WATAIN was honored with the "Best Hard Rock" award at the Swedish "Grammis" gala, which was held this last night (Monday, January 17) in Stockholm.

The nominees in the "Best Hard Rock" category were as follows:

* GHOST - "Opus Eponymous"
* KHOMA - "A Final Storm"
* PASCAL - "Orkanen Närmar Sig"
* SABATON - "Coat Of Arms"
* WATAIN - "Lawless Darkness"

The artists were all nominated for their most recent releases, all of which came out during 2010.

Last year's Grammis award in the "Best Hard Rock" category was won by MUSTASCH for the band's self-titled album.

"Reaping Death", the latest CD single from WATAIN, which was exclusively distributed in Sweden via Sweden Rock Magazine, was certified gold in the band's home country in April 2010 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry for sales in excess of 10,000 copies. (Note: Each copy of the magazine sold in Sweden counted towards the certification.)

"Reaping Death" comes off WATAIN's fourth album, "Lawless Darkness", which entered the official chart in Sweden at position No. 26 and dropped to No. 37 the following week.

"Lawless Darkness" sold around 1,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release. The CD landed at position No. 42 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200.

"Lawless Darkness" was released in Europe on June 7, 2010 in a limited three-panel digipack edition with die-cut and a cover of DEATH SS' "Chains of Death" as a bonus track.