Oh yes indeed, I love Spiritual Beggars and the mighty Clutch! Re the "new" Clutch album, do you mean Robot Hive/Exodus, Carlaz? It's exceedingly fine, and there are two tracks left over from the Robot Hive sessions on Pitchfork & Lost Needles, which are just mind-bogglingly brilliant.
Well, both actually, since I've only heard a bit of Robot Hive/Exodus and none of
Pitchfork & Lost Needles! Clearly, a situation I need to rectify. I think Clutch are one of the best bands to come out of the US in the last decade (indeed, one of the best bands of the last decade!).
I've never listened to Lacuna Coil or The Gathering, but I should check them out - I love female vocalists in rock bands.
Definitely check out The Gathering's
Mandylion; the opening track "Strange Machines" pretty much defines why we should like female-voxed heavy rock. :)
Nighttime Birds is also a good album, though as was pointed out, the band then started to think they were the second-coming of Pink Floyd, which I'm not sure was a good direction for them .... But, anyway, I've only just checked out a bit of Lacuna Coil recently, mostly bits of their Comalies album, and it seems quite good.
I don't think The Gathering have a MySpace page, but you can listen to a few bits of Lacuna Coil on theirs:
http://www.myspace.com/lacunacoil
