They only ever made one album, but in those 18 short, furious blasts a whole new level of extremity was born. From Flint, Michigan’s punk scene and its creators warped and horror-addled brains grew ‘HORRIFIED’ and genocide paved the way for REPULSION. The stench still lingers today, as JIM YOUNG discovered in Issue Three.

The rancid tale of Repulsion is not an unfamiliar one. But unlike many bands that faded away, were plagued by obscurity, bad luck or bickering, redemption was found when the corpse of Repulsion was resurrected in 2003. They may not be recording a successor to the landmark ‘Horrified’ any time soon, but that album ensures their permanent residence in the league of extreme metal reserved for the perverse pioneers, the virile visionaries and the ephemeral elite… Before becoming ‘the fastest band in the world’ (and pretty much inventing grindcore) Repulsion’s story began in 1984, when they were known as the hardcore-baiting metal brats Genocide, in Flint, Michigan, dubbed “the worst place in the world to be an extreme musician”. “You pretty much had to do your own thing, there was no real scene to speak of,” explains bassist/vocalist Scott Carlson. “That’s really how we got involved in … Read More

As one of the world’s most groundbreaking metal masters prepare to release a brand new album (see the video below for a sneak peak) we look back to the creation of one of extreme metal’s most influential albums. In 1990 it would perhaps not be as noteworthy were it created in the West, but behind the Iron Curtain, in what was then Czechoslovakia, it faced the threat of arrest and even imprisonment. GUY STRACHAN spoke to BIG BOSS of ROOT about the making of ‘ZJEVENI’

Although ‘Zjeveni’ sees its 25th anniversary being celebrated with a deserved re-release courtesy of the I Hate label and the debut album of long-standing Czech black metallers Root is rightly held up as one of the early foundations of the second wave of black metal, the band’s leader and vocalist, Jiří ‘Big Boss’ Valter, is today less than keen to discuss the work. “You must know I’m 63 [years] old and I forgot a lot of things from that era,” he says by way of a preface to his email interview, “and now we prepare and work on [our] tenth album.”

The son of a university professor, Valter grew up in a musical household in the town … Read More

Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich and SAINT VITUS… ubiquitous, right? Wrong! According to Iron Fist’s resident doom archivist OLIVIER ‘ZOLTAR’ BADIN the sole album with CHRITUS LINDERSON and the final album from original singer SCOTT REAGERS deserve a place in the hallowed halls of metal just as much as ‘Born Too Late’…

There’s a black hole in Saint Vitus’ story. No, not the early days when spat on by punks and metalheads alike in the mid-’80s at low-key shows in shitty clubs, where they still delivered the goods and released all-time classics like ‘Saint Vitus’ or ‘Born Too Late’. Nor during that 12 years silence when their legend kept growing, despite the band’s lack of activity. We’re actually talking here about the first half of the ’90s when everybody seemed to be against them, including their core fanbase and even of some their own former members. Sitting in the accusation chair is 1992’s ‘C.O.D.’ and 1995’s ‘Die Healing’: while the first has gained the rare status of being their less-revered album, right next to ‘Mournful Cries’, the second split opinions with the return of their melodramatic original singer Scott Reagers and it’s very-metal production. The fact that the latter would turn out to … Read More

While thrash and death metal from California, Florida and New York were pushing the boundaries of extremity in metal, in Kansas City, Missouri three kids were kicking up their own storm and created an album that would influence a new generation of underground game-changers. In the first of our series that looks back at the legacy of albums that changed the face of extreme metal JOHN MINCEMOYER returns to the birth of ‘STILLBIRTH MACHINE’ by ORDER FROM CHAOS.

Stories concerning the early days of the American extreme music scene generally revolve around the then exhilarating sounds originating from the respective coasts. Initially, the West Coast’s speed metal and thrash movement, centring upon the Bay Area, created waves only to be consumed by the uncompromising death metal being churned out on the East Coast.

The United States is a big county. It is roughly 2,900 miles from Tampa, Florida to San Francisco, California and 3,000 miles from New York City to San Francisco (as a counterpoint, it is only 250 miles from Stockholm to Gothenburg, Sweden). Yes, other scenes existed in the US, Texas and the upper Midwest being prime examples, but considering the sheer concentration of bands (and labels) that called the … Read More