Long Island-based hardcore/metal band THIS IS HELL has recorded a cover version of an as-yet-undisclosed PANTERA song for the forthcoming "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott (PANTERA, DAMAGEPLAN) tribute album. The collection, which is being put together by U.K.'s Metal Hammer magazine for a special issue that will coincide with the five-year anniversary of Dimebag's passing, is expected to include the following artists/cuts, among others:

* MACHINE HEAD - "Fucking Hostile"
* CHIMAIRA - "Slaughtered"
* EVILE - "Cemetery Gates"
* THROWDOWN - [to be announced]
* ZAKK WYLDE - "Suicide Note Pt. 1"
* THIS IS HELL - [to be announced]

THIS IS HELL's most recent CD, titled "Misfortunes", was released in February 2008 through Trustkill Records. The follow-up to "Sundowning" was recorded at Killingsworth Studio in Long Island, New York with Tomas Costanza (DIFFUSER, BEDLIGHT FOR BLUE EYES) and Full Force Studios in Port Jefferson with the acclaimed producer Joe Cincotta (OBITUARY, SUFFOCATION, ANIMOSITY).

THIS IS HELL recently inked a deal with Rise Records. The band's first CD for the label is expected to arrive in the spring.

Fans of Dimebag are in an uproar over the resurfacing of a 2005 painting called "The Assassination Of Dimebag Darrell". Done by New York-based artist Tom Sanford, the picture is a graphic depiction of the fatal onstage shooting of Abbott in December 2004 by Nathan Gale at a Columbus, Ohio rock club. The controversy over the painting has erupted again now that the picture is set to be auctioned off on November 21 by the London-based Phillips de Pury & Company.

Sanford has done other paintings chronicling violence in the lives of musicians, including one of a stabbing incident at the 2004 Vibe Awards and another showing rapper 50 Cent in an altercation involving a knife.

In a lengthy statement posted at his web site, Sanford wrote: "The painting is certainly in poor taste, but I think that when one is describing a mass murder, etiquette is really not an issue. Poor taste is pretty much the baseline criteria for my work, so fundamental to my project that I really do not consider it when I make a painting. I have no interest in being in good taste. My work is always subjective, inaccurate and incorrect, and I stand behind this position."