The Black Sabbath reunion breakdown between the band and drummer Bill Ward continues to spill out in public. A new statement posted below via Billward.com finds Ward responding to bassist Geezer Butler‘s recent statement.

In case you missed it, the band played the first show of this latest reunion run with drummer Tommy Clufetos earlier this weekend.

“Dear Sabbath Fans and Musicians,

I have read Geezer’s statement of May 19, 2012 titled “Heavy Heart.” Out of respect for the Birmingham gig, I wanted to wait 24 hours before releasing this statement. There are some points he brought up which I want to respond to.

1) I had indeed notified Ozzy, Tony and Geezer, well before my first public statement, that I was having contractual difficulties.

2) I came out into a public forum to be accountable to the fans primarily, and to say at a public level there’s a problem. The band members stopped talking and corresponding with me some time ago, with the exception of a nice letter from Tony on my birthday. Prior to that, Geezer and I were corresponding, but that stopped abruptly in late February after I emailed a specific question to him.

3) In my statement of May 15, I clearly stated I would play Birmingham for free. That was not a problem – charity or otherwise.

4) My Download fee was not an extravagant amount. Originally, when Download was part of a full tour, I had asked for a decent fee. More recently, as we were negotiating just Download/Birmingham and Lollapalooza, I told my attorney that I would accept the proposed small Download fee, but there were other parts of the offer that were unsatisfactory.

I will continue to be honest and respectful towards the band and our fans. I will also confront any untruths about me, and any fault finding missions aimed at me that come to my attention.

I hope the band and the fans had a good gig in Brum.

Stay safe/stay strong.
Bill Ward“

Down paid tribute to Judas Priest at the bands recent Broussard, LA show this past Friday. The band launched into an impromptou partial cover of Priest‘s “Breaking The Law“, fan-filmed footage of which can be found below:

All Shall Perish‘s legal woes look set to continue as a lawsuit has been given permission to obtain the identities of 80 alleged BitTorrent users who pirated the bands latest album, “This Is Where It Ends“.

The band themselves, along with their manager Ryan Downey have adamantly claimed that they are not involved with the proceedings and have apparently requested numerous times that the suit be dropped.

The lawsuit was filed on their behalf by World Digital Rights, an apparent copyright licensing company who Nuclear Blast Records are said to have signed over the bands rights to. According to a new article at Torrentfreak.com, Downey and the band are continuing in their attempts to have the suit dropped. Some words from Downey on the matter can be found at the aforementioned link.

This Or The Apocalypse have checked in with the following update regarding their recent downtime:

“To answer the lack of news on the new record: Rather than spending time trying to craft an update that skirts around the questions all clever, I’ll put it this way: When we release an album, we tour it relentlessly. For this next record, we wanted to wait until we could dedicate a year of our life, uninterrupted, into touring these songs and shouting down stupid mosh fights.

It’d be awesome to release songs and show everyone, but it’s just not good for the release. Rick had a pretty heavy surgery, Grant had to leave the band for health reasons, Jack/Rod/Matt wanted to save up and buy new rigs of gear, and years of touring on our own check had added up to the point where being home a few months actually seemed like the healthiest and best decision for the band and our families.

We’re not just dudes that crash on couches and ask kids to send us 5 bucks on paypal. We haven’t been completely inactive, either. Our recent Canadian headliner tour with TWWK and BOAK was an incredible time, despite our van tanking out for 5 days, we even made it to the front page of reddit.com finding rides from show to show. The waiting is done and we’re finally lining up our home for the next record.

This year is going to be huge for us: Expect some amazing art from our best friend Sol Amstutz, new songs with material that reach as far back as to satisfy fans of our 2005 self-released albums, music videos, funny rants from Rick, all of that. TOTA fans, we miss you guys. See you soon.”

Audio samples of Fear Factory‘s nearing new album “The Industrialist” have emerged online via Amazon.com. The group will release the effort through Candlelight Records on June 05th.

Ulcerate had their gear stolen while on tour in New York City, NY last night. A message from the band reads:

“We had our van broken into in New York last night at our accom. We’ve lost all our guitar gear (preamps, effects units), some drum equipment, stage banner and all of Svart Crown‘s merch was also ripped off. We’re going to keep going but this is a fucking terrible start. We had phenomenal shows in Philadelphia and NYC last night so this is an absolute kick in the fucking teeth.”

