British heavy metal legends IRON MAIDEN have set “The Final Frontier” as the title of their new studio album, due late summer of this year.

The announcement comes with news of a North American tour with very special guests DREAM THEATER to open in Dallas, Texas, on June 9 and finish in Washington D.C. on July 20, making it MAIDEN’s most extensive North American tour in many years.

Following these shows in USA and Canada, “The Final Frontier World Tour” will travel back to Europe for a few selected major festival and stadium shows with the band planning to continue to many other countries in 2011.

An exclusive pre-sale allowing members of the IRON MAIDEN fan club first access to tickets to the North American MAIDEN shows will be made available two days prior to them being available to the public.

Tickets for the Canadian shows will go on sale to the public on Saturday, March 13 at 10 a.m. PST (10 a.m. EST for Toronto and 12 noon EST Montreal). Exclusive first access to the tickets will be available to IRON MAIDEN fan club members on Wednesday, March 10 at 10 a.m. PST through to Thursday, March 11 at 6 p.m. PST (EST for Toronto). Regretfully due to technical reasons an exclusive pre-sale in Montreal is not possible.

Tickets for the U.S. shows will go on sale to the public on Saturday, March 20 at 10 a.m. EST. Exclusive first access to the tickets will be available to IRON MAIDEN fan club members on Wednesday, March 17 at 10 a.m. EST through to Thursday, March 18 at 6 p.m. EST

As IRON MAIDEN are actively dedicated to ensuring their fans always have access to the best possible tickets at the fairest possible price, without being subject to scalping for good seats, so many North American shows will operate, at least in part, a paperless ticket policy.

To give IRON MAIDEN fan club members a privileged insight to their touring world, IMTV will return to www.ironmaiden.com to cover “The Final Frontier World Tour”. This exclusive footage includes regular video from the live shows, touring, band interviews, insights into our crew and what they do and much much more. The website will also feature exclusive tour diaries, exclusive photographs and anything else that helps the fans get a real insight into the dynamics of a big tour.

“The Final Frontier 2010 North American Tour” dates:

Jun. 09 – Dallas, TX – Superpages.com Center
Jun. 11 – Houston, TX – Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Jun. 12 – San Antonio, TX – AT&T Center
Jun. 14 – Denver, CO – Comfort Dental Amphitheatre
Jun. 16 – Albuquerque, NM – The Pavilion
Jun. 17 – Phoenix, AZ – Cricket Wireless Pavilion
Jun. 19 – San Bernardino, CA – San Manuel Amphitheatre
Jun. 20 – Concord, CA – Sleep Train Pavilion
Jun. 22 – Auburn, WA – White River Amphitheatre
Jun. 24 – Vancouver, BC – GM Place
Jun. 26 – Edmonton, AB – Rexall Place
Jun. 29 – Saskatoon, SK – Credit Union Center
Jun. 30 – Winnipeg, MB – MTS Center +
Jul. 03 – Toronto, ON – Molson Amphitheatre
Jul. 07 – Montreal, QC – Bell Centre
Jul. 11 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC
Jul. 12 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
Jul. 14 – Pittsburgh, PA – First Niagra Pavilion
Jul. 15 – Cleveland, OH – Blossom Music Center
Jul. 17 – Detroit, MI – DTE Energy Music Theatre
Jul. 18 – Chicago, IL – First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre
Jul. 20 – Washington D.C. – Jiffy Lube Live

+ DREAM THEATER will not perform in Winnipeg

IRON MAIDEN recorded “The Final Frontier” at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas with producer Kevin Shirley. According to a posting on Kevin’s official web site, “There’s still work to do, but the band portion is complete and in the can, so to speak.”

Shirley previously worked on the last three MAIDEN albums — 2000’s “Brave New World”, 2003’s “Dance of Death” and 2006’s “A Matter of Life and Death”.

The next IRON MAIDEN album will be the band’s fifteenth studio record, and they face a challenge to follow up “A Matter of Life and Death”, which was received well critically and saw the group play the whole album on tour.

Speaking at last year’s premiere of the band’s documentary film “Iron Maiden: Flight 666″, guitarist Adrian Smith stated, “There’s always a bit of pressure to follow up the last album. In a way, it’s good, because it motivates you.

“We never get complacent; we always try our best for our own sake as much as anything else. As far as pressure for another album, we just do what we do — we’ve been doing it long enough now; we know what we’re doing. [laughs]”

IRON MAIDEN guitarist Janick Gers revealed to BBC News in November that the band was on its way “to Paris for three weeks to work on some new stuff.” He added, “The most important thing for a band is to create new music, otherwise you’re not valid — you become a parody.”

