Tour news: The masked men of metal return to NZ

Slipknot.

Masked metal band Slipknot is returning to Auckland.

The ghoulish American rockers will play at Vector Arena on Wednesday October 26.

It's the first time since 2008 that the Grammy-winning group has played in New Zealand.

The band also played at the 2005 Big Day Out.

The tour follows the 2014 release of the album .5: The Gray Chapter which followed a six-year silence from the band brought on by the the drug overdose death of bassist Paul Gray and the departure of drummer Joey Jordison.

"We gave ourselves a little time to grieve," frontman Corey Taylor told the Herald at the time of its release.

"When you haven't been in that situation, you never know how it's going to affect you.

"We're very much a business-as-usual type of band, but we couldn't fight the depression, the grief. It kept clinging to us."

In the United States today, the band announced their own Knotfest event would be combining with Ozzfest as "Ozzfest Meets Knotfest" , a show which will be one of the final American shows by Ozzy Osbourne's Black Sabbath which recently played at Vector on the band's farewell tour.

The two-day mega event takes place in San Bernadino, California in late September, before Slipknot head to Australia and then New Zealand.

Tickets for Slipknot's Auckland show go on sale on Monday, May 23 at 11am.