The notorious Cleveland-based Midnight recently unleashed another punked-up metal massacre with the ‘Shox Of Violence’ EP via Hells Headbangers. It features four new songs and acts as a stop gap between the last album ‘No Mercy For Mayhem’ (released in 2014) and the upcoming new full-length. There is a compilation with the same title, which has also recently just come out, featuring the new EP plus a veritable feast of bonus cover songs, demo tracks and live recordings, including a couple of Venom covers, a host of covers by punk bands such as The Spits and Pagans, as well as Girlschool, Quiet Riot amongst others, all of which have been given the dirty, unholy and rotten Midnight treatment. We caught up with mainman/guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Athenar to find out more about the EP, compilation and the current activities of the band.

You have a new EP and compilation ‘Shox Of Violence’, can you elaborate on what this new release contains and what the readers can expect in comparison to the last full-length? Athenar: It’s a four song EP of tunes to blast out of your stereo! Please don’t expect much, keep your expectations in life low; it’s much easier that way. I don’t wanna … Read More

Rämlord from Finland deliver a very eclectic mix of styles with their recently released EP ‘We Are The Night’. Featuring veterans of the Finnish metal scene including Jarno Anttila, former guitarist in black metal pioneers Impaled Nazarene and underground black/death cultists Belial (the latter being no strangers to mixing diverse influences), that bravery comes across strongly in the music of his latest band. Combining a memorable mix of deathrock, ’80s heavy metal, Amorphis style folk, hard rock and black metal, the result is a versatile recording, which transcends any basic genre boundaries. Jarno answered our questions about the EP and their latest 7″.

Hi Jarno please give us a brief history of the band… what instigated the initial idea to form Rämlord? “After I left Impaled Nazarene I started to warm-up an idea about a old school metal band. I have been listening to that stuff since I was kid, but never really played in a heavy metal/hard rock band. I really wanted to finally play the music I love the most and Rämlord was born out of that idea. I joined forces with my old partner-in-crime, drummer Janne Mannonen, with whom I played in a rock band in late-’90s. After that I … Read More

Formed in 2014, from a mutual appreciation of NWOBHM and ’80s heavy metal, Lucifer’s Chalice is comprised of Iron Fist’s very own KShevil (also of Winds Of Genocide and Uncoffined) on drums, CW on rhythm guitar and vocals, SRM on lead guitar and DH on bass. Following a couple of live shows, the band are now ready to release debut album ‘The Pact’ via Bandcamp, which was recorded in July 2016. KShevil describes it as “35 minutes of heavy metal darkness”.

Speaking of the band’s sound, she tells us “From the day the idea for the band was conceived, it was to pay homage to NWOBHM and old US heavy metal circa 1979 – 1984, and write and play songs in the vein of Angel Witch, early Iron Maiden, Witchfinder General, early Judas Priest, early Omen, early Metallica (’82-’84 period), Diamond Head and early Mercyful Fate. Nothing more, nothing less; just create some good old ’80s sounding heavy metal with dark and sinister lyrics. So we definitely had a very specific sound in mind from the start.”

Despite the band’s collective love of all things ’80s, as individuals, they all come from completely different backgrounds with an eclectic mix of tastes. KShevil and … Read More

In this series of new bands and artists were currently labouring over, it doesn’t take a genius to work out where the new solo album by John Hoyles sits on the anticipation scale. Okay, granted he’s not new (neither is Danko Jones and he featured earlier this week), but this is a new direction for the man behind Witchcraft and Spiders.

London born and bred, the young tyke moved to Sweden in his formative years and pretty much kickstarted the retro doom revival in 2000 with the incredible Witchcraft. After jumping the ‘craft he formed the glam-tastic Spiders and again we were floored.

Now its time for an eponymous trip, again with his pal Axel Sjöberg from the recently deceased Graveyard along for the ride. With a ’70s proto punk, garage rock vibe, John cites The Damned, Dead Boys, Pink Fairies and Stiff Records as inspiration on this latest project. “The reason I made my own record was that I wanted to try and play and produce everything myself apart from the drums,” he tells Iron Fist. “I have Ricard Harryson from Spiders and Axel helping me out there.

I recorded the solo record in between Spiders albums, it was a chance to … Read More

Last week, excited by the turning of the clock from one year to the next (and finally rid of our January hangovers) we previewed a brand new song from Finland’s Hard Action.

Promising that we would keep up the pace with a steady onslaught of new bands keeping us on our toes for 2017, we now present you Hard Action’s fellow countrymen, IRON MAGAZINE.

Now it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why a band with a name like Iron Magazine might prick our ears. But beyond the slightly gushing adoration of a name not unlike our own, we would’ve been slathering over this regardless being that it features Mr Jussi Lehtisalo, the mastermind behind Ektro Records and also Aktor, a band that saw Jussi team up with master of modern metal Professor Chris Black to give us a wildly underrated, AOR-tinged, slightly bonkers, time-travelling heavy metal dream back in 2013.

Equally bonkers, nostalgic and oh so mighty, the brand new ‘Queen Of Hell’ EP is out March 17 via Ektro and features the one-and-only Danko and John Calabrese from Danko Jones along with Jussi and his Circle/Falcon bandmate, Tomi Leppänen.

