THE WEDDING BAND, the side project of METALLICA guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo, along with Whitfield Crane (UGLY KID JOE), Mark Osegueda (DEATH ANGEL), Jon Theodore (THE MARS VOLTA, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE) and Doc Coyle (BAD WOLVES, GOD FORBID), will perform on May 27 at Jam Cellars Ballroom at Margrit Mondavi Theatre in Napa, California. The show will be part of the “BottleRock Afterdark” performances that will take place in conjunction with this year’s METALLICA co-headlined edition of the BottleRock Napa Valley music festival, which is scheduled for May 27-29 at the Napa Valley Expo in Northern California.

Back in 2019, Kirk told Cosmo Music about THE WEDDING BAND: “It’s just really fun jamming with these guys. It’s something different. For Rob and I, it’s cool, because we get to indulge our love of funk and punk… I was listening to all sorts of crazy music in the ’70s — a lot of funk, R&B — so I’ve always had a real appreciation of the music of that time. When I found out that Rob did, we started playing our favorite songs. Funk from the ’70s is so unique, and it’s almost a lost art because no one is writing songs like that anymore… We got together and started jamming out tunes, and it sounded amazingly good, and then we started to improvise, and it sounded amazingly good… It’s primarily a way for Rob and I just to jam out. We love to jam; we love playing with people; we love to play funk. It’s become a little bit of an outlet for us, but it’s nothing really serious or anything like that. We’re really open to anyone coming and playing with us. I even asked the other guys in [METALLICA] if they want to come by and jam. [We’re] always open — this is not a closed-border sort of band situation. Anyone can come in and play, as long as they’re good… It’s so recreational, but musicians need recreational music as well. They need to play stuff that they don’t really have to worry too much about, and that we don’t have too much accountability over. It’s just a light, cool, fun thing for us, and Rob and I need that, because a lot of times, we put so much into our performance. There’s so much intensity, so much riding on having to execute this song and play the shit out of it. You’ve just got to put a lot of love and care into our band’s music, and that’s fine, and I love it – I’m super-passionate about it — but it’s also fun to just go to Disneyland for a while and play some tunes that are just fun for you to play, inspired you, make you smile, make you sweat and make you go, ‘Man, I needed that.’ I think everyone needs something like that… It’s just so fun. We’re something that’s not to be taken too seriously, because none of us want to take it that seriously.”

Last year, Hammett confirmed that he and his METALLICA bandmates have begun working on the follow-up to 2016’s “Hardwired… To Self-Destruct” album while in quarantine. A year earlier, Hammett said that he had already accumulated “a lot” of “kick-ass, great” ideas for METALLICA’s next LP.

The METALLICA axeman famously lost his iPhone containing hundreds of riffs in 2014. About six months later, he told “The Jasta Show” podcast that he “was crushed” when it happened, but still expressed hope that it “might turn up.”

Hammett is not credited on any of the songs on “Hardwired…To Self-Destruct”.

He previously said that losing his phone was a “devastating” experience.

Despite the setback, Hammett said that he was pleased with how “Hardwired…To Self-Destruct” turned out.

“Hardwired… To Self-Destruct” debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 album chart, selling 291,000 copies in its first week of release.

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NIGHTWISH has commenced the songwriting process for its tenth studio album.

Earlier today (Wednesday, March 2), the Finnish/British/Dutch symphonic metallers shared a photo of NIGHTWISH keyboardist and main songwriter Tuomas Holopainen in the studio, along with the following caption: “Demo session for #n10Demo session for #n10”.

NIGHTWISH’s latest album, “Human. :II: Nature.”, was released in April 2020. The follow-up to 2015’s “Endless Forms Most Beautiful”, “Human. :II: Nature.” was a double album containing nine tracks on the main CD and one long track, divided into eight chapters, on CD 2.

NIGHTWISH will embark on the North American leg of the “Human. :II: Nature.” world tour this spring. The 10-date trek will kick off on May 6 in Montreal with stops in New York, Chicago, and Denver before concluding in Los Angeles for two back-to-back shows at The Wiltern on May 20 and May 21.

Last July, NIGHTWISH played a special “secret” concert in Oulu, Finland as a warm-up for its festival appearances in Finland. The gig marked NIGHTWISH’s first fan-attended show in more than two a half years. It was also NIGHTWISH’s first proper concert with session bassist Jukka Koskinen’s (WINTERSUN), who stepped into the group as the replacement for longtime NIGHTWISH bassist/vocalist Marko “Marco” Hietala. Hietala announced his departure from the band in January 2021, explaining in a statement that he hadn’t “been able to feel validated by this life for a quite a few years now.”

Koskinen made his live debut with NIGHTWISH at the band’s two interactive experiences in May 2021. The shows reportedly drew 150,000 viewers, setting the record for the largest paid virtual concert in Finland’s history. Most of the viewers came from Europe and North America, but the performance was a truly global event, with fans in 108 countries purchasing tickets to the show and the box office gross exceeding one million euro.

Last spring, Holopainen said that Hietala’s decision to leave the band “came as a bit of a surprise.” He told Finland’s Kaaos TV: “Marko informed us in December [of 2020 that he was leaving the band]. And even though he has been very open about his state and problems during the past years, it still came as a bit of a surprise for us. So it was a really tough pill to swallow. And for a few days, I was actually quite confident that there’s no coming back, that this is it. I remember talking to Emppu [Vuorinen], the guitar player, and we were, like, ‘You think this is it?’ ‘Yeah, I think this is it.’ I mean, enough is enough. So much has happened in the past. Something that broke the camel’s back, as they say. Then, after some time had passed — a few days — we started to think that it’s been such a ride of 25 years, with so many ups also, that this is not the way to end it.”

