Something for everyone

Heavy metal band Slayer. Photo / Supplied

Throw your heavy metal goat salute in the air because Megadeth and Slayer - two of thrash metal's pioneering bands - head to New Zealand in October for a double bill.

Both bands have recently emerged from the recording studio, with Slayer's World Painted Blood due out later this year, and Megadeth's Endgame set for release on September 11. They play at the Logan Campbell Centre in Auckland on October 5.

Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine, who was in Metallica in the early 1980s and helped develop the band's early thrash metal sound, is renowned as one of the world's top metal guitarists.

Meanwhile, Slayer last played in New Zealand in April 2007 and put on a blistering show at the St James with Mastodon.

Also in October, boundary-pushing MC Beans, from avant garde New York hip-hop crew Anti-Pop Consortium and sometime collaborator with Radiohead, DJ Shadow and Public Enemy, plays Auckland's Zen on October 26.

And in local tour news, trippy roots rockers Little Bushmen head out on a national tour starting at the Kings Arms in Auckland on August 7, and Leigh Sawmill the next night.

As are Cairo Knife Fight, the Christchurch-based band featuring jack-of-all-trades drummer Nick Gaffaney and former Weta frontman Aaron Tokona, who play the Kings Arms on August 15.