Beware of masked men and strangers bearing knives. A murderous collective, fuelled by drug lust and naked disgust have risen from the North… and the East… and the West. They have no home base, per se, as much as one can imagine them hunkered down in some dank, cracked lair, plastered with lurid murder notices and decapitated starlets. I couldn’t even tell you how many of them there are. They’re fucking with you in those new promo photos, man – no one frame contains the same collection of bodies. The anonymous shtick is nothing new to metalloid scum or hip pretension machines, but with Dragged Into Sunlight, it actually seems fitting. The band thrives on chaos and is run entirely on dirty smoke, coke mirrors and painful feedback. Why should you care who they are? They don’t care about you. It’s DIS versus their audience, and they’ve brought a shiv to the gunfight.

“Dragged Into Sunlight comprises individuals of a very similar mindset and it is a very close knit collective. Anonymity comes with the territory,” according to the vocalist, a slip of a man with hooded eyes and a shifty demeanour. “DIS has no mandate for the reward sought by … Read More

Visa issues may have prevented SADISTIC INTENT from desecrating the UK this summer, but being stuck on the other side of the Channel gave guitarist RICK CORTEZ good chance to give Iron Fist’s Jérôme Maréchal a potted history of metal’s most tortured souls

Let’s avoid the boring “can you please introduce us …” and instead tell us the bands that made you wanna start Sadistic Intent? Looking back on those 20 years, would you do anything different? Rick Cortez: “Technically, Sadistic Intent started in 1986 under a different name but we changed it in 1987 when we brought in a new vocalist. Back in those days we were influenced by the more extreme music of that time; bands such as Slayer, Sodom, Venom, Destruction, Celtic Frost, Dark Angel, Mercyful Fate, Bathory, Discharge, Extreme Noise Terror, Death, Terrorizer, Repulsion, Death, Doom, etc. Honestly, I knew back then that our other band members would eventually leave the band within a year or two and I figured that would be the end of Sadistic Intent. All we had in mind was to play backyard party gigs in the LA area, especially because at that time bands like Sadistic Intent were not allowed to play in … Read More

English black metal band WINTERFYLLETH have returned with their third album in as many years, but determined to step away from the shadows that have followed them since their formation, CHRIS NAUGHTON tells Louise Brown how British metal is back in black.

“The idea of a ‘threnody’ is that of a deathly ode, poem or lament to those who you have lost and is a way of honouring their memory,” explains Chris Naughton of Northern England black metal collective Winterfylleth. New album ‘Threnody Of Triumph’ is, well, a triumph, continuing their uncompromising attack on Britain’s less than stellar black metal output, frontman and guitarist Chris and his colleagues, Nick Wallwork (bass), Mark Wood (guitars) and Simon Lucas (drums), have been driven to unleash three full-lengths in as many years, all more accomplished and ambitious than the last. Gaining critical acclaim, front cover status and live bookings galore (as well as the odd left-wing bashing, more on that later) Winterfylleth are a beacon of black metal Britannia.

“The album is based around the idea of how our forebears viewed spirituality in terms of how the soul and the body were linked and how the transitions through death worked,” Chris continues, explaining the themes … Read More

Doro’s got a contender for most famous bum in metal. Recently the social networks have been in awe of the designs (and derriere) of Canadian seamstress Sharon Ehman and her label Toxic Vision. Inspired by King Diamond, Venom, Bathory, Iron Maiden and Saxon we had to track her down and talk to her about her love of denim and leather.

Hi Sharon, when did you begin to start tinkering with your own designs and why? “Everyone has the choice to create their own world or live in someone else’s. There was never a specific moment when I sat down and articulated what I was going to do for the rest of my life, it just happened naturally. At 17 years old, I knew I had a hunger to create something of my own. Toxic Vision is the world I have created for myself. I think having the courage to break the mould is a very powerful tool that will inspire others to live their lives for themselves. Many people fear the cauldron, they dip their fingers into it and back away from the heat. I believe you should fully submerge yourself and hold your breath to the very end.”

What is it that … Read More

“Rule them all/feel the grip of an iron hand/take command Rule them/to make it last and to remain/never let confusion reign” ‘Iron Hand’ from ‘The Hunt’

Earlier this year the steely Swedes in Grand Magus unleashed a sixth dose of heavy metal fury on new label Nuclear Blast. ‘The Hunt’ was a triumphant antidote to the musical ennui dominating the release schedules and put them out there as firm contenders on many an end-of-year list, including ours. A dash of old Europe, Saxon, Bathory, even WASP, ‘The Hunt’ became the soundtrack to the fertilisation of Iron Fist, its lyrics of courage, self-preservation and determination giving us the drive to get this magazine off the ground, so it made sense to check in with the Grand Magus himself, JB Christofferson, to thank him.

