Legendary rock band RUSH have unveiled details of its highly anticipated, new album, ‘CLOCKWORK ANGELS‘. This is the renowned trio’s first new collection of original material in over five years and their first studio release via Anthem/Roadrunner Records. ‘CLOCKWORK ANGELS‘, the band’s 20th studio album, will be released in the UK on June 11th.

In the UK, the album will be released on June 11th in exclusive Classic Rock Fan Pack form – providing a unique collectible package containing the 12 track studio album alongside a specially created magazine with unseen behind-the-scenes content put together by Classic Rock. The Fan Pack cover will also feature brand new exclusive artwork from RUSH’s longtime collaborator Hugh Syme (who also designed the Clockwork Angels artwork). The Fan Pack format will also come with free gifts including a limited edition Clockwork Angels keyring & artwork poster and will be available to buy via more than 2000 retail outlets on newsstands nationally as well as the traditional high street and online music retailer. The Fan Pack is available for pre-order now at www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/rush, where all early bird orders will receive a personalised RUSH poster. Roadrunner Records will simultaneously release the record digitally. The standard physical release of the RUSH album will follow through Roadrunner Records on July 9th 2012.

The recording of ‘CLOCKWORK ANGELS‘ began in April 2010 with Grammy Award winning producer Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Deftones) – who also collaborated with the band on their last studio album, 2007’s ‘SNAKES & ARROWS‘. RUSH co-produced both records. The first two songs, “Caravan” and “BU2B” were completed during that first session at Nashville’s Blackbird studios and performed nightly during the wildly successful Time Machine Tour, which ran from June 2010 to June 2011. Work on ‘CLOCKWORK ANGELS‘ resumed in the fall of 2011 at Revolution Recording in Toronto after the tour’s finale, with additional strings (arranged by David Campbell) recorded at Hollywood’s Ocean Way Studios earlier this year. Lyrically, ‘CLOCKWORK ANGELS‘ chronicles a young man’s quest across a lavish and colorful world of steampunk and alchemy as he attempts to follow his dreams. The story features lost cities, pirates, anarchists, an exotic carnival, and a rigid Watchmaker who imposes precision on every aspect of daily life. The novelization of ‘CLOCKWORK ANGELS‘ is being written by science fiction writer Kevin J. Anderson in collaboration with RUSH drummer and lyricist Neil Peart.

RUSH will herald the release of ‘CLOCKWORK ANGELS‘ with a new single “Headlong Flight” landing at rock radio on April 19th. Details of a full-scale North American tour to support the new album will be announced shortly.

RUSH – ‘CLOCKWORK ANGELS’ tracklist:

1. Caravan
2. BU2B
3. Clockwork Angels
4. The Anarchist
5. Carnies
6. Halo Effect
7. Seven Cities Of Gold
8. The Wreckers
9. Headlong Flight
10. BU2B2
11. Wish Them Well
12. The Garden

SLIPKNOT‘s Clown, otherwise known as Shawn Crahan, made an appearance in the new film ‘The Devil’s Carnival‘ recently and he talked to Artisan News about his role and what it involved. Check out the video below:

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Buy the band’s latest release, the 10th Anniversary Edition of Iowa, by clicking here.

ARTISTdirect.com caught up with ROB ZOMBIE recently to talk about The Lords of Salem, creating characters, writing and recording new material and much more. Check out an extract from that interview below:

The characters in your movies are always so vibrant. When you’re making a film, do the characters dictate the action?

Yeah, definitely! For the most part, if the characters are interesting, the audience will watch them. You want to give them something interesting to do, of course. A lot of times, I find if I get bored with a movie, I’m just bored with the characters that are onscreen. Nothing is worse than when you’re watching a movie and you’ve got four characters that basically look and talk the same. You start asking, “Wait, which guy is that?” I think defining the characters is probably the most important thing you can do.

Is there something particularly ominous about Salem?

I definitely think Salem is a great setting for a movie. I hadn’t been to Salem in a long time, since I was a kid. When I went back there location scouting, I was really struck by how interesting of an area it is. It’s really interesting architecturally and visually. From the little tiny streets and cobblestone sidewalks to the buildings, it’s a very specific look. That’s why shooting there was so important. I couldn’t fake it somewhere else because it had such a rich look. We shot there at the perfect time of year—for once. It was October so the leaves were changing and falling like a snowstorm from the trees. It was visually amazing.

Are there any horror authors you come back to?

There are some people I like. I’d read H.P. Lovecraft. I’d read a bunch of Stephen King books when I was a kid as well as Edgar Allan Poe and stuff. I really don’t read that much horror fiction at all.

Is this new record going to be another heavy one?

Yeah, that’s what we’re going to do. Usually, we don’t really have a focus when we make a record. We go in and start writing songs, and it goes where it’s going to go. We let it go that way. This time, we sort of made a pack that we’re going to make a heavy record on purpose and stick to that goal. We have been. We have a lot of songs that aren’t 100 percent finished but they’re pretty far along. We just want to make a dark, heavy, weird record and stick to that idea. If something comes up that isn’t, we won’t finish it. We’ll stick to the plan. You may say that when you start recording. Then other songs start happening that don’t really fit that and you go with it. This time, we’re really going to stay on task.

Can we expect those big grooves on the new album?

Definitely! That’s another great feature with Ginger on drums. He’s a phenomenal drummer. I didn’t know how fucking good he was. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves. His strong point is his groove playing, which is great. That’s really what we like to do. A lot of drummers can’t do that well. They can do other things, but you either have that or you don’t. He’s really good at that. There are certain songs we’ve played for years that have never quite sounded right. A song like “More Human Than Human” has a repetitive groove. If you don’t really get the groove down, the song can be really monotonous to listen to and he nailed it. That’s a really great feature.

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Another clip in the series of clips featuring PORCUPINE TREE”s Steven Wilson and OPETH‘s Mikael