IRON MAIDEN will headline this year’s edition of the U.K.’s Sonisphere festival, which will be held Saturday, July 31, 2010 and Sunday, August 1, 2010 at Knebworth.

MAIDEN became the first outfit in history to travel round the world in a customized jet during their “Somewhere Back in Time” tour, as detailed in award-winning movie “Flight 666″.

The Boeing 757 carried musicians, crew, gear and guests with singer Bruce Dickinson, a qualified airline pilot, at the controls.

Source: www.blabbermouth.net

DREAM THEATER’s official “bootleg” store, has made the following new titles available:

* “The Making of Falling Into Infinity” (1 CD) (details)
* “Train Of Thought Instrumental Demos 2003″ (1 CD) (details)
* “Uncovered 2003-2005″ (1 CD) (details)
* “Santiago, Chile 12/6/05″ (1 DVD) (details)

DREAM THEATER’s new album, “Black Clouds & Silver Linings”, sold 40,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 6 on The Billboard 200 chart.

DREAM THEATER’s last CD, “Systematic Chaos”, opened with 36,000 units in 2007 to enter The Billboard 200 chart at No. 19. 2005’s “Octavarium” premiered with 27,000 copies to debut at No. 36.

In addition to the standard-version CD, DREAM THEATER’s tenth studio album, “Black Clouds & Silver Linings”, was also made available on vinyl LP, as well as a three-disc, special-edition CD that includes the full album, a CD of instrumental mixes of the album and a CD of six cover songs.

Source: www.blabbermouth.net

Six songs and 74 minutes of music are contained in this release, maybe the first release that needs some more listenings to capture the vibe of it. Darker than ever before, without losing any heaviness, as they do the last ten years since ”Scenes From A Memory”, Dream Theater remain a big bet for each listener. You either love them a lot or hate them profoundly but seldomly you pass them by. That’s what happens most times with the great ones, the ones who were born winners. Response and contradiction are in a small distance, like walking on a thin line.

”A Nightmare To Remember” which opens the album, is a powerful song that keeps your interest despite its big duration. Coming next is ”A Rite Of Passage”. Easily the most recognizable song and first clip of the album. Followed by ”Wither”, the other song less than ten minutes on this album, a great ballad in the familiar DT style. ”The Shattered Fortress” is the last part of ”The Glass Prison” story, also presented on the previous four albums, talking about Mike Portnoys addiction to alcohol in the old days. It contains parts of old songs familiar to this concept. Heavy as shit! ”The Best Of Times” is the tender song of the album, inspired a lot by Rush. Maybe it shouldn’t be 13 minutes long but it’s not that bad. Finally, closing the album is the epic ”The Count Of Tuscany”. A 19 minute opus containing old, new and future Dream Theater, with many changes and crazy riffing, double bass parts and more.

In conclusion, i know it is hard for some people to listen to the band. I am a big fan of them and clearly objectively, i find myself many times thinking that there is nothing else they haven’t played.

On the other hand, i can’t deny the ideas full of quality and vision. Even if they overdo it sometimes. This album is proof that they still have some things to give to all of us. Rating comes in comparison to their other studio releases as well.

ANVIL
ARCHITECTS
BILLY TALENT
BLACK STONE CHERRY
BUCKCHERRY
CHRIS CORNELL
CLUTCH
DEF LEPPARD
DEVILDRIVER
DIR EN GREY
DOWN
DRAGONFORCE
DREAM THEATER
DUFF McKAGAN’S LOADED
FAITH NO MORE
FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH
JOURNEY
KARMA TO BURN
KILLSWITCH ENGAGE
KORN
LACUNA COIL
LIMP BIZKIT
MARILYN MANSON
MESHUGGAH
MÖTLEY CRÜE
OPETH
PAPA ROACH
PARKWAY DRIVE
PENDULUM
SKIN
SLIPKNOT
STEADLÜR
TESLA
THE BLACKOUT
THE PRODIGY
TRIVIUM
WHITESNAKE
YOU ME AT SIX
ZZ TOP

The progressive metal band Dream Theater are ready for the release of their tenth studio album. It’s called “Black Clouds & Silver Linings” and it will be in store in 23 of June through Roadrunner Records. Drummer Mike Portnoy and guitarist John Petrucci are the producers of the album while Paul Northfield returned from 2007’s Systematic Chaos as mixer.

The album will be released as a single CD, 3-disc Special Edition with instrumental mixes and cover songs, as well as a vinyl LP. The cover songs will be revealed—one per week—during the six week period prior to the album’s release.