“Most of our albums and songs and lyrics are about power in some sense; trying or searching for the power within to make yourself stronger and overcome strife and struggle,” he told us, on his way back from his own personal daily grind, travelling home from work on a commuter ferry across his hometown of Stockholm. “That’s also something that I want to project with our music, that I want the listener … Read More

Erik Danielsson is tired. Very tired. And he sounds it, stating that after spending the last twenty four months completing the ‘Lawless Darkness’ cycle, he could do nothing but sleep for a year. Having just come off stage at Bloodstock, where they played as the sun set, his band Watain literally plunging the crowd into darkness, their ‘Lawless…’ period is now over. The next day, the festival site is buzzing with tales that grow more and more preposterous. Did they get arrested? Did they get thrown out of their hotel? Did they beat up Dio’s Disciples? Did Mayhem beat them up? Did they go to bed sensibly at 1am? No one will ever know, because while they consistently close ranks when facing controversy the cult of Watain is now bigger than the band; bigger than the Erik, Pelle [guitars] and Håkan [drums], who formed the band in 1998. Bigger than Set, Alvaro and the crew who make up the live core of the band. Bigger than their fourth full-length, ‘Lawless Darkness’, which was released in June 2010. They’ve been on the cover of every single respected metal magazine and recently had the honour of gracing the front page of the UK’s … Read More

Ultimate rattlehead Dave Mustaine has been spending too much time starting a Holy War instead of writing songs likes it. Proving lately that there’s not much in the skull beneath the skin, Jim Martin reads him his last rites.

At the age of 14, Dave Mustaine was a strange kind of hero to me. Somewhere between and beyond the Medusa-like tangle of blonde locks and tassled leather of his image, the badass dystopia of Megadeth’s name, the eldritch shrieks and grunts of his voice and the speedfreak shred of their music lay an anti-establishment figure; an ornery freak with an axe to grind. Mustaine was an outsider and an underdog-ousted from the world’s most exciting metal band and possessed of such a malicious fury in plotting his revenge that the febrile clangour of his music was hammered into a scary overdrive. Moreover, as a listen to the sarcastic croak of ‘Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying’s title track would seemingly testify, he seemed unwilling to play by anyone’s rules, forging his own narky path and god help all that crossed him on the way.

It was obvious right from the outset that Dave had something of a predisposition to act like a prannet in … Read More

Heavy metal’s collective canon boasts a sizeable handful of bands whose influence and importance are indisputable; names like Iron Maiden, Death, Motörhead, Venom, Bathory and Black Sabbath loom larger than life (or death) and always will. However, few of metal’s legendary figures cut quite as stark and ugly a figure as these masters of primitive death; a band that requires no introduction, took no prisoners, brought forth the primal roots of black metal from the fetid bowels of Brazil and spread their poison across the globe: Sarcó fuckin’ Fago. To say that it’s an honour to have been granted a rare interview with founding member Wagner Antichrist is putting it lightly.

“The honour is mine,” he counters. “I think it’s strange because I don’t believe in the idolatry of men. But I do believe in the idolatry of ideas. Men fail, but ideas persist. I think we’ve done our bit to change the history of misery and alienation of our youth in relation to religion and politics, but there’s still a lot to be done.

“However, I don’t see many bands thinking about that nowadays,” Wagner complains. “Regarding the worship of Sarcófago, I’m not surprised at all because people who are into … Read More

Disgrace’s ‘Debts Of God’ EP, Convulse’s ‘World Without God’, Funebre’s ‘Children Of The Scorn’ and Demigod’s ‘Slumber Of Sullen Eyes’, without knowing it, were albums that shaped the sound of what would later become tagged as the ultimate Finnish death metal sound. Alas this early-’90s scene’s most important players were already rotting six feet under, after only one demo and an EP. Abhorrence‘s short-lived tenure survived the years because over the course of only 13 minutes, their sole self-titled 7” laid down the foundations upon which not only the highly-successful Amorphis was built but a large portion of the Finn-death movement as well.

Over the years, rumours of an official re-release of the band’s scarce recordings were floating around while, in the meantime, their former vocalist Jukka Kolehmainen set to open an official memorial website where one could download for free their two official recordings to counterfeit bootleggers. That is until May this year, when Svart Records finally released their officially-sanctioned 16 track (21 if you fell for the vinyl version) discography ‘Completely Vulgar’, compiling both their EP and demo plus live and rehearsal odds ‘n’ sods. Thus, Jukka Kolehmainen agreed to take us back to those sweet teenagers years when … Read More

It may be a common thing in jazz or blues circles but there’s no precedent for it in heavy metal. We’re talking about a 56 year old musician putting out his debut LP, more than four decades after he first picked up an instrument. Bedemon, which initially started as a Pentagram offshoot in 1973, finally release their first proper album ‘Symphony Of Shadows’ this year and it means much, much more to drummer Geof O’Keefe than simply making his childhood dreams come true. It’s the culmination of ten years of hard work and grief, his way of staying true to a promise he made to a dear friend whose only passions in life were horror movies and playing guitar. Alas, Bedemon’s founder and one-time Pentagram guitarist Randy Palmer died in tragic car accident on August 8, 2002, four months after he, Geof and bass player Mike Matthews recorded the basic tracks of what would become, a decade later, ‘Symphony of Shadows’. Iron Fist talked to Geof about the sadness and the story behind one of metal’s forgotten bands.

Last time we spoke, it was in 2002, to promote Pentagram’s ‘First Daze Here’ compilation. Back then, you revealed that Pentagram’s alter-ego Bedemon … Read More