This is sunglasses-at-night rock, leather jacket sleeves rolled up and lasers set … Read More

Among the countless new metal bands, there are few of them that build their reputation on true passion and great music. LUNAR SHADOW from Germany have readied their first album ‘Far From Light’ and be sure that their regressive metal is more inspired than most bands out there, both new and old. Lead guitarist Max ‘Savage’ Birbaum tells Andreas Andreou about how he raises his Iron Fist against the modern mediocrity.

First of all, let me tell you that the improvmement from your debut EP ‚ ‘Triumphator’ (2015) is astonishing. The EP was killer and was welcomed in the underground metal scene, but your debut full-length sounds as close to the “real” thing as we’ll get in 2017. Give us a brief heads up on the making of the album, the recording and partnering up with Cruz Del Sur for the release. Max: Thank you. The improvement you spoke about was, on one hand, the logical result of just taking our time. ‘Triumphator’ was recorded in three or four single sessions, often in a hurry, and our singer [A.Vornam] was relatively new to the band back then too. This time we took our time to record everything properly, all the small details, vocal harmonies and drum rolls. Only … Read More

By the grace of god, Iron Fist #19 has head off to the printers, and while it’s been a bit supershitty to the max to get this magazine into some degree of high visibility, we managed to finish off 100 pages full of the most grande rock, with the usual mix of new bands who will refute the claim that rock ‘n’ roll is dead, and the bands who have been around for years payin’ the dues. Now, we don’t want to be giving any clues as to who’s on the cover but we’ve been giving some hard stereo time to the type of band of late who know that you can’t pull from one limiting genre pool to create musical genius.

If you’re inspired by the three ring rock n roll circus of the ‘head, missed the last bus home like Lynott, live your life on Permanent Vacation, chill out to a bit of jazz, cool down with the blues, rev it up with some sleaze, are born to be wild and walk on the wild side, then you belong in our pages and over the next few days we will be highlighting some of the bands we think will take … Read More

In a statement echoing Iron Fist’s own sadness and anger toward horrific orders passed by the USA’s newest president in his first week of office, online streaming community Bandcamp have announced that all proceeds from music sold on Friday, February 3 will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union, who are “working tirelessly to combat these discriminatory and unconstitutional actions”.

Bandcamp founder Ethan Diamond’s letter called out President Trump for his actions, writing, “Last week’s Executive Order barring immigrants and refugees from seven Middle Eastern countries from entering the United States is not simply immoral, it violates the very spirit and foundation of America.”

With its tagline of “Discover new music and the artists who make it”, Bandcamp has become Iron Fist’s go-to source for so many of the bands you read about in our pages, so if you want to support them this Friday (and we urge you do) here a few bands we recommend.

THE ORDER OF THE SOLAR TEMPLE (CANADA) Soundtracking a new era of Satanic Panic, Matt Emery told us in Iron Fist #16 that “All I can say is that I wear my influences on my sleeve. It’s both a blessing and a curse, there’s a lot of ‘70s … Read More

We’ve got to admit something. We slept on Power Trip. We didn’t cover them with their debut album ‘Manifest Decimation’ back in 2013. We thought they were a hardcore band. They are a hardcore band, in ethics, culture and history, but they’re a hardcore band that plays furious thrash a la Sacrilege, Nuclear Assault and early Megadeth. We can feel Dan Lilker tutting at us from afar.

Frontman Riley Gale says he doesn’t mind. He understands. “You look at classic albums like ‘Behind The Realms Of Madness’ by Sacrilege or ‘Best Wishes’ or ‘Age Of Quarrel’ by Cro-Mags, that’s the apex of what I like about aggressive music and the band feels that way too, but we’re very much trying to be ourselves,” he says trying to make us feel good about ourselves, but still making us still feel like idiots for sleeping on such a vital new voice in thrash metal. “Any band wants to have their own identity but our band is almost based on not having an identity so to speak. It’s an interesting place for us to be in ‘cos as we’ve got bigger, people have asked, ‘Well, what are you about? What’s your image?’ and well … Read More

DOWNWARD FACING DOOM: THE ART OF DOOM YOGA

“Meditation is the practice of death” – not a million miles from doom metal then. But seriously what’s the link between doom metal and yoga? Can the two ever happily co-exist? It’s hard to imagine the likes of spindly old Bobby Liebling wrapping his legs behind his head or aligning his chakras, but hey, what do I know? I’m about to find out…

My first encounter with the concept of mixing metal music with yoga came in the heydays of Tumblr, when I saw a post floating around about combining black metal and yoga practice. My initial reaction was to scoff at the notion and had no time for what I considered to be “hippy dippy bullshit”. A few years and a mental breakdown later, I have a different perspective on these things – I regularly practice mindful meditation, to combat my natural dalliance with stress – my calmer mind is a much more open one.

So, when I was offered the chance to partake in a doom metal yoga class, I jumped at the chance, but it wasn’t without apprehension. I have all the flexibility of cheap pine furniture and my idea of a … Read More