Continuing the support of their sixth album, Resolution, Lamb of God have announced several Europe and UK tour dates for August. You can check out all the dates below.

The band has always done the June festivals in Europe; this marks Lamb of God’s first appearance at the August festivals. Headline shows throughout Europe will make up the dates between festivals. This tour follows the already announced US tour scheduled for May and the Metal on the Mountain Retreat in July.

In other Lamb of God news, the band’s Metal on the Mountain Retreat, scheduled for July 15 to 19 at Full Moon Resort in Big Indian, New York, has welcomed ESP Guitars as a sponsor. ESP is making available to registrants the ability to purchase at a very discounted price an LTD Electric Guitar available in multiple colors signed by the band at the retreat. ESP has donated a new Willie Adler Warbird signature model to be awarded to one of the campers on the final day of the retreat. This guitar will also be signed by all five band members.

For more information on the Metal on the Mountain Retreat, visit metalonthemountain.com.

Lamb of God Dates for the Europe/ UK tour:

8/1 Viveiro, Spain Resurrection Festival
8/3 Rendsburg, Germany Wacken Open Air
8/4 Cologne, Germany Essigfabrik
8/5 Hamburg,Germany Markthalle
8/6 Berlin, Germany Columbia Club
8/8 Gävle, Sweden Get Away Rock
8/10 Derbyshire, United Kingdom Bloodstock Open Air-
8/11 Dublin, Ireland Olympia Theatre
8/12 Belfast, Northern Ireland The Limelight
8/15 Amsterdam, Netherlands Melkweg
8/16 Dinkelsbuehl, Germany Summer Breeze
8/17 Hasselt, Belgium Pukkelpop
8/18 Paris, France Le Bataclan

Dates for the May/ June tour are:

5/16 Asheville, NC The Orange Peel
5/17 Chattanooga, TN Track 29
5/18 Nashville, TN Marathon Music Works
5/19 Columbus, OH Rock on the Range
5/20 Columbia, MO Blue Note
5/22 Boulder, CO Boulder Theater
5/23 Salt Lake City, UT In The Venue
5/24 Boise, ID Revolution Center
5/25 Reno, NV Knitting Factory
5/26 Ventura, CA Ventura Theater
5/28 Tucson, AZ Rialto Theater
5/29 Anaheim, CA The Grove
5/31 Chico, CA Senator Theater
6/1 Portland, OR Roseland Ballroom
6/2 Kennewick, WA Toyota Ice Arena
6/3 Missoula, MT Wilma Theater
6/4 Billings, MT Shrine Auditorium
6/6 Fargo, ND The Venue
6/7 Madison, WI Orpheum Theater
6/8 Lincoln, NE Bourbon Theater
6/9 Wichita, KS The Cotillion
6/10 Tulsa, OK Cain’s Ballroom
6/12 Ft. Wayne, IN Pierre’s
6/13 Rochester, NY Water Street Music Hall
6/14 Atlantic City, NJ House of Blues
6/15 Montebello, QC Montebello Marina / D-Tox Fest
6/16 Portland, ME State Theater
6/18 Worcester, MA Palladium Ballroom
6/19 Baltimore, MD Rams Head
6/20 Norfolk, VA The Norva

One notable release is Earache Records’ The World’s Shortest Album, which features 13 songs in 83 seconds. Of course, bands like Napalm Death, Brutal Truth, Anal Cunt and more are included.

