Initially a part of the Crusher Records (Spiders, Dead Man, Troubled Horse) roster, Horisont were originally perceived as another of those retro-rockers from Sweden, seemingly happy to surf on the nostalgia wave and have an excuse to wear bell-bottomed jeans. Except that there’s always been something a tad weirder and out-there with them and not just due to their occasional Swedish lyrics. Still, many will be surprised by their fourth full-length ‘Odyssey’, a 65-minute tour-de-force that sees them coming out of their shell and heading for the stars with space rock and classic prog influences abound and a solid dose of vintage synthesizers. Blasphemy? No, a simple and very human longing for evolution says their frontman Axel Söderberg.

Two years ago when you promoted your third full-length ‘Time Warriors’, you made no secret that it was style-wise very close to its predecessor and your Rise Above debut, ‘Second Assault’. Yet ‘Odyssey’ doesn’t follows the same pattern does it? “Indeed as the previous two full-lengths were kind of made in a rush. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great as they are but after ‘Time Warriors’ we knew right away that we would need more time for the next one so we could do the … Read More

In 1984, as the nascent thrash scene was bursting out of its Bay Area base, north of the border a young guitar virtuoso by the name of JEFF WATERS was discovering heavy metal via KISS, Sweet and… disco. Two years later he would record a demo called ‘Phantasmagoria’ that would launch his band from Vancouver bedroom to Roadrunner Record’s world stage. But Jeff himself would pass the microphone to Randy Rampage and from thereon seven vocalists would shuffle through the ranks. Thirty years later Waters has not only returned to the mic but right back to that life-changing demo for inspiration. It’s been a career of highs and lows but could ‘SUICIDE SOCIETY’ see ANNIHILATOR back on top?

“I have chosen you my friend, you’re mine Locked inside this frightening dream Nowhere to hide Every night my demons you will see An apparition festival, through hell you’ll ride”  ‘Phantasmagoria’ 1986 demo

…On how disco rocked his world “When I was a teenager, even before that, ten-years-old, it was disco and that’s my earliest memory of music. Then out of that there was ‘I Was Made For Loving You’ by KISS and this Rod Stewart song ‘Do You Think I’m Sexy’. I remember these two bands from when I … Read More

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

Bruce Dickinson tells This Is Rock that it was Steve Harris who came up with the idea of basing the next Iron Maiden opus on the Mayans but it was Dickinson himself who wrote the opening track ‘If Eternity Should Fail’. In fact, he’d written it for an upcoming solo album, but when Harry heard it he knew he wanted it to open ‘The Book Of Souls’. And it’s so perfect, because if ‘The Book Of Souls’ is Maiden marching upon the Mayan ruins of Mexico, then it’s this opening number that will take them there with its eerie introduction, luring you once more to “Speak with the Shaman again”, travelling down a desert path to the Mexican border, through desolate Texan ghost towns, followed by a supernatural mariachi band. This is Iron Maiden perhaps at their bluesiest, this is their crossroads, this is where they swap their souls for passage to their next great achievement (of which there have already been so many). When the guitars kick in and that infamous galloping rhythm takes control you are immediately entranced by the Shamanistic Eddie of the album’s front cover. Iron Maiden have always been magical, possessing the voodoo to make … Read More

Better by name and better by nature, the occult clergy known as GHOST are back with their new album ‘MELIORA’, but have they left their underground spirit behind on album number three? The NAMELESS GHOUL doesn’t think so, and tells LOUISE BROWN that their rebellion against religion, society and the constraints of the scene that birthed them inspires them even more than ever

When we put Ghost on our cover of issue #4, two years ago, we already talked about them in terms of being “our band”, but “not for long”. The mysterious entity, who began their mission in 2010 with a 7” on the cult underground doom label, Iron Pegasus were quickly signed to Rise Above for their debut, ‘Opus Eponymous’ and the rest, as the cliché goes, is history. Going from strength to strength the band were hailed as a favourite of members of Metallica and Foo Fighters and signed onto Slayer’s management company. They left the underground in their dust, but not its ethos, not its attitude and certainly not its rebellious heart.

