Dirk Serries writes in his January newsletter: "The new year has been set in motion, we hope the transition into 2012 has been smooth for all. Over course the first of January we re-organized our creative process for this year focusing on the final Fear Falls Burning album and its related and rather unexpected live performance. Next in line is the long-awaited The Sleep Of Reason trilogy on which we hope to share more confirmed news in our next newsletter.

In the annals of rock history, Tommy Bolin occupied a brief, but shining stint as a brilliant guitarist who wowed those in the know with his mastery of many genres -- rock, fusion, funk, reggae and heavy metal among others. Along with a much-lauded solo career that, pushed the boundaries of rock/jazz fusion, Bolin played with The James Gang and Deep Purple, which set him up for major solo guitar stardom which was cut short by his untimely death in 1976.

Not to be overlooked, there's been much written about the guitar wunderkind and now a top notch roster of players have signed on to pay tribute to Bolin on Great Gypsy Soul. Produced by Greg Hampton and Warren Haynes, it's a remarkable project that brings together major players who actually perform alongside Tommy Bolin's playing and vocals from the recording outtakes to his solo debut album Teaser. Peter Frampton, Warren Haynes (a key supporter of the project), Nels Cline, Steve Lukather, Steve Morse, Brad Whitford, Joe Bonamassa, John Scofield, Derek Trucks, Glenn Hughes and Myles Kennedy all contribute to this amazing project.

SBB, a legendary progressive rock band from Poland, will return with a brand new studio album in March. The album, simply entitled SBB will include "a new sound - fresh, mature yet spontaneous and full of youthful energy."

Józef Skrzek explains the title: "The album's title refers to the band whose existence on the music scene can be divided into history and contemporaneity. SBB does not exploit its past achievements - we're creative artists and we're an inexhaustible source of new sounds. We understand the present music market, we follow its course, but we also retain our identity and remain recognizable as SBB.

Now forging ahead through the multi-album suite started with 2009's The Tide Decides, Echo Us continues to introduce intricate, evocative and new sounds for ambient rock music. Set for release March 20th, 2012, Tomorrow Will Tell The Story lifts from the automatic writing channeled by its creator, Ethan Matthews. The voices call for light and unification- as we continuously create our own realities.

The addition of singer-songwriter Henta on vocals weaves dark and light through the male and female duets featured throughout the album. The album also features the harp of Raelyn Olson and a meditation canticle performed by hermeticist Rawn Clark.

Jon Oliva's Pain, the Florida-based band led by Savatage mastermind Jon Oliva, will play Savatage's classic 1987 album, Hall Of The Mountain King, in its entirety at the Graspop Metal Meeting in Dessel, Belgium in June as well as at the warm-up party for this year's Bang Your Head!!! festival the following month. Jon Oliva's Pain is also expected to play several songs from Doctor Butcher, the early 1990s project created by Oliva and guitarist Chris Caffery at a time when they were not active members of Savatage.

Jon Oliva's Pain lineup for the performances will consist of Jon Oliva (vocals and keyboards), Christopher Kinder (drums), Jerry Outlaw (guitar), Jason Jennings (bass) and a very special guest guitarist to be announced soon.

InsideOut Music is proud to announce the signing of progressive groove metallers Stealing Axion! Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, the band was formed in the winter of 2009 by three friends, Dan Forbrich (vocals, guitar), Josh DeShazo (vocals, guitar), and Phil Willmarth (vocals, bass). By early 2010, the band recorded and released their buzzworthy self-titled EP, while continuing to write and record more material. While Stealing Axion circulated around the web, fans and critics praised it for its musical proficiency, atmospheric passages and heavy grooves. The band then enlisted Charlie Shaughnessy (guitar) and Blake Ferris (drums) to round out their lineup while working closely with Acle Kahney (producer, guitarist of Tesseract, who mixed and mastered these new tracks). Stealing Axion finally had enough material to put together a full length album, entitled Moments, which will now be released through InsideOut Music in 2012!

"The Crow, The Owl And The Dove," the second single from Imaginaerum, the new album from Finnish/Swedish symphonic metallers Nightwish, will be released in Europe on March 2 via Nuclear Blast Records. Along with the title track, the single will include a previously unreleased song called "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" (theme from the movie The Piano). The cut will be available in two different versions, including an instrumental one.

Norwegian Avant-garde metallers Borknagar have finalized mixing duties for their upcoming studio album with Jens Bogren at acclaimed Fascination Street Studios (Opeth, Paradise Lost, Katatonia, etc.) in Sweden, and they have now checked-in to announce that the long awaited new effort will be titled Urd and is to be released on March 26th, 2012 in Europe as well as March 27th, 2012 in North America via Century Media Records.

Borknagar's mastermind Øystein G. Brun has checked-in with the following message:

In April, Italian inventors of film score metal Rhapsody Of Fire will set off for their first tour after the friendly split with founding member and guitarist Luca Turilli. Take the chance to see the new Rhapsody Of Fire line-up consisting of the long-known members Alex Staropoli (keys), Fabio Lione (vox), Alex Holzwarth (drums) and Tom Hess (guitar) as well as of the new members Roberto De Micheli (guitar) and Oliver Holzwarth (bass) at one of the following dates:

German record label startup Generation Prog Records is proud to announce the first two members of its band roster: The international prog fusion project Relocator and the Nürnberg-based prog metal quintet Effloresce. From jazz fusion to death metal -- the stylistic diversity between the two bands is a perfect example of the modern prog approach the new label wants to showcase.