A list of metal and hard-rock releases are below:

• All That Remains – Fall Of Ideals 12”

• Avenged Sevenfold – Live In The LBC & Diamonds In The Rough 12”

• Avenged Sevenfold – Carry On Picture Disc

• Between The Buried And Me – Parallax 1 & 2 Vinyl Boxset

• Between The Buried And Me – The Anatomy Of 12”

• Botch – American Nervoso (deluxe 2xLP)

• Coheed And Cambria – The Afterman: Descension (Big Beige Demos) 12”

• Deep Purple/Type-O Negative – Side by Side: Highway Star 7”

• Deftones – Live: Volume 1 – Selections from Adrenaline 12”

• Dio – Magica Picture Disc

• Dio/Killswitch Engage – Side by Side: Holy Diver 7”

• Katatonia – Buildings 7”

• Lamb Of God – New American Gospel (Grey Marble Edition) 12”

• Linkin Park – Hybrid Theory 12”

• Misfits/The Lemonheads – Side By Side: Skulls Picture Disc

• Puscifer – V is for Vagina 12”

• Soundgarden – King Animal Demos 10”

• Testament – Dark Roots Covers Picture Disc 7″

• Touche Amore/Title Fight – Split 7″

• Rob Zombie – Dead City Radio And The New Gods Of Supertown/ Teenage Nosferatu Pussy (Explicit Only) 10”

You can find more information about Record Store Day here.

The Outaouais Rock team is proud to announce the complete lineup for the 8th edition of the Amnesia Rockfest, now the biggest rock festival in Quebec and sponsored by Revolver Magazine. The festival will kick off with a series of indoor shows from June 10 – 16 at the Marina de Montebello in the Outaouais region. Main outdoor festivities take place June 14 and 15.

Among the headlining bands are the popular Chicago rock group Rise Against, Californian punk rock bands The Offspring and Social Distortion, shock rockers Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson, and alternative-metal band Deftones. These bands will play alongside the likes of the previously announced Rancid and Lamb of God, as well as Pennywise (back together with the band’s original singer), Dropkick Murphys, Anthrax, Killswitch Engage, Lagwagon, Transplants (with Travis Barker of Blink-182), The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (playing in Quebec after a 16 year absence), Millencolin and many others.

In addition to a significant enhancement of the three existing stages, Rockfest will introduce two new “international” stages that will focus on cult favorites and rare bands. Taking to these stages include the reunion of Black Flag, which will play under the name FLAG, Bad Brains (after an 18 year absence in Quebec), Screeching Weasel (after a 30 year absence in Quebec), Sick Of It All, Biohazard, Discharge, Subhumans UK, Mad Caddies and many others.

Rotating with the main stage, the « Québécois » stage will host the pillars of Quebec’s alternative music scene. Several of these now defunct bands are reuniting solely for the Amnesia Rockfest : Groovy Aardvark, Men O Steel, Roller Starter, Cryptopsy (with the band’s original frontman Lord Worm), Ghoulunatics, Arseniq33, Capitaine Révolte and Vulgar Deli. Also scheduled to reunite are : Grimskunk, Mononc’ Serge, Kataklysm, Matt Smashers of Planet Smashers, Obey The Brave and a punk Karaoke at the end of the night as well as many others.

Finally, the emerging stage will offer the best of local and international bands. Many surprises and secrets await festival attendees. In total, over 150 bands will take to the stages during the event.

It cannot be left unsaid that camping zones and festival grounds will be expanding the week leading up to festival as will indoor show venues (the lineup for indoor shows will be released in the upcoming weeks). There will be numerous activities taking place over the course of the event including rides, a rock and roll museum, a haunted house, buskers and fire spitters to enhance the carnivalesque and festive atmosphere.

Weekend passports are now available exclusively with advanced ticket sales in limited quantity on the Rockfest Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pnrockfest. Tickets for general admission will go on sale Saturday at noon at www.pnrockfest.com, in Amnesia stores and on the Admission network. Passports are available at the affordable price of 79$ + taxes and service fees, which comes out to 0.53$ a band! With the already generated enthusiasm and this year’s solid line-up, the team thinks that for the first time in its history, the festival will be sold out!

Please note that VIP packages are also available as well as bus packages from Montreal, Quebec City and other cities.

