ContactMusic — The organisers of Britain's Download Festival decided against booking Metallica as this year's (11) headline act because they are convinced the rockers have become "boring" by touring too often. The band took centre stage at the rock event in 2004... more info

Guardian Music — Ever since Metallica took on Napster, the metal scene has been wary of the internet – until the heavily digitally processed sound of djent began to coalesce in bedrooms worldwideHardcore techno has given us donk, electronica has skweee, and now hea... more info

Metalsucks — It’s not fair to count Queensryche among the great, horrible post-fame implosions like Metallica or Eddie Murphy; the Seattle band’s descent into crumminess was far less cataclysmic, more akin to a weather-beaten house’s piece-by-piece collapse... more info

NME — Andy Copping says Def Leppard are worthy headliners more info

Metal Injection — The Big 4 of thrash metal aren't done yet. Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax recently announced that the package will be doing one and only one show in the US, titled the Big Four Festival in California but that doesn't mean they are ... more info

Yahoo! Music UK — XFM - Metallica, Biffy Clyro and Slipknot are headlining the event in July... more info

Nialler9 — A free three-track covers EP from Guards which features radically-different huge reverb-heavy slow rock versions of songs by Metallica (‘Motorbreath’), Vampire Weekend (‘Taxi Cab’) and M.I.A (‘Born Free’). Guards is Richie Follin, brother... more info

We All Want Someone To Shout For — Guards just tweeted that they have a new free EP on bandcamp. It’s a digital 7″, 3 song EP consisting of covers that the band did. The songs that they covered are: Metallica’s “Motorbreath”, Vampire Weekends “Taxi Cab” and M.I.A.’s �... more info

The Good, The Bad and The Unknown — As hard as it was to see the White Stripes break up last week, we all know they're going to be reuniting in the near future.  It's harder when we truly lose someone forever. This week, lead guitarist for the epic 70s rock band Thin Lizzy passed awa... more info

Metal Injection — Now that we know the Big 4 will not be doing a tour, but instead just one big festival show. Yawn. That means Metallica has had a whole bunch of free time. Turns out the band's been working on some new music. Rolling Stone spoke to guitarist Kir... more info