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As has been reported on many sites, Metallica has released the first single from “Death Magnetic” entitled “The Day That Never Comes.” Now the band has made available a new track “My Apocalypse” via Metallica.com.

While a lot of people accused the band of ripping off their earlier material on “The Day That Never Comes” it still is probably better than anything they’ve released since 1991. This new track features more heavy riffing and fast beats as well as some great solos from Kirk Hammett, but for some reason I just can’t get past Hetfield’s vocals. Just not my style at this point, but the song definitely has the feel of classic Metallica.

Lars’ has been using the same Tama kits he usually does from what I’ve seen. He’s either using other snare drums or did something to his signature models. The sound is a lot better than the pongy-ness of the “St. Anger” snare sound.

The Outside Lands music festival took place this past weekend in San Francisco and while I was not present to review it PitchforkMedia was, of course. They have some great photo’s up of Radiohead with their high-tech LED light show, Beck, Wilco and Tom Petty, among others.

The festival boasted a pretty good lineup of major headline acts and smaller but well-known indie acts such as; Broken Social Scene, Drive-By Truckers, Andrew Bird, The Walkmen, Devandra Benhart and more.

Outside Lands Festival Pictures.

A lot has been written about Metallica’s upcoming album “Death Magnetic”, now the albums first single has been made available to radio and is also streaming at the band’s MySpace page and website.

“The Day That Never Comes” is pretty much what you would expect from Metallica at this point, meaning it is derivative of their earlier material. This was the point I guess, seeing as though so much press had come out with the band stating that they were attempting to write new material more in line with their early albums.

The end result, at least this particular song, is a straight up rip-off of older material (particularly “One”) and some Black Album/Load-era sounds. Structure-wise there are A LOT of similarities to “One” and Lars Ulrich’s drumming isn’t particularly impressive.

This song is world’s better than any of the bands “St. Anger” material, but most music is. This is only one song on a 10-song album, so we’ll see. Listen to the track here…

Metallica: “The Day That Never Comes”

I usually hate lists, but I figured why not start some debate. Here is a list of my 5 favortie drummers in no particular order.

-Brendan Canty (Fugazi)

-Danny Carey (Tool)

-Bill Bruford (King Crimson, Yes)

-Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters)

-Bill Ward (Black Sabbath)

To anyone reading, feel free to post your Top 5 drummers in the comments of this post. Just hope the debate won’t get too heated…

Wilco are gearing up to record their seventh album. This comes as exciting news for Wilco fans, but after debuting new songs during their headlining Lollapalooza set, its probably not much of a surprise.

I’m not a huge fan of Wilco myself, but their drummer Glenn Kotche is amazing. If you haven’t heard his drumming, check it out. His playing at times is very unconventional and his use of different accessories on his drum kit adds a lot of depth to Wilco’s music.

Regarding the band’s new music & album, Jeff Tweedy had this to say…

“we will allow ourselves a little bit more leeway in terms of sculpting the sound in the studio and doing overdubs and using the studio as another instrument. Last time around, it was more of a document.”

Source.

Not too long ago a few tracks from Guns N’ Roses, 14 years in-the-making album “Chinese Democracy” leaked online. This led to rumors of whether or not the album would finally come out. The “Chinese Democracy” album, up to this point, has basically become a huge joke. Now though, there are some signs that it may finally see an actual release, maybe even an exclusive one. According to Billboard.com…

“But some concrete signs are finally emerging that the album’s release could be imminent. That’s because, according to sources, negotiations are underway for “Chinese Democracy” to come out as an exclusive at one of the big boxes — either Wal-Mart or Best Buy. Negotiations are also ongoing to have conventional record company distribution, another source says.”

Kind of fitting that they’d do a Wal-Mart exclusive huh? It’s like they’re making a huge joke sundae and putting the Wal-Mart cherry on top. None of the people Billboard tried to reach for comment were available, including the band’s management company, their label Interscope, or any of their reps.

This album features drumming work from both studio great Josh Freese, (who was a part of the project for around 2 years before leaving to play with A Perfect Circle) and also Brain, both of whom are DW Drums endorsers. Hopefully at some point we can hear their work on the album, even though I can’t stand Guns N’ Roses.

Source.

In a joint effort with the ‘Iraq Veterans Against the War and Tent State University’ Rage Against The Machine will be playing a free show at the Denver Coliseum on August 27th during the Democratic National Convention. According to Billboard.com…

“The performance is part of the Tent State Music Festival to End the War, and will alsp feature Flobots, the Coup, State Radio and Wayne Kramer.

Tickets will be given away for free by lottery. Fans can sign up by presenting a photo ID at Cuernavaca Park at the university’s campus starting Aug. 24 through Aug. 26 from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The all-ages event is set to begin at 11 a.m. Rage has also scheduled a performance for Sept. 3 in Minneapolis, during the same week the Republican National Convention is rolling into town”

The band itself has not given any interviews or issued any statements regarding either shows at this point. I personally think the free show idea is a great way to promote the cause and a great way for the bands fans to get involved. These shows are also significant because they mark two of the bands only true headline concerts that are not huge festivals. Could this be a sign that the band may go into the studio? It’s possible, and I would definitely like to hear some new Rage and new Brad Wilk drum beats.

I have been trying to find out the specifics of the drum kit Brad Wilk is currently playing on tour with Rage but all I can find is information on his 1992-2000 Rage kit and his Audioslave kit which was a Gretsch with Paiste Cymbals. I assume this is his most recent setup. If anyone knows more about, please let me know.

While not really newsworthy, I found a page over at DW Drums‘ site that contains a setup diagram for almost all of their artists/drummers.

All you have to do is click their name on the left and it will reveal all the details of their drum kit setup. DW’s roster has got everyone from session greats like Josh Freese to Brain, to Billy Ward. Seems like a no brainier to look at DW Drums site to get drum setups, only I never did until now. Good to know if you’re hunting for your favorite drummers setup.

DW Drummer Setups Page.

The Oya Festival happened last weekend in Norway, and while it seems like the US has enough festivals, we never get ones with these kind of lineups. Lots of cool bands played, with lots of great drummers. This was the 10th year of the festival, which has a capacity of around 20,000 people, relativly small for most festivals. Still, lots of people came out to see Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, No Age, Isis, Sigur Ros, Mogwai and many many more.

The Oya Festival is renown for having a great setup so that barely any bleed-through occurs from stage to stage and they do a good job of showcasing up-and-coming Scandinavian acts while still having international ones. Pitchfork Media has some exclusive photo’s and coverage of the festival worth checking out.

Every time I see stuff like this I just shake my head. The reason being that the European festivals seem to always have better lineups than we get here in the US, at least more in line with my taste anyway. Hopefully this will change in the coming years as US festivals evolve and grow.

Metallica has been making headlines everywhere recently, leading up to the release of their new album. This time though, the band has played one of their new songs live at Ozzfest in Dallas, TX. The song, titled “Cyanide” is not their new album’s first single.

A full live performance video of the song can be found over at YouTube. The song definitely harks back to the bands “Ride The Lightning” and “Master of Puppets” classic years. Although I don’t believe it’s on the same level as the bands classic material, its worlds better than “St.Anger” and in my opinion even the bands “Load” and “Re-Load” era output.

Lars has got plenty of tricky drum parts in there, classical guitars and fast, aggressive sections. Check the song out for yourself. The one thing I think is lacking is the vocals, ever since the bands Black Album days, James Hetfield’s voice has never recovered from when he blew it out. Anyway, judge for yourself.