Chris Krovatin is the author of three young adult novels,

With death metal and hardcore leading the mall-promoted face of metal (or whatever the fuck people under 20 care about these days, God, I need a drink), breakdowns have become a staple point within the genre. Every dude who likes swinging a ham-sized fist around for no reason spends much of any metal concert waiting for that moment when things slow down and he can stomp around like a violent turtle. There’s even an entire genre now, “deathcore” that seems to be composed entirely of breakdowns. Chug-chug, slam-slam, we all love a good breakdown.

What aren’t always given their due, however, are speed-up parts, the moment where a mid-paced song bursts into a thrash section and some dude in the pit is given the go-ahead to hold up his index finger and spin it around, signaling the much-loved circle pit. I’ve always adored these moments, when a normal song explodes into a barrage of speed and aggression, as I’m much more of an old-school mosher, the running and slamming and freewheeling type, than the modern karate-kicking dance majors who so often populate the pit during a breakdown. So, to honor both the quick and the deadly (and to piss off scene bros and kvltists alike), here is my list of the Six Best Breakdowns and Speed-Ups.

The Six Best Breakdowns:

1. Pantera, “Domination” Aw, man, the original. Dimebag’s guitar breaks off of that pained wail and rolls right into that steady chug, eventually topped with insane weedling unlike any heard before. Tough as nails, catchy as Hell—the breakdown all others aspire to.

2. Slayer, “Raining Blood” The end of this classic Slayer track is a perfect example of a breakdown that makes a song. With its melodic variation on the opening riff coupled by the neck-snapping rhythm it stomps into, this manages to be both brawny and deeply evil at once.

3. Hatebreed, “Before Dishonor” If there was ever a breakdown to beat on one’s chest to, it’s that of “Before Dishonor.” Jamey Jasta bellowing, “WHAT I HAVE IN MY HEART, I’LL TAKE TO MY GRAVE” helps. Easily the most macho of the breakdowns on this list.

4. Lamb of God, “Now You’ve Got Something To Die For” Just beating that of “Black Label,” the breakdown closing “Now You’ve Got…” is the bottom line for metal kids who want to absolutely lose their shit in the pit. Randy Blythe’s roar over its opening is truly breathtaking.

5. Sepultura, “Propaganda” To be a stand-out breakdown on a record this chuggy and mid-paced takes some stones, but Sepultura pull it off without issue. It’s especially notable given how well it closes one of the faster songs on the record, and does so in a solid swoop, not a fade-out.

6. Anthrax, “Indians” Two words: WAR DANCE!

Band of note: Dying Fetus I really wanted to include a Dying Fetus track on this list, but every attempt at finding the right song made me think, Is this an actual breakdown, or just a Dying Fetus part? Let me take this moment to say that Dying Fetus are kings of the death-metal breakdown, and much of the modern obsession with breakdowns is their doing.

The Six Best Speed-Ups:

1. Lamb of God, “Ruin” Ye-hess. The moment where this song breaks into an off-kilter thrash part is absolutely obliterating and totally satisfying. If you listen to this song and your fist doesn’t begin pumping at this speed-up moment, you’re not doing it right. The sound of someone’s breaking point.

2. Cannibal Corpse, “Stripped, Raped, and Strangled” This Cannibal classic begins with a plodding, heavy-handed riff, but then breaks into a panicked whirlwind of guitar leads and drums that perfectly expresses the insanity of its protagonist. This is how a speed-up can be used as a consistent part, and subsequently craft a song into something better than it once was.

3. Slayer, “Postmortem” Not only is the sudden change in tempo of this song impressive, but the sudden speed applied to the sudden barrage of wordy lyrics—“My sinful glare at nothing holds thoughts of death behind it”—showcases Tom Araya’s vocal versatility. Look, just tell me this: DO YOU WANT TO DIE?

4. Guns N’ Roses, “Paradise City” Oh yeah—even the glamor boys got in on the speed. The sudden supercharged ending of this track takes the main riff and throws it on its head with a big dose of Lemmy. Didn’t think you could mosh to GN’R? Think again.

