Yesterday night it seemed like Trent Reznor had his mind set on breaking the interwebs, when, out of the blue, he released Nine Inch Nails‘ sixth album, titled “Ghosts I-IV,” under various formats, one of which being free digital download. The new record is actually a four volume compilation, filled with 36 instrumental tracks, recorded in a ten-week period last year, covering a lot of new musical terrain during the almost two hours worth of playtime. Better let master Trent explain a bit:

“I’ve been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn’t have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective - dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I’m very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference. I hope you enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts.” More about the album here.

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Tool’s one of the few bands that have managed to build a somewhat unique sound, characterized by heavy riffed music coupled with melodic and mellow vocals, labeled by most as style-transgressing. The band’s sold over ten million records, within their four album lifespan, won four Grammys and last but not least gained a cult like fanbase. Reverting back to the Grammy’s, a curious fact is although frontman Maynard James Keenan resents the notorious awards for what they’ve become, he decided to join the ceremony for the first time this Sunday night.

“Well, it’s the 50th anniversary, and my son’s never been to the Grammys, and I’ve never been to one, so I figured it’s probably time,” Keenan told MTV News on the Grammy red carpet on Sunday. His date for the event was his 12-year-old son, Devo, who is a cellist for Ashes Divide, the band founded by Keenan’s A Perfect Circle co-founder, Billy Howerdel. “There are other things we could do, but this is very special, I think, and it will be the highlight of the year for him. I think he’s pretty stoked about it. We’re kind of easygoing.”

What does the Grammy Awards have to do with a new Tool record? Well it was at this last edition of the awards, that Maynard revealed that the band would soon be reconvening to start kicking around song ideas, although he didn’t give anymore details about the fifth Tool album.

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Opeth are often credited to be among the masterminds behind progressive metal, and despite the fact that they haven’t achieved commercial success, the Swedish metalers are still among the titans of the genre. Now, they are proud to announce Watershed as the title of their forthcoming album, which is set for June 3rd, 2008.The band was recorded in Swedish homelands and was produced by frontman/guitarist Mikael Akerfeldt and Jens Bogren; it promises to be a masterpiece and to continue the time-honored Opeth tradition. The sound is classic but always young, progressive but old school, it’s just Opeth.

Watershed appears to be one of those classic pieces of art which cycle through a variety of moods and which will be listened a whole lot of time from now. It combines elements from metal, prog rock, free jazz and hints of European folk music.

They all bring together a harmony which is hard to describe in words, but which you should listen to. Unfortunately, it seems there is only going to be a handful of tracks, which are as follows:
01. Coil
02. Heir Apparent
03. The Lotus Eater
04. Burden
05. Porcelain Heart
06. Hessian Peel
07. Hex Omega

Opeth will hit the road in April with Dream Theater, 3, and Between The Buried And Me.

Fresh from their Pitchfork performance, [tag]Mastodon[/tag] delights us once more with a awesome video for their track “Sleeping Giant”, from 2006’s metal masterpiece “Blood Mountain“. The video is great, to say the least, director Roboshobo perfectly glimpsing the tracks meaning and lyrics. The video is set in a Sci-fi world, most likely in a space science laboratory. A blind humanoid, of apparent great intellectual capabilities, maybe divine, is set intro a chamber by two priests where he’s buried, after which life appears on his surface. Life develops from early reptiles to advanced humanoids, that eventually self destroy their micro world, through nuclear holocaust, revealing the the carbonized remains of the blind man/god.

The man behind the video, director Roboshobo was kind enough to shed some light. Via headbangers:

The concept for the video was kind of my take on the mythology that seems to be encapsulated in the album,” he begins. “I thought the reference to ‘Father Snake in the song sounded like an actual priest of some sort and thats where the robot came in…

Turning the blind man into a miniature landscape that evolves and eventually commits nuclear suicide — that was my take on the ’sleeping giant — like a volcano that’s threatening to erupt.

I also liked to think that the point of the ritual was to cultivate a crystal skull from the man’s bones after being in the earth for so long — sort of like the way coal turns to a diamond under pressure.

Until about ten years ago, metal meant just hardcore instrumental and fast guitar playing. Mostly, it is the same today, but some changes in the genre delivered albums which in the early ’90s would just not be possible.

A thing which probably nobody could have predicted is for a band to merge heavy metal with a symphony orchestra. Today “[tag]symphonic metal[/tag]” bands seemed to be growing by the day — as the genre was being spearheaded by such acts as [tag]Kamelot[/tag] (with most of symphonic metal bands hailing from Europe, Kamelot is an exception — they’re natives of Florida). Most such acts sound good but they just do not bring anything new. Kamelot does bring something new, just maybe not so much as we would expect.

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