract with National. Look for the first single and video later this month.

In Flames are coming back to the US, yet again. This time they're headling and bringing along fellow Swedes Soilwork as support along with Chimaira and Unearth. The dates so far:

06/26 - Toronto, ON The Guvernment
06/27 - Montreal, QC The Medley
06/28 - Worcester, MA The Palladium
07/01 - Philadelphia, PA Trocadero Theatre
07/03 - Detroit, MI Harpo's
07/04 - Syracuse, NY Hellfest
07/05 - Cleveland, OH Agora
07/06 - Chicago, IL Vic Theatre
07/07 - Minneapolis, MN The Quest
07/14 - Tempe, AZ Cajun House
07/17 - Los Angeles, CA The Palace
07/18 - San Francisco, CA outdoors at The Pound
07/19 - Portland, OR Roseland Theatre
07/20 - Seattle, WA Showbox
07/21 - Vancouver, BC Commodore Ballroom

The band is also heading over to Denmark in about a week to begin rehearsals on new material. Perhaps we'll hear some on this coming tour?

Check out a live audio clip of the new track "You Better Run" from The Soundtrack of Our Lives from the show at Gröna Lund on April 30, by way of tsool.tk.

Revolver webzine has posted an interview with Fireside. (in Swedish)

Norway's Gåte has returned from Zimbabwe where they played at the Harare International Festival Of The Arts and are now back in the studio with proudcer Alex Møklebust recording a brand new single. They expect to have it out on June 10.

Millencolin has announced three new summer festival dates:

06/21 - Hurricane, Hamburg, Germany
06/22 - Southside, Freiburg, Germany
07/05 - Wiesen Forestgalde Festiva, Austria

As mentioned before, the band recently had to cancel the east coast leg of their US tour in order to return home and search for singer Nikola's older brother. They hope to reschedule the missed dates soon.

Here's another review of "Scandinavian Leather" from Turbonegro, this time from the UK's Bank Magazine.

We’ve been in an industry laboratory and we’ve been in a school for, I’m serious, a school for criminal youngsters. I’ve said that it was half Kraftwerk and half Sex Pistols. It might be a bit stiffer than the last record. The songs are just the best songs we could ever get our hands on and then it's up to how we play them.

That's Howlin' Pelle of The Hives discussing their work on the forthcoming album with NME. Read more,

On May 23 there's gonna be a Swedish music showcase of sorts taking place at the Underworld in Camden, London. Making their UK debut will be The Facer, Amical and The Mainliners.

Eskobar have been confirmed to play the Festival Champ du Gros in Switzerland on September 19. More info: www.chantdugros.ch

Rolling Stone reports that Turbonegro have hired Spike Jonze to direct their next video for the title track to the new album "Scandinavian Leather". And in keeping with recent Scandinavian band tradition, the video will feature guest appearances by the dudes from 'Jackass'.

In case you missed it, I had a guest review published on Dagensskiva on Saturday.

The Rasmus have now been confirmed for both the June Rock im Park and the June Rock am Ring fests in Germany on the 6th and 8th respectively.

Puffball has a new 7" coming out on Stereodrive! Records, the label of record store Green Hell Records in Münster. "Outlaw" is the a-side title track and "Hornet Rider" is the b-side along with a cover of Merle Haggard's "Momma Tried". And from Southspace webzine, here's a short interview with the band.

Via the band's webiste, here's a review of Logh from NME written by James Jam:

..."Every time..." is a record so fucking dull, so fucking uninspired, that nme finds itself looking for a chainsaw and pricing up cheap flights to Sweden. In the words of the high priest of rock'n'roll fun, Iggy Pop, seek out and destroy.

Logh's response? "James has been bought a planeticket to Sweden. we´re waiting anxiously." Brilliant. In other Logh news, the band reports they are finishing up work on the new video and should have it done next week.

The Norweigan paper VG recently published a long interview with Morten from A-ha. Here's a nice English synopsis plus a link to the article itself.

St. Thomas will be putting out a limited vinyl edition of "Hey Harmony" in mid-May. 300 copies, 180 gram vinyl. He'll have it for sale at the May 10 Rockefeller show in Oslo. He'll also be playing quite a few shows around Europe coming up soon, with more to be announced for June:

April 30 Ålesund - TBC
05/01 - TBA
05/02 - Trondheim Blæst
05/03 - TBA
05/07 - Molde, TBC
05/08 - Sogndal, Meieriet
05/09 - Hønefoss, Alfreds
05/10 - Oslo, Rockefeller
05/14 - Stavanger, Checkpoint Charlie
05/15 - Kristiansand, TBC
05/16 - TBA
05/17 - Skien, Brekkeparken
05/21-23 Sweden, TBA
05/24 - Hamburg, Echochamber im Phonodrom
05/25 - Berlin, Roter Salon
05/26 - Muchen, Club Zwei festival in Atomic
05/28 - TBA (Frankfurt or Koln)
05/29 - Roskilde Gimle Cafe
05/30 - Copenhagen, Loppen
05/31 - Århus, Spot festival
07/18 - Feierwerk Festival, Munich August 8 or 9 Øyafestivalen

Here's some pictures from Randy's show at Groez Rock in Belgium on April 26.

