E-Mail This Article to a Friend Random acts The Transplants ride a Westbound Train, Mary Timony’s Deftones connection, and more BY CHRIS RUCKER

Metal and hardcore have long been the driving forces behind the Boston rock-music landscape. You could argue a different point of view, but you’d be wrong. In a state that boasts powerhouses like the Grammy-nominated Killswitch Engage and Ozzfest mainstagers Shadows Fall, even good bands can get lost in the shuffle, and right now one of them is Boston thrash-metal guys Random Acts of Violence. I predict a new beginning for these dudes right around the corner. Just off an opening slot with Relapse’s Cephalic Carnage at the Middle East, RAOV headed into a downtown warehouse studio on Friday the 13th, and they’ll have new material in stores when they embark on a two-week US tour on July 15. Check ’em out at www.randomactsofviolence.com.

Deftones singer Chino Moreno has been promising an album by his side project Team Sleep each year for half a decade, so it was a surprise when the disc showed up in stores last week. Even more surprising was the pair of lead-vocal cameos by . . . Mary Timony? The ex-Helium, Ex Hex–ing singer says she met Moreno only briefly, and that was five years ago, when she was recommended to him by Team Sleep/Hella drummer Zach Hill. She recorded her vocals for "Tomb of Ligeia" and "King Diamond" back in 2000, and the two parties sent tapes back and forth through the mail. Team Sleep, sans Timony, hit the Paradise on May 28.

Boston’s Westbound Train are one of the few bands still waving the checkered flag for ska in what was once one of ska’s biggest national enclaves. Their perseverance has paid off: the talented seven-piece make a guest appearance on Haunted Cities, the new album from Rancid guitarist Tim Armstrong’s punk/hip-hop side project the Transplants. Westbound Train’s Thad Merrick managed to slip a demo to Armstrong while working at the loading docks at the Lansdowne Street clubs Avalon and Axis; that led to the band’s scoring a track on the newest Hellcat compilation, Give ’Em the Boot IV, as well as to the Transplants session work. Haunted Cities is due on Transplants/Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker’s La Salle Records on June 21, and with the Transplants on Warped this summer, maybe someone will hook something up when Westbound Train join Warped for a few dates down South.

New Hampshire punk bros the Bruisers are rumored to be planning a pair of reunion shows. Those who don’t know the band may be familiar with their singer, Al Barr, who after the Bruisers disbanded in 1998 replaced Mike McColgan as the singer in Dropkick Murphys. Bruisers guitarist Jeff Morris announced on the band’s Web site that a reunion show planned for this month at CBGB had to be postponed, and given Barr’s current work schedule — the Dropkicks are releasing The Warrior’s Code in June, then headlining Warped all summer — the Bruisers likely won’t do anything until at least September. But they still hope for reunion dates in Boston and New York in the fall.

Ramallah, who’re fronted by Blood for Blood/Sinners and Saints leader Rob Lind, have released an MP3 for "Life Goes On," the first to surface from their next album, Kill a Celebrity (Thorp); grab it at www.thorprecords.com. The follow-up to 2002’s But a Whimper is due out September 27.

It was cool watching Slater grow up, but the Boston indie-punk quartet are calling it a day. Formed out of the ashes of the teenage South Shore ska band the Sellouts, the group won a ’BCN high-school battle of the bands back in 2000 and released the super-catchy Slater last year. Drummer Joe Cutrufo is moving South; the remaining three — Ted Billings, Andrew McInnes, and our homeboy, Phoenix staffer Will Spitz — are working with producer Mark Flynn on an electronic-pop album. Slater play a farewell show upstairs at the Middle East on Tuesday June 7. And no, that’s not a misprint: that Spitz kid actually booked a show the same night as our Best Music Poll party.

Chris Rucker is the host of New England Product, which airs Sundays from 9 to 10 p.m. on WFNX 101.7 FM.