5. The Crown, “Devil Gate Rider” This Swedish death-metal classic, guest starring Tomas Lindberg of At the Gates, is the best song about drag-racing in Hell that has ever existed. And when it speeds up, you can basically see a checkered flag dropping and smell rubber burning. BORN! TO! RACE!

6. Mercyful Fate, “A Dangerous Meeting” Though not as much a thrash part as the speed-ups above it, the acceleration of “A Dangerous Meeting” ups this chug-along Satanic metal song’s cred, and probably inspired every black-metal band, ever. 

With the recent exoneration of frontman Randy Blythe of all charges in the Czech Republic, Lamb of God have announced a U.S. tour from May 16 through June 20.  The tour continues the support of the album Resolution and hits 30 markets not yet visited on the current album cycle.  Support on all dates will be Decapitated with Terror appearing through June 10 and The Acacia Strainappearing on the remaining shows.

In addition, the band announces today the Metal on the Mountain retreat July 15 through 19 to be held at the Full Moon Resort in Big Indian, New York.  The weeklong retreat, which is limited to 170 fans, will feature activities aimed at musicians and non musicians alike. The curriculum, created by the band, will include guitar and drum clinics with Mark Morton, Willie Adler, and Chris Adler, as well as group instruction, songwriting sessions and competitions, nightly jam sessions with the band and fans, band Q&A, the premiere of the Lamb of God feature film scheduled for a fall theatrical release, and a full band concert the final night of the retreat. Longtime band album designer Ken Adams will discuss the creation of Lamb of God album and T-shirt designs and band tour manager and sound man Brian Griffin will instruct fans on the art of mixing a live metal show. Non-musical activities will include motorcycle excursions with bassist John Campbell, a seminar on primitive fire building by Randy Blythe, and a casino night. Also, all of the fans will enjoy all of the amenities available at the Full Moon Resort.  For more information on the Metal on the Mountain retreat, go to metalonthemountain.com

Dates for the May tour are below. All shows are scheduled to go on sale the weekend of March 29 and 30.

The ordeal is finally over for Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe.

A panel of judges in the Czech Republic ruled today (Tuesday, March 5) that concert promoters — not Blythe — were mainly responsible for the 2010 death of a teenage Lamb of God fan, adding that Blythe’s actions didn’t constitute a crime. The state attorney, who had sought a conviction for manslaughter and asked for the minimum sentence of five years, has appealed the decision.

Blythe didn’t face the press after the trial. However, before the trial, he had this to say:

“As I’ve stated previously, I do not wish to avoid my responsibility, and if I thought I were guilty I would plead guilty right now. I still believe I acted responsibly to protect myself, my band, our equipment and our audience. I did not strike anyone or run across the stage to push anyone.”

Blythe also posted the following comment via Instagram:

“I have been found not guilty & acquitted of all charges against me. I am a free man. This photo was taken by my friend @aceyslade- it says it all. Please remember the family of Daniel Nosek in your thoughts & prayers in this difficult time. I only wish for them peace. Thank you for your support- Randy”

Look for more updates as we get them.

The manslaughter trial of Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe resumed today in Prague, Czech Republic. Blythe, 41, is accused of pushing a teenage fan offstage in 2010 during a concert, which led to the teen’s death.

A three-judge panel said it could deliver a verdict by tomorrow.

WTVR.com, the website of Blythe’s local Richmond, Virginia, CBS affiliate, has reported the following updates:

• Randy Blythe trial has resumed after court was adjourned last month due to missing witnesses (two expert witnesses – criminal psychologist/psychiatrist and a girl who attended the concert).

• The presiding judge, Tomas Kubovec, said the opinions found in their reports were basically the same. However, during testimony, they disagreed on how aggressive/anti-social Blythe is.