Johan Bergqvist along with Crying Bob Records is putting together a new festival tour called Bobbyfest. The established goal of the tour is to "give you the best independent music there is, for a good price." Sounds good to me. The line-up is Leftlane, The Virtues, Johan Bergqvist, Moody Alan, and Moll Flanders and so far there's just two dates set for May with more set to come in the fall. Details as of now:

05/03 - Mondo, Stockholm
05/17 - Diezel, Halmstad

A day in the life with The Ark: http://www.thearkworld.com/day.htm

It's about friggin' time. Startracks in association with Simba Records has put out a Kristofer Åström & Hidden Truck compilation in America called "Plastered Confessions". Five songs from the previous albums, plus a Steve Earle cover. Better than nothing, I guess. More info here or here.

Green Carnation's upcoming album will be called "A Blessing In Disguise" and it comes out June 16 in the UK, June 17 in the US from Seasons of Mist. In case you were wondering, Green Carnation features various members of In the Woods along with Tchort who did time in Emperor.

Burnitblue.com reviews Jaga Jazzist - "The Stix". It's been out for awhile in the band's home country of Norway, but comes out May 6 in the UK.

DigitalMetal.com reviews Opeth's new album "Damnation".

Sweden's Centinex has announced they will enlist the help of Per Gustafson from Cult of Luna to do the artwork on their new CD "Decadence - Prophecies Of Cosmic Chaos". Timo "The Eyeless" Ketola will handle the layout. Recording begins June 23 at Black Lounge Studios and they expect to have it sometime in October on Candlelight Records.

NRK has finally made Immortal's performance from the Inferno festival available for viewing: http://nrk.no/magasin/upunkt/musikk/inferno_2003/2713354.html

Sweden's buzz-band of the moment Radio Dept. release their debut 7" for "Liebling" b/w "We Would Fall Against The Tide" in the UK today on Rex Records. They'll also be playing their first shows over in London this weekend:

05/02 - The Spitz, 109 Commercial Street, Old Spitalfields Market, E1. w/Apples In Stereo and The Loves
05/03 - The Arts Cafe, 28 Commercial Street, E1., w/Kicker and Sportique

Norway's Sondre Lerche got himself a short feature interview on CNN: 'Sondre Lerche: Sunny sounds from Norway'

Mattias Alkberg of Bear Quartet is working on a solo project called "Begravning" and you can download a sample here.

Here's the winners of this year's Swedish Hip-Hop awards:

Best Album: Looptroop - The Struggle Contuines
Best Song: The Narcissists - Fanatik R.I.P.
Best MC: Timbuktu
Best Producer: Embee
Best Vinyl Release: Highwon - Beats, Rim & Gendish
Best DJ: Confuze
Best Download: Snook - Mognare Än Oss
Best Newcomer/Demo/Self-Released: Frotté - Den Stora Daldansen
Hip-Hop Culture Award: Aerosol/Graffiti: Unik
Hip-Hop Culture Award: B-boy: Hammer Hill B Boys
Crossfade Video Award: Ison and Fille - Fakka Ur
Lifetime Achievement Award: Ken

And speaking of Swedish hip-hop, the latest edition of Sounds Norway (SoNo) is a special on the subject: "everything you need to know about it; and meet a couple of old-timers who think hiphop is the perfect way to air all their grumbles." Check it out.

Some of the new bands confirmed for Avrika fest: Gåte, Kaizers Orchestra, Ralph Myerz & the Jack Herren Band, Shout Out Louds, Paris, JmyHaze Beatbox, Homy, Ricochets, Sparks of Seven, Peter Dolving Band, Thulsa Doom, JR Ewing, Alice in Videoland, Totalt Jävla Mörker and Slagsmålsklubben.

Sunride has confirmed their upcoming tourdates in support of their new album "Through the Red", out May 19 on People Like You Records:

05/01 - 45 Special, Oulu, Finland
05/03 - Pub Bastun, Mariehamn, Åland w/Endstand
05/08 - Klubi, Tampere, Finland w/Dozer
05/09 - Stella Star, Helsinki, Finland w/Dozer
05/10 - Lutakko, Jyväskylä, Finland w/Dozer
05/14 - Kino, Pori, Finland
05/16 - Bar 15, Seinäjoki, Finland
05/17 - Torvi, Lahti, Finland
05/24 - Mikrokosmos, Magdeburg, Germany
05/25 - Knaack, Berlin, Germany
05/26 - Rosenkeller, Jena, Germany
05/27 - Paradox, Ingolstadt, Germany
05/28 - 013, Tilburg, The Netherland

Cult of Luna reports that they have a new drummer - Thomas from The Perishers. I can't confirm it for sure, but my assumption is that Marco Hildén has accepted a permanent position with Logh and moved on. In case you didn't know, Marco has been filling in for them since their drummer Kristofer left recently mid-tour. As reported earlier, Cult of Luna just recently completed work on a new video and is now putting together plans for a full European tour this fall. Details when I get 'em.

It's not exactly new, but here's some pictures and captions from the Avanto '02 fest with Pan Sonic, Erkki Kurenniemi and more.

Burning Heart won't release the new Lost Patrol album until June 2, but you can download a preview mp3 now: Lost Patrol - "Going Going Gone"