With a third album ‘Meliora’ (latin for “better”, an apt name indeed) out this summer, sounding more avant garde tinged AOR than true doom, we met … Read More

“I may lose a lot of underground cred and some hipster points here, but I believe in being completely honest.” Jarvis Leatherby isn’t kidding about honesty. Corresponding with us by email from the three-piece’s 60-date headlining tour of the US, Night Demon‘s bassist and vocalist is big enough to admit that they played to 20 people in New Orleans. But fuck credibility: we’re just plain surprised they didn’t take their name from the classic cut ‘Night Of The Demon’.

“We didn’t even know about Demon until after we started this band,” he reveals. “We were Googling our own band name and found their stuff through that. They quickly became one of my new/old favourite bands. Especially the first three albums.”

Turns out that Night Demon just wanted a name that was also a song: ‘Night Demon’, featured on their much-touted debut EP, was the first song they wrote. “We were surprised that nobody had taken the name. It’s difficult to find cool band names that are out there for the taking, so we just ran with it.” Formed in 2011 in Southern California, the band’s debut full-length has just dropped – and ‘Curse Of The Damned’, released by SPV/Steamhammer earlier this year, is a stone-cold … Read More

Formed as a result of a drunken party, ACID KING existed in the brain of vocalist and guitarist LORI S long before she met her musical companions. Her singular vision has not waned since and 20 years after inception she is still searching for the CENTER OF EVERYTHING

“I’ve had too many shitty beers for any words of wisdom!” laughs Lori S, vocalist and guitarist of doom band Acid King after their show at Desertfest London. Right from the beginning it’s apparent that this vibrant and charismatic woman has a no nonsense attitude that she carries over into her approach to music. From Acid King’s very beginnings in the early 1990s Lori was the driving force behind its inception, with a clear vision of what she wanted and where she wanted it to go. The tenacious frontwoman had even picked a name before she’d even thought about band members; “I read this book called ‘Say You Love Satan’ – a true crime book – and there was a bit about Ricky Kasso. I remember on one of the pages, which we have a song about (‘One-Ninety-Six’), it said ‘Nobody messes with the Acid King!’ When I read that, I said ‘I’m … Read More

We can hear the hound dogs on our trail. All hell breaks loose, alarms and sirens wail, and it gives Iron Fist the utmost pleasure to have THIN LIZZY gracing its cover for issue number 14. Within its pages, we chat to SCOTT GORHAM, the man who helped birth the style of glorious twin-guitar harmony that would resonate throughout so many of our cherished slabs of wax, and resided in the eye of this life-affirming band’s particular hurricane for its glory years and beyond.

For all that band’s turbulent and tragic history, THIN LIZZY’s grit, balls and outlaw chutzpah remain central to Heavy Metal, and there are plenty of other tales of trials and tribulations tackled and often overcome in this issue, and of artists elevated by the all-consuming power of their music to levels bordering on the realm of mythical superheroes. Jon-Mikl THOR’s is one of these, and the legendary thundergod’s story in this issue is proof positive that the love for his chosen steel-bending metier could triumph against all adversity. Similarly stirring is the tale of GIRLSCHOOL’s KIM MCAULIFFE and ENID WILLIAMS, who spill the beans on four full decades of tireless and inspirational hard rocking in often somewhat … Read More

Besides knowing that Argentina was a big producer of wine and steak, I was completely ignorant of what was going on in the country before visiting it. It’s kind of embarrassing, but the only band I knew from the country was the primitive but evil demo band Retrosatan. However, I quickly found out that the country historically had some of South America’s best heavy rock and traditional metal bands, and discovered some amazing gems (notably ‘Pappos’ Blues Volumen 3‘ and V8’s ‘Luchando Por el Metal’) that have became some of my favourite albums ever. I also was shocked at the diversity of the landscapes encountered during the trip – especially the insanely beautiful multi-coloured mountains in the north of the country and its large canyons! I was not able to find many gigs to go to, or even too many albums to purchase, but I did catch the Argentinian stoner-doom band Dragonauta play a gig in Buenos Aires… at 3 in the morning, which seemed like a normal hour to play over there. Anyway, one key person I connected with while traveling in Argentina was Eric (Nocturnal Profaner of the bands Infernal Curse/Xenotaph and the editor of Baphometal fanzine). … 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