Judas Priest are moving forward with their farewell tour (they’re calling it the “Epitaph Tour,” strongly suggesting they don’t know what an epitaph is) despite the fact that guitarist K.K. Downing is calling it quits. And now they’ve released a photo of the new line-up. By which I mean they got the new guy to pose for a photo and stuck it on the poster with a bunch of other photos of the rest of the band, because no one could even be bothered to get into one room together for two minutes to say “Cheese.”

See if you can spot the new guy:

If you guessed “It’s the dude who’s half the age of everyone else in the band and is dressed like a Beatle!”, you’re right!

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One of you recently sent us the video for “No Salvation” by the band Hostile (and I lost your e-mail so I apologize for not properly crediting you by name), pointing out that the band was noteworthy because their bassist, Alex Hill, is the offspring of Ian Hill, who, in case you know nothing about anything, is the bass player for Judas Priest. In fact, it turns out that Hostile’s debut album, Eve of Destruction, was produced by K.K. Downing, who, of course, just recently left Judas Priest. And you’d hope that a) Ian Hill had transferred some of his talent via his sperm, and/or b) Downing was able to bring some of his Judas Priest magic to these Hostile proceedings.

Alas, your hope would all be for naught. Hostile is pretty terrible. I mean, I guess it starts off as passable enough Swedecore, but then the singer, who apparently has no higher aspiration than to be in Five Finger Death Punch, starts his bit, and the whole thing becomes more or less completely fucking awful.

And what’s kind of amazing about this is that Ian Hill is not the only child of a metal star who somehow totally failed to inherit any of his father’s talent.

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Yep, 4/20 gets a real downer with the rather unexpected news that Judas Priest founding member, guitarist K.K. Downing, has quit the band.

“It is with regret that Judas Priest announce that K.K. Downing has formally retired from the band and will therefore not be joining them on their forthcoming Epitath Tour.” – Official Judas Priest press release 4/20/11.

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Iron Maiden bassist/mastermind Steve Harris has brought his daughter to the slaughter; the young and fairly foxy Lauren Harris, who has been opening for dad on much of their “Somewhere Back in Time World Tour,” appears in a nude shoot in the UK’s FHM Magazine. The photos ain’t bad but they also ain’t full-frontal, so for the Maiden superfreaks who just want to get as close to their heroes as possible I recommend skipping straight to the nipple-slip pic we published last year. If only her music were quite this alluring.

-VN