As stated above, despite the massive setback, the band plan to continue on touring and are seeking Paypal donations at ulcerate@gmail.com & sons-of-underground@hotmail.fr.

Fear And The Nervous System (Korn, Faith No More, etc.) have been working on new material as of late. No word yet on when it will surface.

Fargo, ND outfit Hands have decided to call it a day. Members of the band will continue making music together under the moniker of Everything In Slow Motion however. More details are expected soon.

Metallica have released an 18 minute video from their May 10th show in Warsaw, Poland. The footage can be seen below:

Live footage from Black Sabbath‘s return to the stage yesterday night, May 19th, in Birmingham, England has arrived online. You can watch some assorted highlights below. As previously reported, the band were joined by drummer Tommy Clufetos (Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Zombie) in place of Bill Ward for the performance.

The setlist for the show ran as follows:

01 – “Into The Void”
02 – “Under The Sun”
03 – “Snowblind”
04 – “War Pigs”
05 – “Wheels Of Confusion”
06 – “Electric Funeral”
07 – “Black Sabbath”
08 – “The Wizard”
09 – “Behind The Wall Of Sleep”
10 – “N.I.B.”
11 – “Fairies Wear Boots”
12 – “Tomorrow’s Dream”
13 – “Sweet Leaf”
14 – “Symptom Of The Universe” (partial)
15 – Drum Solo
16 – “Iron Man”
17 – “Dirty Women”
18 – “Children Of The Grave”

Encore:

19 – “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” (partial)
20 – “Paranoid”

Converge have uploaded the following teaser for their upcoming “Thousands Of Miles Between Us” DVD effort. A release date through Deathwish Inc. is currently pending for the outing. A new album from the band is expected out sometime this fall.

Will Haven have been working on a new album which they hope to record later this year. The band recently posted the following update on that and their current happenings:

“Hello..its been a while since you have heard from the will haven camp so I thought I would give you all an update, we have been staying busy, we are working on a new will haven record, songs are being worked on and hope to record later at the end of the year, we will be playing at Hevy Fest in England in Aug which we are pretty excited about.

Chris will be heading out with his Slipknot brothers this summer for the Rockstar Mayhem tour in the US, in the meantime we have a few side projects that we will be releasing while Chris is on tour, Anthony has his band Horseneck which has just put out an EP and is playing shows.

The other project features Jeff, Adrien and Mitch along with good friend Sean Bivins called Goodbye Black Sky, they will be recording in the next month and shortly after playing some shows..so thats the newest from here, keep an eye out for new music from the Haven boys…william”

Vision Of Disorder have released a number of photos from their recent “Set To Fail” music video shoot. You can check those out over at the bands Facebook. The group are expected to release their new album “The Cursed Remain Cursed” through Candlelight Records later this year.

Yesterday’s controversy of Bill Ward being missing in action on the images featured on the new Black Sabbath website has been given more context. A newly-issued statement from the Black Sabbath camp reveals Ward‘s omission was by his own request. The statement reads:

“At the request of Bill Ward, through his attorney, so as to not give the public the wrong impression about his involvement in the current Black Sabbath lineup, we have temporarily removed Bill Ward‘s images from the main pages of the blacksabbath.com official website. In accordance with Bill Ward‘s attorney’s request, we are doing so for the duration of the forthcoming shows.”

The band played their first show of their latest reunion tonight (May 19th) in Birmingham, England. According to fans in attendance the setlist for the proceedings ran as follows:

01 – “Into The Void”
02 – “Under The Sun”
03 – “Snowblind”
04 – “War Pigs”
05 – “Wheels Of Confusion”
06 – “Electric Funeral”
07 – “Black Sabbath”
08 – “The Wizard”
09 – “Behind The Wall Of Sleep”
10 – “N.I.B.”
11 – “Fairies Wear Boots”
12 – “Tomorrow’s Dream”
13 – “Sweet Leaf”
14 – “Symptom Of The Universe” (partial)
15 – Drum Solo
16 – “Iron Man”
17 – “Dirty Women”
18 – “Children Of The Grave”

Encore:

19 – “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” (partial)
20 – “Paranoid“

Ghostlimb (Graf Orlock) have set a July 10th release date through Vitriol Records for their new album “Confluence“. The 12 track offering will include a bonus cover of Hot Water Music‘s “Southeast First“. A stream of the new song “Margins is currently available at Altpress.com.