In a storyline concocted by frontman James Hetfield, players begin as Metallica's opening act, and eventually play as Metallica once they prove their mettle. Everything about the game, from the menu animations based on art by Pushead, Metallica's long-running collaborating artist, to venues and stage sets from all phases of the band's career to signature lighting effects and crowd chants will be familiar to fans.

Additionally, a spokesperson for Flea tells Billboard the artist "knows nothing" of a Faces tour. [Sorry the report we ran yesterday looked credible, but it appears the UK press strikes again.]

"The trademark was filed on January 11 of this year and covers 'computer games; video games; and game controllers for computer games'," reports Kotaku. "

Harvey was a founding member of Cave's previous band The Birthday Party when they were known as The Boys Next Door back in 1973.

Speaking to Spin magazine, actor Keith Allen admitted that fame was unfairly different for a man than a woman: "As a man, I could drink, snort and f*** to my heart's content without any detriment to my career. A girl cannot do that."

Starbucks Entertainment is set to release 'Sweetheart: Our Favorite Artists Sing Their Favorite Love Songs' on January 30 in the US.

"We're going to overtake any band that sells out soccer arenas in Europe. We're going to do it. We're the last chance as far as the world goes."

"They (fans) keep showing up, and it's getting better and better every year," Fehn said. And musically, he thinks Slipknot has yet to peak.

Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan plans on opening an organic market in Cornville, Arizona, that will include a commercial kitchen and a tasting room for the wines he produces in nearby Sedona. more

Speaking of Maynard: We were forwarded a link to a comedic press conference starring Maynard Keenan in military regalia discussing the upcoming Puscifer variety shows at The Palms (in The Pearl Casino) in Las Vegas on Feb. 13, 14 and 15. The dates each sold out within an hour of their respective on sale times but Keenan asked that the venue reconfigure the seating to allow for some additional tickets to be made available after seeing what fans were being asked to pay by ticket scalpers. On Saturday, Jan. 24 a few hundred additional seats for each show will go on sale at 12 noon pacific via Ticketmaster.com, Livenation.com and at The Pearl box office in Las Vegas. And now, the video

Keith Urban has christened his new album "Defying Gravity" and, as previously reported, will release it March 31 on Capitol Nashville.more

According to the Artisan News Service, veteran Los Angeles thrashers Slayer will announce a new co-headlining tour on Monday, January 26.more

Little Big Town are looking for opening acts for thier forthcoming headlining "A Place To Land" tour and is using events Web site Eventful to help choose the winners. Four bands will join the Zac Brown Band, Ashton Shepherd and Kate & Kacey, who have all already signed on as openers.more

Record iPod sales internationally helped Apple turn a profit in the last quarter of last year, with 22.7 million sold.more

NME says that a user posting under the name 'David Bowie' has left a message on social networking website Twitter saying that the star is recording new material in Berlin. In the late '70's Bowie record three of his most popular albums - 'Low', ''Heroes'' and 'Lodger' - in the city. more

ISIS, the Los Angeles by way of Boston band, has set a May 5 release date for their anticipated new album, "Wavering Radiant" (Ipecac Recordings). The album, produced by Joe Baressi (Tool, Queens off The Stone Age), will see a limited edition vinyl version released on Apr. 21. Tool's Adam Jones contributed guitar to two songs from the new release. More details soon.

Metallica have announced their plans to perform at the Novarock Festival on Friday, June 19, 2009 in Nickelsdorf, Austria.more

The prosecution rested its case today (January 22) in the murder retrial of famed music producer Phil Spector. Following nine weeks of testimony, the prosecution called its final witness to the stand -- Donna Clarkson -- the mother of actress Lana Clarkson who died of a gunshot wound in 2003.more

The daughter of late gospel singer-songwriter Joyce "Dottie" Rambo, who was killed in a bus crash in May, has sued the driver of the bus and the company that leased it to the entertainer.more

David "Fathead" Newman, a jazz musician who played with the Ray Charles Band and won fame as a tenor sax soloist, has died at age 75.

Hilary Duff has landed herself a guest appearance role in Ghost Whisperer, according to reports. The singer will play the part of a "beautiful woman of mystery" in the show reports Entertainment Weekly more. Maybe she'll solve the mystery of why that show is still on the air!

Speaking of Jazz greats: Chick Corea & Japanese pianist Hiromi have a new album called Duet coming out February 3rd on Concord Jazz. Duet was recorded live at Tokyo's Blue Note club and marks the first recording project of Chick Corea and Hiromi. Originally released in 2007 in Japan, the album became the top selling Jazz CD of the year there. Track list features Thelonious Monk's "Bolivar Blues" and Lennon-McCartney's "Fools On The Hill." You can check out the live video of "Summertime" here

Members of Breathe In, Divit and UN ID have unveiled a new project, Why I Hate. The band describes themselves as "a band full of guys that would be beyond ecstatic to see Jawbreaker AND American Nightmare play on the same bill"more

Former Phantom-X guitarist Dave Harvey has joined forces with original Pantera and current Judgement Day (Whitesnake tribute) singer Donny Hart in a brand new progressive/melodic metal project called Millennial Reign more

Sworn Enemy will kick off their over 40 dates long European headlining tour on February 12, 2009. As support acts Freya feat. Karl from Sworn Enemy's labelmates Earth Crisis. more

Destroy The Runner has cancelled the remainder of their European tour. The band said in part "we quickly realized that the tour had been put together in a very unorganized and unprofessional manner." more

Glasvegas singer James Allan may be collaborating with Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie on a special cover version. Gillespie is planning to record a cover of influential 70s synth-punks Suicide to celebrate the 70th birthday of the band's frontman Alan Vega, and when he heard Allan was a fan, asked if he'd like to take part. more

Propagandhi will tour the East Coast with Paint It Black in March. dates

Cleveland, Ohio metal band Salt The Wound is currently in search of a replacement for departed singer Matthew Tanner details

The DVD includes an epic hour-and-a-half live show recorded on July 1st, 2008 at the Scala in London, UK, along with an exclusive interview with the band, in which the members answer questions sent in from fans all around the world. The DVD also includes the music videos for "The Watchtower", "Leave Me Here" and "Back To Chapel Town".

On "Requiem for the Living" we really attempted to combine a lot of our influences - from Gorecki to Peter Gabriel to Godspeed You Black Emperor to Marillion to Sonic Youth - into what we hoped would be a cohesive whole. It was Sepand who suggested "marrying" two songs Oscar had previously recorded: one was essentially the ambient minimalist piano that forms the backdrop for the first section (not so creatively titled "Piano in F minor"); the other was a more Portishead/Massive Attack-ish piece written after watching Tom Tykwer's film The Princess and the Warrior.

Sepand had the idea of adding a Gorecki-inspired intro, then other pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place: Jeffrey Samzadeh's Sonati chanting combined with Sepand's guitar really captured the feelings of loss and despair we were trying to deal with musically, after which a "space rock" transition leads us to the second "movement," where you can hear a much more discernible and almost Tin Pan Alley-like "tune," played first on guitar and then on piano (and which, by the way, reappears somewhere on Laudanum), followed by the more "classical" piano/guitar interlude (the calm before the storm), and then the slide and distorted guitars in the second part really push that despair into rage and an, if not happy, then definitely more hopeful and defiant ending.