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

Bloodstock Open Air have just added thrash titans Megadeth to their 2017 festival line-up.

Mainman Dave Mustaine says: “We kick off 2017 by announcing we’ll be headlining Sunday night at Bloodstock, one of my favourite, purely metal, British festivals!  Megadeth had a blast last time and I can’t wait to bring the ‘Dystopia’ World Tour to Bloodstock this Summer.  See ya at Catton Park in August!”

Already announced for 2017 are Friday’s headliners Blind Guardian, Testament, Obituary, Possessed, Annihilator, Municipal Waste and Hell.

Bloodstock will take place at Catton Park, Derbyshire on 10-13 August 2017.  Standard weekend camping tix are on sale at £139 (plus booking fee), plus limited VIP packages/upgrades and car parking tickets (at a cheaper price than ‘on the day’ purchase) from their website.

Thrash metal revivalists Havok are thrilled to announce the details of their upcoming new studio album, ‘Conformicide’. The Denver-based group will unleash their fourth full-length record on March 10 via Century Media.

‘Conformicide’ is the follow up to the band’s 2013 effort, ‘Unnatural Selection’. Discussing what fans can expect from the new record, David Sanchez (lead vocals, rhythm guitar) comments: “‘Conformicide’ is our most dynamic, heavy, thoughtful, musical, and sonically-crushing album so far. All four members feel that this is the best Havok album to date. There are a lot of truth bombs being dropped on this record and the music absolutely rips!”

Building on Sanchez’s comments, Reece Scruggs (lead guitar) adds: “This album swings for the fences in every way. Sonically stunning, technically proficient and lyrically pissed, we’ve never been represented at our best until this moment in time. We cannot wait for the world to react to ‘Conformicide’.”

Havok will also return to the road in 2017 with extensive touring schedules in both North America and Europe. Expressing the band’s level of enthusiasm to bring their fans an even heavier and more energized live show than ever before, Sanchez states: “We can’t wait to perform some new music live and present … Read More

On tour in the UK right now, Chicago thrashers OOZING WOUND like to take their metal seriously, but it still oozes fun

“This music is fun and we don’t try to over think it,” states Zack Weil, one third of Chicago’s raddest, anti-bullshit thrash band Oozing Wound. “Most bands don’t understand how cheesy they are, but we do understand how cheesy we are on a base level. You’ve got to be a little Diamond Dave, you can’t be all Glenn Danzig all the time. I mean, we’re not firemen, we’re not saving people’s lives! Sure we are serious about rocking, but why should we posture with arms folded and furrowed brows? You’ve got to keep it in perspective that being in a band is cool! It sure keeps us sane, at least. Outside of the band, everything is serious and a drag. So why not have a good time with music?  That’s why we embrace weird humour and puns in our song titles so much” he explains. 

A perfect example of this is ‘You Owe Me, Iommi’ – which is the title they gave to their “slow Black Sabbath rip off song on the new album ‘Whatever Forever’.” Couple this clever word play with a … Read More

It may seem like aeons since our last issue but we’re back and raring to go and continue our indulgence in all things denim, leather and everything in between! Heavy metal will never die! Patience is a virtue and we hope you’ll be rewarded with the enjoyment everything in these 100 pages will bring.

The Queen of metal, Doro graces our cover to celebrate her 30th anniversary in service. And as well as our chat with Ms Pesch, this issue features some of the most revered bands including the ultimate power trio Budgie, the UK’s longest serving thrash band Onslaught, a retrospective look at one of Germany’s best metal labels, Noise Records and a welcome return to Aussie underdog Hobbs Angel Of Death. Staying Down Under, we talk to the notorious Destroyer 666 about how wildfire is needed to create a new underground and Annick Giroux heads beneath the Southern Cross in her regular World Downfall column. We also launch a brand new regular section, Pictured Life, that casts a well -deserved spotlight on some of the great cover art artists from the world of heavy metal, kicking off with a close look at the latest coffee table book featuring art from Timo … Read More

Spitting black fire since 2000, Vornth have followed their self-titled 2013 debut with a second album of Venom-ous filth. ‘Black Pyres’ is out today as a Samhain offering, with lashings of Teutonic thrash fury, blackened ire and traditional heavy metal speed. Hailing from Sweden, the band have returned to the Iron Tyrant family – home of Profanal, Mortuary Drape and Culte Des Ghoules – and feature Janne Rimmerfors on battery, Ewil Johansson on bass and Erik Blackflexer on guitars. 