The first Generation Prog Records release will be the upcoming Effloresce album Coma Ghosts, scheduled for February 10. Label founder Michael Schetter comments: "It’s both a pleasure and an honor to be working with Effloresce on this album. I’ve been following the band's career from the very start and it makes me proud to hear them finally unleash their potential with this amazing CD."

The Shadows Compendium, the first instrumental solo album from guitarist Stéphan Forté of French neo-classical metallers Adagio, will be released in North America on February 28 via Listenable Records. The CD, which came out in Europe in November, was mixed by Kevin Codfert at XFade studio in Paris, France. Stéphan and Kevin previously worked together on the production of Adagio's fourth album, Archangels In Black.

The Shadows Compendium features several other guests, such as Jeff Loomis, Glen Drover, Daniele Gottardo and Derek Taylor.

Former Metal Church/Lillian Axe singer Ronny Munroe has announced his departure from Presto Ballet, the progressive rock band led by ex-Metal Church guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof. Ronny states, "My continued involvement with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra has made it impossible to leave me with enough time to fully dedicate myself to such a great band as Presto Ballet. I'm wishing Kurdt Vanderhoof and the rest of the guys continued success, and I thank Kurdt for allowing me the chance to share in, and be a part of, his vision."

Presto Ballet recently announced the addition of drummer Larry Crowe to the group's ranks.

MLWZ is a Polish Radio Alfa Krakow 102,40 FM progressive rock show which started in 1994, on air every Wednesday between 8:00 and 10:30 pm CET. The show producer is Artur Chachlowski, who is also a well known Polish Metal Hammer journalist. In early Janaury , the 17th edition of MLWZ's Best Albums of 2011 Poll results were announced. 526 people voted for 398 albums. Full results (Top 100)

Here's the Top 10:

The rush of adrenaline running through this mob is event by the flurry of Adrenaline Mob news items that reached the web-waves. Here's a compendium of those items (or Portnoy news part deux): "Undaunted," the new video from Adrenaline Mob can be seen here. The song comes off the group's debut album, Omert´, which will be released on March 13 via the newly formed Elm City Music in conjunction with EMI Label Services (released in Europe on March 19 via Century Media Records). The 11-song CD -- which was produced by Adrenaline Mob and mixed by Jay Ruston, who has previously worked on Anthrax's Worship Music and Steel Panther's Balls Out -- includes a blistering reinterpretation of Duran Duran's classic "Come Undone" featuring guest vocals by Lzzy Hale of Halestorm.

Mascot Label Group has announced the release of the eponymous debut album from Flying Colors -- the spectacular new virtuoso prog/pop/metal rock band formed by drummer Mike Portnoy (ex-Dream Theater) and guitarist Steve Morse (Deep Purple). The CD will be made available via Music Theories Recordings in the U.K. on Monday, March 26, followed by a U.S. release on Tuesday, March 27.

Flying Colors is Mike Portnoy (drums, vocals), Dave LaRue (bass), Neal Morse (keyboards, vocals), Casey McPherson (lead vocals, guitar), and Steve Morse (lead guitar).

But this album possesses a unique and illustrious lineage that, despite the clear difference in style and genre, connects it to one of the most famous works in the rock music repertoire – the ideas behind Method Music are both the outgrowth and the foundation of the legendary project by Pete Townshend, the conceptualizer and co-producer of the album, and presents a theoretical system of musical portraiture in which a listener’s personal data is translated into a unique composition.

Collected over the last few weeks, here are some newsbits: The new Hostsonaten CD, The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner - Chapter One will be out on March 2012 on AMS/BTF label. On SoundCloud you can listen a special preview, an excerpt of "Part III" of the opera.

Marillion's bassist, Pete Trewavas, recently formed a group with co-writer and founder Eric Pastore [aka Eric Blackwood? -ed.] called Edison's Children. In the latest Marillion newsletter, Pete writes: "The 'Edison's Children' CDs [In The Last Waking Moments...] are now in stock and all our preorders have been sent out.

"There is an exciting new 15 minute trailer or preview of the album now available on the front page of our website, www.edisonschildren.com, for anyone who wants to know more before they commit to anything as drastic as splashing out on some new music, and of course we're on iTunes, amazon, etc., as well, if you fancy browsing there.

Lion Music are proud to announce the signing of Italian progressive metal band The Moore to the label’s roster.

Hailing from from Venice (IT), The Moor were formed in the summer of 2009 by vocalist/guitarist Enrico Longhin and guitarist Davide Carraro (both ex-members of Bleed In Vain). In 2010, after some early line-up changes, Riccardo Freguja (bass) and Max Lombardo (drums) were the right persons for what became The Moor's self titled debut EP. Recorded during spring/summer 2010, mixing and mastering sessions took place at Studio Fredman (Sweden) with acclaimed producers Fredrik Nordstrom and Henrik Udd (In Flames, Dream Evil, Opeth, Dimmu Borgir, Bring Me The Horizon). After the EP's recording sessions Max Lombardo quit the band and was replaced by Alberto Businari. A further line-up change occurred in July 2011 with new bassist Massimo Cocchetto (ex-Bleed In Vain) solidifying the line-up.