Anberlin has made a new song called "Pray Tell" available as a free download for a limited time at the website of Spin magazine. The track is the third to be made public from the band's upcoming album, Dark Is The Way, Light Is A Place, which arrives on September 7th. The record's first official single, "Impossible," is already a Top 10 hit on the Alternative and Modern Rock radio charts.
Dark Is The Way, Light Is A Place will follow up 2008's New Surrender, which contained the record-setting Modern Rock chart-topper "Feel Good Drag."
The band recorded the disc with Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen producer Brendan O'Brien, who was introduced to the group's music by his daughter.
The new disc is Anberlin's second for a major label after several years on an indie, and frontman Stephen Christian says he's pleased so far: "Absolutely. I would tell anybody in this world to sign the deal as quick as possible with Universal Republic. I have not one bad word to say about them and that's not politics, that's complete honesty. If I could make that choice again, I'd make it 10 times over. It's been a great amalgamation to watch, you know, Anberlin and Universal Republic, so I love it."
Anberlin will begin a fall North American tour on September 28th in New Orleans, ending November 6th in Orlando, Florida. Opening acts on the tour will be Crash Kings and Civil Twilight.
Disturbed kicked off its headlining stint on the very first Uproar Festival tour on Tuesday (August 17th) by unveiling its massive new stage show, which Harddrive Radio called "a total assault of the senses." The production features a tremendous amount of visuals on huge LED screens, state-of-the-art pyrotechnics and an opening film in which singer David Draiman is seen in an asylum before seeming to burst out of the screen and onto the stage.
Guitarist Dan Donegen told us that he wouldn't be surprised if the band itself watched its own show during the first few gigs on the tour: "You might catch us a few times kind of turning our back to the crowd, with all due respect to them. We're still in awe of some of the production so we're gonna be turning around to kind of check out the set and certain key points as well, 'cause it's just -- it's exciting. I mean, we feel like, you know, just little kids on Christmas morning, just the excitement of stepping it up to a whole new level."
The Uproar Festival tour, which also stars Avenged Sevenfold, Stone Sour, Hellyeah and Halestorm, pulls into Council Bluffs, Iowa on Friday (August 20th).
Disturbed has just released a video for the title track from its new album, Asylum, which arrives on August 31st.
The group will screen its new documentary, Decade Of Disturbed, in selected theatres beginning on August 26th.
Slipknot will release a concert DVD called (sic)nesses on September 28th. The disc will chronicle the band's June 13th, 2009 performance at the Download Festival in England in front of 80,000 fans. In addition to the concert, which was filmed with 30 cameras, the set contains a 45-minute behind-the-scenes documentary directed by percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan, all four music videos from the band's 2008 album All Hope Is Gone, and a making-of feature on one of those clips, "Snuff."
The concert was also one of the last major performances with the group by bassist Paul Gray, who died this past May. The DVD will serve as a testimonial to Gray's abilities as a live performer.
Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor, on the road now with Stone Sour, told us on Tuesday (August 17th) how he's dealing with the loss of his bandmate: "It was pretty heavy, you know, the first couple of months. I mean, it's still very heavy, but there's no set way to deal with it, basically. I mean, the only thing you can really do is just, you know, remember him. You know, I mean, a lot of people have been so worried about how he died and less about how he lived. And that's the thing that I carry with me -- how he lived, and how much fun I had with him."
As reported on Thursday (August 19th), Gray's widow Brenna gave birth on Tuesday to the couple's daughter October.
Slipknot is currently on hiatus and will most likely not release a new album until 2012.