Bullet For My Valentine, Atreyu and Avenged Sevenfold

As winter 2008 descends on New Zealand, fierce music lovers shall brace themselves for a peerless union, featuring the absolute hottest heavy acts from each side of the Atlantic.

One fervently reverent, the other fearlessly revolutionary, the tour heralds a dawning of a new age of metal as much as each band have brought a new language to the global metal tribe. We can only imagine what lies ahead for Wales' Bullet For My Valentine and California's Avenged Sevenfold and Atreyu, but New Zealand awaits glorious carnage.

Leading the new brigade of heavy metal in the UK, Bullet For My Valentine certainly know their stuff. Utilizing the ferocious synchronized flourishes of classic '80s guitar slingers, the quartet construct impeccably catchy and granite-heavy sounds. The assured, majestic debut 'The Poison' of 2005 instantly marked the band as inheritors of British metal's flame.

Metal Hammer bowed to its power, giving them the 2006's Golden God Award for Best British Band. Kerrang! cheered 'Tears Don't Fall' as the Best UK Single of the year.

Equally versed in the untamed thrash of the past, but with dreams even grander than their extravagant songs suggest, are California's worshipped and reviled Avenged Sevenfold. Answering to no one but themselves, this quintet of hell-raisers whip up a firestorm of outrage with each release, from the melodically shameless crunching metalcore of their 2001 debut 'Sounding The Seventh Trumpet' to the gritty genre-thieving mayhem of their fourth, self-titled opus of 2007.

If these pillars of Trans-Atlantic metal aren't enough, they'll be bringing 2008 Taste Of Chaos tourmates Atreyu along for the ride. The Californian quintet have been disgorging cut-throat metal squeals and hulking moshcore rhythms since the turn of the century, amassing a legion of devotees. Atryeu's notoriously acrobatic performances will be the perfect cardiac jolt for this bold double-header.

Event listed by alice cottle

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