Citing “our own Electric Blood” as their only influence (despite hearing Kreator, Destruction, Mercyful Fate and even early Candlemass proudly in their sound) they say of today’s heavy metal scene that “Rock ‘n’ roll should be strong and alive. Metal should be more strong and more alive.”

We couldn’t agree more. “We chose Iron Tyrant and they chose us,” Erik continues of working with such an eminent underground heavy metal stable. “It’s a brotherhood if you like. You always see who and which bands are going strong when times get rough; that is the real difference between illusion and the definitive. We feel part of a community of hard working musicians and artists that fight with integrity no matter what. We are Vornth which we have proven a long time … Read More

When we came up with the idea of doing a Mix Tape idea for the Iron Fist website there were three people we knew we needed to ask. Jason Decay and Ian Chains from Cauldron were a given, at least one of them were bound to put Bleak House on there, and the other was Ryan Waste. Now the latter has a brand new album out for his snotty speed metal punks BAT, we knew the time was right to hit him up. Ryan has spent the summer driving a taxi (seriously, read the latest Livin’ Fast column in Iron Fist #17) and on the tarmac in Europe with his thrash comrades Municipal Waste so we know his ear is gonna be trained to the right songs for the right road so we asked him to gather together some of the songs that inspired BAT’s latest album, ‘Wings Of Chains‘. It was through MW that we first met Ryan and got to know just how vast, and how perfect for the party, his music taste is. Buckle up and hit play!

SIDE A:

SLANDER ‘Lonely Nights’ Let’s set the mood here. I feed off the sound of desperation in music, so what better way to … Read More

From being one of the most hated early thrash bands to one of the most cult, Italy’s BULLDOZER forged their own path throughout the ‘80s, burning the rule books along the way. From being signed to Roadrunner, almost collaborating with King Diamond and inspiring The Prodigy. GUY STRACHAN relives those days of wrath with frontman AC WILD

Before the release of ‘Reign In Blood’, thrash metal was generally treated as a bad joke by much of the mainstream media. Bathory, Voivod, Hellhammer, Sodom and even Slayer themselves received at least one vicious slaughtering from at least one major metal magazine during their tentative years, but there was one band who, perhaps more than any other, was on the receiving end of continual, indescribably harsh criticism (such as Kerrang!’s “the worst band ever”) that commenced with their debut 7″ and taking until the band’s fourth LP before they finally received some grudging respect outside of their fan base. That band was Italy’s Bulldozer who, after calling it quits as the ‘80s ended, surprisingly picked up the baton again in 2009 with the release of ‘Unexpected Fate’. “We had several requests from fans but Andy [Panigada, guitars] and I were conscious that we could … Read More

Legendary German thrashers Exumer (who formed in 1985) have returned to the scene with their fourth album ‘The Raging Tides’ (their second since reforming in 2008). It’s a fierce slab of energetic Teutonic thrash metal that showcases a band clearly firing on all cylinders, sounding rejuvenated with new blood in the ranks and burning bright with musical fire. Original vocalist Mem Von Stein gave Kat Gillham an insight into the new album and the recent events in the Exumer camp…

Your new record ‘The Raging Tides’ has just been released, are you satisfied with how it turned out? Mem: It’s definitely a step up from our last album ‘Fire And Damnation’ in terms of how it’s a lot more direct, I think. We tightened the edges in many ways and I think it just pops a lot more. It just has a bigger punch than ‘Fire And Damnation’, we did like the sound of that album but I think this is a step forward in regards to bringing the mix upfront and really making sure that the guitars and drums are really punching you in the face so to speak, so yeah we were really happy with how it turned out overall. … Read More

SINDROME… the lost thrash band of Illinois… who despite featuring members of Terminal Death, Death Strike, Master and Devastation hit brick wall after brick wall in their quest for thrash metal mania. Now unlocked from the crypt these underdogs of the first wave thrash movement have a second chance…

It seems hard to believe in this day and age of bands and labels apparently releasing every last recording known to mankind, where even the most rudimentary efforts get pressed up onto limited, multiple-versioned formats, that there was a time when putting out a proper record often (but not always) meant paying your dues in the form of demo recordings, gigging and building up a fan base. The metal world has thrown up a long list of groups whose demo and live recordings have gone on to be held up in high esteem, but also served as the only documents of that band’s existence.

One such band, revered from the release of their debut demo in 1987 to this very day, to the point that Century Media has pulled together a compilation of the band’s two demo recordings is Sindrome. Hailing from Chicago, Illinois, the band members already had a pedigree prior to … Read More