Metal Injection — In case you were wondering if Japan is truly more metal than the U.S., look no further than this photo from Fujigen Guitars (a Japanese guitar manufacturer). The above photo comes from a Japanese high school music room, where they're teaching st... more info

Sweeping The Nation — Brighton's annual takeover by marauding hordes of attention grabbing big names, showcasing Norwegians playing four or five times, major label hopes, mathrock challengers and suchlike. Pretty much everything bar a few standalone gigs is sold out, but ... more info

Sweeping The Nation — A new weekly post for this summer where we guide you through the sets you should be seeing at British festivals the following weekend. Please note that a) we cannot be held responsible for clashes and b) we haven't heard and judged every band here, m... more info

Nialler9 — The Meteor Camden Crawl Dublin is only one weekend away now. The festival is taking over most of the venues of Dublin on Saturday and Sunday with 150 bands like Black Lips, Echo & The Bunnymen, Fight Like Apes, PVT, Fionn Regan, Darkstar, No Ceremony... more info

DrownedInSound — Hello. Welcome to Drowned In Sound's weekly digest of the best tracks to be released over the past seven days. On Friday, I was feeling a bit sorry for all the bands who weren't Daft Punk and had recently shoved out a song for you to listen to. Then ... more info

Nialler9 — Echo & The Bunnymen, Eagulls and New Young Pony Club (pictured) are two international names added to Camden Crawl Dublin today. The latter will play the Friday May 3rd opening night with Dirty Beaches, Big Deal, Tropics and Windings (this is a separa... more info

ContactMusic — Chinese documentaries earned $242 million last year, up from $64 million in 2009, according to a study by Beijing Normal University reported by the... more info

Nialler9 — Camden Crawl Dublin today reveal most of their international lineup for the festival on the 4th and 5th of May in various venues around Dublin city. Adding to the first Irish lineup are: The Black Lips, PVT, Amateur Best, Darkstar, Windings, No Cerem... more info

Powerpopulist — We humbly thank the blogging entities for seeing fit to post the following. Incidentally, we haven't written much about Mikal Cronin, but we've been spending our hard-earned on a bunch of his music and enjoying it hugely. Also, by no means should you... more info

AbsolutePunk — PropertyOfZack (http://www.propertyofzack.com) has posted up a new editorial today discussing the return and importance of Mega. You can check it out here (http://propertyofzack.com/post/41121792034/poz-perspective-why-mega-is-a-mega-big-deal). Usin... more info