Demo session for #n10 ? pic.twitter.com/zOctfAvXV1
— Nightwish (@NightwishBand) March 2, 2022

According to The Blast, Marilyn Manson has filed a lawsuit against actress Evan Rachel Wood over allegations of rape and sexual abuse.

Wood alleged in the documentary “Phoenix Rising” that she was “coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses” while filming the 2007 music video for “Heart-Shaped Glasses” with her then-boyfriend Manson.

Manson’s attorney Howard King later denied Wood’s allegations in a statement to People, claiming that the singer “did not have sex with Evan on that set, and she knows that is the truth.”

In his lawsuit against Wood, Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, accused his ex-fiancée of intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, computer fraud, and impersonation over the Internet.

The documents, which filed on Wednesday morning (March 2) in the Los Angeles Superior Court, state: “This action arises from the wrongful and illegal acts done in furtherance of a conspiracy by Defendant Evan Rachel Wood and her on-again, off-again romantic partner, Defendant Ashley Gore, a/k/a Illma Gore, to publicly cast Plaintiff Brian Warner, p/k/a Marilyn Manson, as a rapist and abuser—a malicious falsehood that has derailed Warner’s successful music, TV, and film career.”

In the documents, Manson accused Wood of impersonating “an actual agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation by forging and distributing a fictitious letter from the agent, to create the false appearance that Warner’s alleged ‘victims’ and their families were in danger, and that there was a federal criminal investigation of Warner ongoing. They provided checklists and scripts to prospective accusers, listing the specific alleged acts of abuse that they should claim against Warner.”

The documents further allege that Wood “made knowingly false statements to prospective accusers (which have since been repeated by those accusers in court filings), including the defamatory claim that Warner filmed the sexual assault of a minor.”

Wood, who was in a relationship with Manson from mid-2006 until early 2011, claimed in the “Phoenix Rising” documentary that the music video shoot was “the first crime [he] committed against me.”

“It’s nothing like I thought it was going to be,” Wood said. “We’re doing things that were not what was pitched to me. … We had discussed a simulated sex scene, but once the cameras were rolling, he started penetrating me for real. I had never agreed to that. I’m a professional actress, I’ve been doing this my whole life; I’ve never been on a set that unprofessional in my life up until this day.”

A little over a year ago, Wood named Manson as the previously anonymous abuser she referenced while testifying before the California Senate in relation to the state’s Phoenix Act, which extends the statute of limitations on domestic violence from three years to five. In February 2021, Wood claimed in a social media post that Manson “groomed” and “horrifically” abused her for years. After she shared her accusations, several other women posted their own allegations against the singer. The women claimed to have endured “sexual assault, psychological abuse, and/or various forms of coercion, violence, and intimidation” at the hands of Manson.

The 53-year-old Manson later released a statement denying the abuse allegations leveled against him, writing on Instagram: “Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality. My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how — and why — others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”

Time flies when things are heavy. CROWBAR have been a weighty musical force for an impressive 32 years now, and yet nothing about “Zero And Below” indicates that founder and talismanic frontman Kirk Windstein is anywhere close to running out of steam — or riffs. With classics like “Odd Fellows Rest” and “Time Heals Nothing” already guaranteeing his band a seat at heavy metal’s high table, Windstein would have been forgiven for treading water. But if “The Serpent Only Lies” (2016) and “Symmetry in Black” (2014) elevated the CROWBAR sound to new levels of crushing craftsmanship, their twelfth full-length goes even further, offering up some of the finest songs to bear the band’s name in many years.

“The Fear That Binds You” is just the oppressive, riff-driven tonic that CROWBAR fans have come to expect. Huge of riff and insistent of grove, it’s as brutish and unforgiving as anything in the band’s repertoire, and Windstein sounds newly engaged, clearheaded and seriously pissed off. “Her Evil Is Sacred” turns up the doom and the tempo, and it’s CROWBAR in their absolute element: riffs that just won’t quit, and an incensed, near-feral vocal from the man himself. “Confess To Nothing” and “Chemical Godz” both deliver the classic Windsteinian goods: the former is a slithering, swamp-dwelling thing, propelled forward on waves of unease; the latter is a turbulent, soul-sapping monolith to its creators’ original blueprint, with SABBATH-ian rumble and woozy, tripped out terror equally integral to its impact.

So far, so eminently CROWBAR, but “Zero And Below” is a more adventurous record than its first few salvos might suggest. “Denial Of The Truth” is simply mesmerizing, with Windstein switching between a soulful, psychedelic croon and his usual anguished howl, all at a crippling snail’s pace, with true doom roots sticking out like the Devil’s trident. Elsewhere, “It’s Always Worth The Gain” revels in glutinous noise rock grooves and Louisiana swagger, while “Bleeding From Every Hole” is a crusty, punked-up hammer attack and a worthy successor to previous CROWBAR riot-starters like “High Rate Extinction”. Rather brilliantly, “Crush Negativity” must surely be the most remorselessly negative and menacing song about embracing positivity ever written, while “Reanimating A Lie” is a straightforward four-minute doom riff masterclass.

“Zero And Below” ends with its bruised and brooding title track, wherein Kirk Windstein’s hoarse rasp floats through a shimmering fog of sludge, perfectly nailing the melancholy, regret and sense of loss that forever plagues humanity, and perhaps more now than ever. Heavy times demand heavy music. CROWBAR continue to be among the heaviest ever.