The musical spider’s web cast by Black Sabbath 46 years ago has mutated in many directions, and here at Iron Fist we often forget the crawling, deadly, filthy tentacles that became droning, sludgy doom metal. Germany’s Black Shape Of Nexus are here to remind us of the dread and unease that this genre permeates with a cover of Fist favourites, Hellhammer.

From their 1983 demo ‘Triumph Of Death’, this eponymous song reeks of decay and BSON have dragged it even further into the grave.

Featured on their new album, out on March 18 through Exile On Mainstream Records, ‘Carrier’ stinks like hell, as this song dictates. Drenching their songs in atmosphere, aggression and/or even speed, it is described as “a tour de force that will exhaust all but the completely deaf”.

The band said of this cover version: “Chris from Fucking Kill Records asked us if we would be willing to cover ‘Triumph Of Death’ for his ‘A Fucking Tribute To Hellhammer’ sampler 12”. The result was in our opinion so good, that it also deserved to be released on ‘Carrier’. ‘ToD’ (what a perfect abbreviation!) is a typical BSON track, beginning well-structured and ending up in full deconstruction. Our approach to the … Read More

In this issue of Iron Fist we celebrate the legacies and careers of two bands responsible for the progression of extreme music as we know it; CELTIC FROST and MAYHEM. Both celebrate 30 years of existence this year and both are still dabbling in the dark arts; Tom G Warrior with TRIPTYKON and Mayhem with their new album ‘Esoteric Warfare’.

In our cover story, Thomas Gabriel Fischer talks to Jim Martin about what drove him to create Hellhammer and the early Frost demos and how those same inspirations are channelled into his current work, while Kim Kelly talks to Necrobutcher and Attila Csihar about the formation, and dogged survival, of one of the most important bands still playing and creating heavy metal music today.

Talking of dogged survival, we also talk to maidens of metal, DORO and Ann Boleyn of HELLION about how they started their respective bands, Warlock and Hellion, and how nothing will get in their way as they continue to make music three decades after they begun. Elsewhere in the magazine we talk to AT THE GATES about their forthcoming album and reveal details of new works by 40 WATT SUN, GEHENNAH, Gaz Jennings (ex-Cathedral) and Phil Swanson (ex-Hour … Read More

Pinpointing a certain sound to a geographical place has become almost impossible, mainly thanks to the internet and how it globally manipulates trends. So, it may be with some skepticism that people would meet WHIPSTRIKER, a Brazilian band. If someone told you that some of the most brutally honest metalpunk came from Rio, albeit tinged with the elixir of the metal gods, you’d probably tell them the next classic TNBM record would come from rural Ireland. However, living in Rio seems like living out a Discharge lyrics sheet, and Whipstriker mainman VICTOR took time out from his hectic recording schedule to talk about metal and life in Rio’s favelas. Historians can write what they like in their textbooks, but musicians (usually) tell the truth in their songs…                                                                                                                          

How did you get the name Whipstriker exactly? Victor Whipstriker: “I really don’t remember. I … Read More

Something wicked this way comes, billowing down from the decaying North on winds of plague…or of genocide, as the case may be. Visions of nuclear fallout and apocalyptic raids summon wrenching flashbacks for some, and provide lyrical fodder for others; Durham’s Winds Of Genocide have always fallen into the latter camp, but now, with death/doom project Uncoffined, two of its members have ventured further afield, beyond the outskirts of Chernobyl and down along the cemetery road.

 “The band formed officially in early 2011 after myself and Glynn [Alkohall, guitars] started jamming on doom riffs during breaks at Winds Of Genocide rehearsals, where I would jump behind the drumkit and we would start jamming on Vitus riffs,” Kat Shevil explains. “I personally have always loved the dark, evil, morbid vibe of a lot of the bands who blend such a mix of traditional doom and ancient death metal together, it has a certain atmosphere in it that other styles do not possess, plus the crushing heaviness of such music has always attracted me to it. We are definitely much more inspired by the old school doom metal stuff, old Black Sabbath etc, but there is some ancient death metal, death/doom, Hellhammer, old … Read More