Legendary grunge icons Soundgarden have been confirmed to appear at this year’s Download Festival.

It is the band’s first confirmed UK appearance since last year’s reformation. So far, no other UK dates are confirmed, but it is said a brand new album – the band’s first since 1996’s ‘Down On The Upside’ – will be released this year.

So far, confirmed acts for Download 2012 are as follows:

METALLICA (headliners)
BLACK SABBATH (headliners)
THE PRODIGY (headliners)
ANTHRAX
AUGUST BURNS RED
BIFFY CLYRO
CHASE AND STATUS
DEVILDRIVER
DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT
LAMB OF GOD
LITTLE ANGELS
MACHINE HEAD
SOUNDGARDEN
TENACIOUS D
TRIVIUM
UGLY KID JOE
YOU ME AT SIX

Glam/funk metal outfit Bang Tango – best known for cult late 80s/early 90s tracks ‘Untied & True’ and ‘Attack of Life’ – have released a video for their new track ‘I Like It’.

‘I Like It’ comes from the band’s 2011 release ‘Pistol Whipped In The Bible Belt’ and the video can be seen below.

Sometime Blur guitarist Graham Coxon will be releasing a new solo album in February.

‘A+E’ is the guitarist’s righth solo release, the first since 2009’s ‘The Spinning Top’.

Confirmed tracklisting:
‘Advice’
‘City Hall’
‘What’ll It Take’
‘Meet+Drink+Pollinate’
‘The Truth’
‘Seven Naked Valleys’
‘Running For Your Life’
‘Bah Singer’
‘Knife In The Cast’
‘Ohh, Yeh, Yeh’

To help promote the release of the album, Coxon will be touring the UK in April, appearing at the following venues:
O2 Academy Oxford (April 13)
Gateshead Sage (15)
Edinburgh Liquid Rooms (16)
Glasgow Garage (17)
Manchester Sound Control (19)
Sheffield Leadmill (20)
Nottingham Rescue Rooms (21)
Brighton Concorde (23)
Cambridge Junction (24)
London HMV Forum (25)
Gloucester Guildhall (27)
Bristol Trinity (28)
Exeter Phoenix (29)
Falmouth Princess Pavilions (30)

‘A+E’ is released on 2nd April.

Elvenking, the cult Italian power/fantasy metal band featuring vocalist Davide Moras, are set to return to the recording studio at the end of February.

Producing the sessions will be Nino Laurenne who previously worked with Elvenking on their ‘Scythe’ and ‘Winter Wake’ albums, as well as having produced albums by Lordi and Apocalyptica.

Very little detail is known at this stage, but the band have said fans can expect a mid 2012 release.

At the beginning of 2011, Davide Meros released a debut album with his “other” band, the glam-metal outfit Hell In The Club, which surprisingly turned out to be one of the year’s best hard rock discs. (Review here)