Twilight of the Thunder Gods. Yea, I like it too. The Swedish Viking-influenced melodic death-metallers - who will be touring with The Absence this fall - will thrust their sixth full-length album upon the world on... well, we don't know when yet. But it will almost certainly be sometime before the end of the year, as the band is done recording, and currently working on mixing the album. In fact, you should check out these studio diaries documenting the recording process - they're not bad as far as studio diaries go.

Mikael Åkerfeldt, frontman of Swedish progressive death-metallers Opeth - who recently released Watershed, their ninth studio album - has fallen ill. Due to an acute case of varicella, Åkerfeldt and co. have been forced to cancel all of their scheduled performances this weekend. The following dates have been cancelled:

Everyone's favorite Swedish Vikings, Amon Amarth, are going to be making the long trek across the pond on their Viking ship to entertain the masses in the U.S. and Canada this summer. Somewhere along the way they'll pick up The Absence from Florida to contribute to the destruction. The tour begins October 1 in SoCal (nice!) and will run until October 21 in West Springfield, MA. Venues have not yet been announced, but the following dates have been confirmed:

The Black Dahlia Murder have stayed true to their word and filmed a very impressive new music video for "Everything Went Black" that is themed like the classic 1982 horror film, "Creepshow." The video - which premiered on the Headbanger's Blog earlier today - is a fantastic representation of the film, which itself was based on the popular horror comic books of the '50s. John and Brad had told me when I interviewed them that they would be going for something a little different on their next music video, and they certainly did. Check out the video - which was directed by David Brodsky - right here:

Following accusations thrown at them yesterday by Carcass drummer Ken Owen, Metal Hammer have responded with a lengthy statement proclaiming their innocence in regard to a situation where the physically-disabled Owen was reportedly left in the lurch, with no transport to London for the ceremony - which was followed by Metal Hammer allegedly canceling the "Inspiration Award" he was scheduled to win that day as part of Metal Hammer's Golden Gods Awards. Here is what Metal Hammer had to say according to Blabbermouth - I'll let you draw your own conclusions: