Iron Fist Magazine

BIG TEASER: STREAM ‘MERCILESS HAMMER’ FROM OCCVLTA’S BRAND NEW ALBUM ‘NIGHT WITHOUT END’

Although this horde of black metal brothers have existed as a unit for 13 years, OCCVLTA have two short recordings to their name, the 2010 ‘We Command The Wolves’ demo and a 2012 split 7” with the UK snarlers Salute. Having existed mostly as a live unit, with legendarily primal, in-your-face appearances at Live Evil, Muskelrock and Metal Magic, the time has finally come for Occvlta’s first full-length to surface from the depths of the German underground. Iron Fist have been given an exclusive stream of ‘Merciless Hammer’ so we caught up with vocalist Hord to find out more about the song and upcoming album ‘Night Without End’…

“‘Merciless Hammer’ was our first attempt at writing a d-beat song. Most of the album comes in at a much slower pace. None of us were ever into d-beat punk bands but we are all big Motörhead fans, so when Torm [drums, brother of Hord] came up with the main riff we decided to write a whole song in that punk style. It just felt right. It gave some sort of primal satisfaction. I had the title in my head for a while and wanted it to be primitive and brutal. Occvlta is evil … Read More

MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW: “THERE IS NO JAMMING WHEN YOU RECORD BY YOURSELF, IT’S CALLED FULL ON MASTURBATION”

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

BIG TEASER: JOHN HOYLES (ex-WITCHCRAFT) SETS OFF SIRENS ON NEW SOLO ALBUM

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

ROCK GODDESS INTERVIEW: “WE WERE LIVING THE DREAM”

A love for hard rock and heavy metal convinced two school friends, and the singer’s younger sister, aged just nine at the time, to form a band. That band would go on to win them support slots with the likes of Iron Maiden, front covers of Kerrang! and record deals with major labels. And now they’re back! GREG MOFFIT meets ROCK GODDESS and discovers that LOVE LINGERS STILL

Formed in Wandsworth, south London in 1977, Rock Goddess were one of the few all-girl rock bands of their era. The original line-up of sisters Jody (guitar/vocals) and Julie Turner (drums) alongside bassist and school friend Tracey Lamb released just two albums at the height of their fame, but they remain one of the most memorable acts from the NWOBHM, and not just as members of the fairer sex. In ’77, Jody and Tracey were a mere thirteen – that’s one three – years old, while Julie was – wait for it – just nine. They may have still been several years away from gigging or recording, but their sheer fresh-faced innocence places them none too far from the likes of The Jackson Five in terms of diaper-to-stage career curves.

Casual observers might baulk … Read More

GIRLSCHOOL INTERVIEW: “IN THE OLD DAYS WE’D BE COMPLETELY OFF OUR HEADS”

Forming in 1975 as Painted Lady, GIRLSCHOOL have been together for 40 years and are showing no signs of slowing down. With nothing to lose, KIM MCAULIFFE and ENID WILLIAMS are back in the studio and back to school. KEVIN STEWART-PANKO is asked to see teacher after class

There’s a girl, her name’s Louise and she runs things around here. On any old, average day, she’s charming, delightful and lights up the room with her smile. But today, the ribbons in her hair are fluttering more than usual, her grin is wider than wide and the rainbows she usually shits are blindingly bright. All that because we’ve managed to get the almighty Girl-Fucking-School in Iron Fist and if the emails throughout our exchange on the matter are any indication, to say she’s honoured, happy and tickled to have one of her all-time faves in these pages is like saying Lemmy’s gone a few rounds with a bottle of whiskey.

Guitarist/vocalist Kim McAuliffe and bassist/vocalist Dinah ‘Enid’ Williams originally came together in 1975 under the moniker Painted Lady after growing up alongside one another on the mean streets of Wandsworth while staring down the inhospitable climate that greeted the idea of the “fairer … Read More

MORBID SAINT INTERVIEW: “WE WERE A BUNCH OF KIDS HAVING FUN”

…MORBID SAINT are back and Century Media have dusted off their arsenal of thrash classics for all you vinyl fiends. With debut album ‘SPECTRUM OF DEATH’ on wax again and a deluxe CD reissue that includes unreleased demos and the remastered version of lost album ‘DESTRUCTION SYSTEM’, GUY STRACHAN tracked down guitarist JAY VISSER to find out how it feels to be Morbid again…

“It truly is incredible that after all these years this band is where it is. We never played or wrote these songs with the intent that 25 plus years later we’d still be playing them, talking about them, or performing them live all over the world. We were just a bunch of kids hanging out that sucked at playing our instruments, without any direction or too much thought about what we were doing other than we were having a lot of fun doing it.”

Despite their stated lack of knowledge about what they were doing, Morbid Saint would go on to become one of the thrash underground’s best-kept secrets for many years after their initial tenure. Formed in the small town of Sheboyhan, Wisconsin in November 1984, the quartet of guitarists Jay Visser and Jim Fergades, drummer Lee … Read More

WINDS OF GENOCIDE INTERVIEW: “EXPECT 35 MINUTES OF PURE FUCKING APOKALYPTIC AURAL ARMAGEDDON”

A lot of metal bands have an unconventional tale of how they began, but it’s fairly certain that Durham’s Winds of Genocide are the only group that can boast it being put into motion by a bang on a window. “We officially formed in early 2006, as a two-piece, but it took us until 2009 to find a drummer and begin actively rehearsing,” vocalist Kat Shevil tells us. “A Swedish guy called Linus, studying at the university here, drunkenly walked past my flat one night and saw the Skitsystem sticker on my bedroom window. He banged on my living room window and we ended up going to the local pub for a pint. We soon realised that we had not just a mutual love for crust punk but also for death and black metal; about four months later we were writing our first songs with him on drums!”

Linus has since departed the band, replaced by Ian Hunter and, in the last nine years, the four-piece have put out a demo and an EP, as well as two splits with Abigail and Firstblood, Diskelmä and Satellite. About to release their debut album ‘Usurping The Throne Of Disease’, Kat and co’s self-proclaimed … Read More

INTO BATTLE: IRON REAGAN

Municipal Waste may have crowned themselves as the kings of party, with a drunken fan-base stumbling behind them but Tony Foresta, like his other Waste bandmates, shows a different side with Iron Reagan. Despite playing “house shows and dive bars” for the last couple of years, the crossover project consisting of Rob Skotis (Hellbear), Mark Bronzino (Mammoth Grinder, ANS) and Ryan Parrish (ex-Darkest Hour) have just been added to the Relapse roster allowing their politically-fuelled punk to reach the masses. “For me it’s cool because you can’t really go into that territory lyrically with Municipal Waste,” Tony explains when discussing the very obvious political themes. “Nobody wants to hear a band that sings about drinking the entire time try to wax philosophical about women’s rights in Virginia!”

With their debut album ‘Worse Than Dead’ released last year, Iron Reagan are already following it up with a 13 song EP coming soon and although it only lasts an insane seven minutes, there’s an evolution to be heard. “I think with the addition of Mark and Rob to the band it definitely has a darker sound, as well as being heavier. It’s still fast as shit though. Hardcore punk metal, man.”

As well as … Read More

INTO BATTLE: ZEX

Classic heavy-metal! Punk rock! Women yielding swords! The recipe worked so perfectly with Iron Dogs so why shouldn’t it with Ottawa’s Zex? Especially since they have in common multi-instrumentalist and former Germ Attak and Cauchemar live member Jo Capitalicide… While Iron Dogs are “not doing much at the moment”, with no warning this quartet have just unleashed their debut EP ‘Savage City’ on Electric Assault, two tracks of sing-alongs and fist-banging that conjures the late ’70s spirit of both the nascent NWOBHM and glam-punk scenes, performed by a half-female, half-male line-up. “Zex was a long time in the making,” unveils Jo. “But the concept lurked in my mind for a long time before finally materialising. With the demise of Germ Attak in 2011, I ended up with loads of unused ideas that I started working on about a year later. Gretchen was to be our singer and Rick Morin, who played bass for Germ Attak on our final tour, was to be our lead guitarist but sadly, as we had no rhythm section at the time, he soon left. We had to wait until people moved to Ottawa to get a full line-up and since last November, we‘ve been rehearsing … Read More

INTO BATTLE: PASADENA NAPALM DIVISION

Kurt Brecht is man whose lungs have earned him his name firmly carved into the walls of crossover thrash history and as 2012 heralded DRI’s milestone 30th birthday, the band, fronted by Brecht toured the globe in celebration. However, as the band have decided against recording any new music the dirty rotten singer has gotten himself embroiled in a side project, Pasadena Napalm Division. Taking their name from their Texan hometown and not the Californian suburb, PND were founded back in 2008 when local Houston death thrashers Dead Horse split and were looking to form a new band. Guitarists Greg Martin, Scott Sevall and drummer Ronnie Guyote set about recruiting bassist Bubba Dennis who’d served time in Texan/SF hardcore punks Verbal Abuse and when they heard Kurt was back in Houston on downtime while DRI guitarist Spike recovered from cancer surgery he was the obvious guy to get on board.

Brecht’s spoke of his choice to join PND saying; “I listened to the songs they had and realised that it wouldn’t be too hard to write some lyrics for them. The guys in the band all seemed really nice too. I’d never jammed with anyone outside of DRI before, except … Read More

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