Drone titans Sunn O))) have announced a European tour for this summer, including a pair of dates in the UK.

Greg Anderson, Stephen O’Malley and Co. are set to play several European dates in June, including London’s Koko with the legendary Nurse With Wound.
Currently announced dates include:
Mon 11 June Manchester – The Ritz
Tue 12 June London – Koko (with Nurse With Wound)
Thur 14 June Holland – Amsterdam – Melkweg (with Aluk Todolo)
Fri 15 June Belgium – Hoboken – Fort 8 (with Aluk Todolo)
Sat 16 June France – Paris – La Gaîté …

You read that right: Secret Chiefs 3 satellite outfit Traditionalists have roped in none other than Mike Patton on vocals for their latest release.

‘La Chanson de Jacky’, a cover of Scott Walker’s reinterpretation of Jacques Brel’s chanson sees the former Mr. Bungle partners in crime Patton and Trey Spruance reunite on record directly for the first time in over a decade, following their recent respective appearances on Rock-A-Rolla’s favourite album of 2011, The Book Of Knots’ Garden Of Fainting Stars.
The 7” comes with the flipside ‘The Western Exile’, a reworking …

With all the At The Drive-In reunion hoopla barely subsiding, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala have announced a brand new Mars Volta album, in the shape of the suitably cryptically titled Noctourniquet.

Their first album since 2009′s Octahedron, the band’s sixth full-length is slated for release on March 26 on Warner Bros. Produced by Rodriguez-Lopez, the 13-tracker is said to be the band’s most “diverse” yet, with early track titles including ‘The Whip Hand’, ‘The Malkin Jewel’ and “epic” ‘In Absentia’.
As with previous Mars Volta efforts, Bixler-Zavala’s lyrics trace a narrative …

Swedish avant-metal powerhouse Meshuggah have set March 26th as the release date for their latest opus.

Entitled Koloss, the follow-up to 2008’s obZen will hit the stores via Nuclear Blast, and is the band’s seventh studio album to date. “As always, we try to take our music in a slightly different direction with each album and with Koloss we feel that we really nailed what we were going for – organic brutality, viscera and groove all crammed into a 54-minute metalicious treat, best avoided by the faint of heart!!” commented Tomas …

“We felt like we had made a statement – we had remade Earth 2 and Lysol in our own way”

Back in the year 2000, drone behemoths Sunn O))) released their sophomore recording ØØ Void, taking a bigger and bolder approach to their Earth and Melvins worship following the raw debut The Grimmrobe Demos. Setting them on a course that would see a decade of ceaseless exploration, it marked the arrival of a new force in experimental music, initially ignored by most, eventually inspiring many and confusing many more, as a …