As the celebrated Geordie folk song ‘The Lambton Worm’ kicks off; “Whisht! lads, haad yor gobs, I’ll tell ye aal an aaful story”.

Or for those of us who don’t speak Geordie, the awful story we’re asking you to hold your mouths for concerns an early-‘80s period in which the North-East was an epicentre for a shockwave of pulse-racing Heavy Metal whose influence can still be felt in extremis some thirty-five years on. Whereas The Lambton Worm was a mythical beast that rose to terrorise the North-East, a certain strain of terror was spawned in just such territory by three Tyne & Wear lads ripping apart the metal rulebook in search of shocks, horror and glory galore. This band, of course, was VENOM, and in this issue Iron Fist talk to Cronos on a four-decade mission of life as a blasphemous iconoclast and full-throttle Black Metal bezerker.

What’s more, we travel back in time to the dawn of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal to chart the roots of NEAT RECORDS, harking back to an era in which the upstairs of a bingo hall in Wallsend was the launchpad for a strain of supercharged audial aggro that would inspire a generation. … Read More

1984, the year of miner’s strikes and Mitsui Miike, the AIDS virus and Band Aid, Richard Ramirez and crack cocaine; not quite the dystopia Orwell predicted (although Mark Zuckerberg was born!) but close. However, amidst the civil unrest, famine and fear, heavy metal thrived, birthing the likes of Nuclear Assault, Razor, Candlemass and Death. This landmark year offered up milestone albums from Judas Priest, Metallica and Scorpions, the return of Deep Purple, debuts from Saint Vitus, Trouble and Running Wild, EPs from Sodom, Slayer and Celtic Frost, AC/DC headlined Monsters Of Rock, Iron Maiden went behind the Iron curtain and Venom made a concept album. All in all, it was a pretty good year, as proved many times in the past 12 months when we’ve published articles celebrating the 30th birthdays of some of our most-played record, from Exciter’s ‘Violence & Force’ to Twisted Sister’s ‘Stay Hungry’. So, in December, when other magazines were busy making their best of 2014 lists, we were too busy listening to ‘Don’t Break The Oath’ and ‘Apocalyptic Raids’. That’s not to say 2014 didn’t have its fair share of Ecstacy & Danger, there was Ample Destruction from At The Gates, Triptykon and Orange Goblin, … Read More

Let’s let Oslo’s grind youngers Gouge have the first words. “We are Gouge, we play music. We listened to Repulsion a lot and formed Gouge because we felt we had to. So Repulsion is a big influence and Dr Shrinker, Autopsy, Nihilist and the Funeral demo.” Gouge arrived on the scene recently with a cast-iron demo that is arguably one of the best ‘grind’ debuts released since the old days. Herman plays drums and Christoffer plays guitars and sings. Their first gig was actually on the mid-September day in 2012 that Iron Fist and Gouge had a chat. The two core members employed Jonas Bye of Mabuse for bass duties for the live show and they don’t plan to play many gigs but a full length album is halfway finished and likely to see the light of day in 2013. Until then they, “will just keep on working, drinking beer and playing music.” They’re a great example of the new generation bringing unshakable energy into the extreme music scene. They naturally employ a fresh approach, which is entirely unprejudiced by modern versions of our music. They only know the greats and use a similar sound to the classics to play new … Read More