• The criminal psychologist, Tereza Soukupova (appointed by the court) said that Blythe, during tests, demonstrated he had problems controlling his emotions. She said these features “were not deep” and that he was not mentally ill, but that he doesn’t take enough responsibility for his own actions, sometimes “crossing social norms.” She pointed to when Blythe was fined for speeding and urinating in public when he was younger.

For several more updates, visit WTVR.com.

As a side note, Blythe expressed his feelings about the situation last night via his Instagram account:

“Earlier today I walked across the Legion Bridge to see the Memorial to the Victims of Communism. It is a series of male statues going up a forested hill, each statue appearing to dissolve a bit more until only a single foot is left. It’s an amazing memorial. I climbed up the stairs and looked back towards the Vltava river and Staré Mesto (‘Old Town’ in Czech). This shot pretty much shows how I’ve been feeling for a whole now- torn in half, stuck in between two worlds, neither here nor there, waiting and watching for an answer to come, so that I can move forward again as a whole man.

“What direction I will move in, I do not know yet. Regardless, I am ready for the waiting to be over. I will move forward no matter what, and I will not be split in two anymore, no matter where I wind up. This is frustrating for me, but I am slowly learning to be a patient man. Life just happens. Deal with it.”

“And so it begins,” he wrote. “I am calm & prepared. Everyone, thanks for your good thoughts and prayers. Have a nice day, y’all!”

This past summer, Blythe was arrested as part of a manslaughter investigation stemming from the 2010 death of a 19-year-old fan, who passed away a few weeks after allegedly being tossed from the stage by Blythe at a Lamb of God show.

The trial is expected to run from today through Friday, February 8. Blythe faces a possible five to 10 years in prison.

Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Korn, Bush, Three Days Grace, Stone Sour, Papa Roach, Volbeat, Cheap Trick, Bullet For My Valentine, Lamb Of God, Skillet, A Day To Remember, Buckcherry, Halestorm, Hollywood Undead, Device (with David Draiman), Steel Panther, All That Remains, Asking Alexandria, Sevendust, Sick Puppies, Pop Evil, In Flames, In This Moment, Black Veil Brides, Clutch, The Sword, Ghost, Red, Biffy Clyro, Deuce, Middle Class Rut, Big Wreck, Otherwise, Red Line Chemistry, Oleander, Young Guns, Thousand Foot Krutch, Mindset Evolution, Tracer, Beware Of Darkness, Heaven’s Basement, American Fangs, Love And Death, Gemini Syndrome

“We’re really looking forward to returning to Rock on the Range with a batch of brand new killer Alice tunes to play for everyone!” says Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains.

“Head is back!!,” Korn singer Jonathan Davis comments. “Rock On The Range is going to start it all off!! Get ready, we are going to hit it hard!!”

“Bush are thrilled to be playing Rock On The Range with such great bands,” Bush frontman Gavin Rosdale says. “We look forward to seeing you all out there.”

“This massive lineup has scratched our seven-year itch!” says Gary Spivack, co-executive producer of the event for Right Arm Entertainment. “Getting Soundgarden for their first Ohio play in two decades and having seminal acts Alice in Chains, Korn, Volbeat, and Papa Roach return along with bands new to Rock On The Range that include Smashing Pumpkins and Bush, and everything in between—the spectrum of rock n roll is covered…three days of constant energy. Rock On The Range is truly where rock lives.”

“Our goal with Rock On The Range is to constantly create new and interesting ways to expand the event and give even more value to our fans,” comments Joe Litvag, co-executive producer of the event for AEG Live. “In 2013, we’ve added a comedy tent within the site that will be curated by The Funny Bone comedy club. Having a slate of incredible, up-and-coming comedians to riff on the rock experience will be a great change of pace for the weekend. The site layout is also changing dramatically in 2013 to create better event flow, to add more interactive fan activity to the festival, and to allow even more people to experience the higher caliber of talent on the second stage this year.”