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

Twin innovators who forged metal in their own wayward images with nary a thought for either compromise or common sense, BUDGIE and DIAMOND HEAD were enormous influences on the early days of Metallica, with Dave Mustaine even claiming that it was his love of the former that sealed the deal when it came to his gig with the Four Horsemen. Yet, as Diamond Head’s Brian Tatler confirms, they both might have been forgotten had it been for the aforementioned San Fran saviours. Never fear; interviews with both Tatler – who takes us back to the making of the debut ‘Lightning To The Nations’ – and Budgie frontman Burke Shelley in our second anniversary issue mark the perfect reminder of a maverick spirit that embodies why we started Iron Fist in the first place.

Acrimoniously ejected from Metallica in 1983, it didn’t take long for guitarist Dave Mustaine to saddle up and form MEGADETH with a glint of revenge in his eye. By May 1985 he had delivered the ultimate comeback in the form of ‘Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good’, with more spite, more speed and more “state of the art heavy metal”than the majority of that era’s rivetheads could believe. With the album reissued this month, Jim Martin talks to Dave Mustaine, Dave Ellefson and man-on-the-scene Brian … Read More

The Colorado-based Excommunion were one of the too many unsung heroes of the underground ‘dark’ death metal scene. MIA after only one monstrous full-length, ‘Superion’ in 2001, their vocalist Christopher ‘Christbutcher’ Clark moved to Finland in January 2007 after a tentative reunion with his first proper band Dethroned fell apart. But in no way did this mean he gave up completely.

“I started looking the very day we had set it in stone that we were emigrating. I emailed like-minded musicians who were in the area and eventually put together our first line-up, although it seemed at first that the north Savonia region in the middle of Finland was the wrong place to play death metal!”

Even if it took Maveth three years to come up with their first EP (‘Of Serpent And Shadow’), that recording and its follow-up ‘Impious Servant’ proved to be of such high-level that they soon got re-released together on one single CD by Nuclear Winter Records in 2011. And with their now first proper full-length, ‘Coils Of The Black Earth’, ready to hit the stores later this year through Dark Descent, Christbutcher feels he’s come full circle.

“At first, I made a conscious decision to use all the … Read More

Racing though the heavens, straight into the dawn, the immortal titans JUDAS PRIEST have returned. Unholy architects of much of what we now consider heavy metal, the Brum-birthed bezerkers have forged onwards with a bloody-minded singularity of approach for some forty years now, informing everything from the music’s full-throttle, speed-fuelled attack to its wardrobe in the process. Jim Martin gets the lowdown from ROB HALFORD, IAN HILL and new axeman RICHIE FAULKNER on the trials, tribulations and triumphs they’ve encountered in a life of steel.

So long are the shadows that Priest have cast that countless bands have named themselves after one of their tunes, and one of the greatest, naturally, are EXCITER. The Canadian power trio, who dented heads with classic ’80s albums like ‘Heavy Metal Maniac’ and ‘Long Live The Loud’ are also with a vengeance, and Damien talks to longstanding rivetheads DAN BEEHLER and JOHN RICCI on their wayward pursuit of violence and force.

Another band named after a tune by a titanic metal force (much like this magazine) OVERKILL are also on customarily savage form at present, and inimitable frontman BOBBY ‘BLITZ’ ELLSWORTH has dealt with numerous instances of serious illness as well as the attendant struggles of … Read More

“I lost my job in Sweden and I decided to just go and try to find myself.” Blues Pills singer Elin Larsson was 21 when she made that decision. She packed a bag, left her hometown and followed the trail to Laurel Canyon, a journey taken by many in the ’60s, heading West to where music was at the heart of LA’s counter-culture. But this wasn’t 1967, this was 2011. When Joni Mitchell sung the words “I am on a lonely road, and I am travelling. Looking for the key to set me free” she had no idea how decades later voiceless girls with songs in their hearts would head down the same road, with the same yearning to be heard.

“I had this picture of California,” Elin says, sitting in a London pub, in awe of the opportunities given to her since that fateful trip. “I liked all the awesome bands that once were there; like Janis Joplin. The ’60s there were so cool. I thought I always wanted to go there. I always wanted to see California.”

Once in LA it wouldn’t take long for Elin to meet drummer Cory Berry and bassist Zack Anderson, although the shy Swede won’t admit … Read More

“We went on tour in 2012 and played Philly. We had never played there before and I think that’s how Relapse found out about us. I’ll speak for myself, but I think I’m speaking for all of us when I say we were very surprised when they contacted us!” While much of the music industry cognoscenti will beak off until they’re as blue in the face as they are in the balls about the irrelevancy of record labels in the digital age, Lesley Wolf, bassist/vocalist for New York blackened sludge trio Mortals, begs to differ. Their debut full-length, ‘Cursed To See The Future’ may not hit the streets until July 7 and their collective blood dripped onto Relapse’s dotted line may be their first real experience with the industry part of the music industry, but Mortals, at the very least, have the venerable label to thank for motivating them to get to where they are. “It definitely changed the game,” explains Wolf. “We were writing stuff without any real plan. We were maybe going to find a band to do a split with or eventually record a full-length, but there wasn’t anything definite. When Relapse stepped into the picture it definitely put … Read More

Like elaborate extreme works of the past, Switzerland’s Schammasch have crafted a double album that challenges our increasing need for instantaneous gratification in music, something underground metal, though less affected, can still suffer from. “Of course we knew the risks,” says Schammasch’s chief orchestrator Chris S.R. of the three-year creation of the colossal ‘Contradiction’, from seed to birth, as an 80-minute double disc. “But at the end of the day we don’t give a fuck if people think it’s too long. That’s such an ignorant and stupid criteria for any work of art, so I’m cool with the fact that those people actually stay away from our work. We’re not here to produce easy listening background music, but to challenge. Just as agitation and impatience reach their highest grade these days, there is an essential need for contrast. ‘Contradiction’ demands patience to unfold and people [have forgotten] what that means.” Landing boldly between Behemoth’s ‘The Satanist’ and Triptykon’s ‘Melana Chasmata’, Schammasch have envisaged an album that does indeed demand patience and time to fully engrain itself within, but once absorbed, the realisation that ‘Contradiction’ will elevate the Basel-based band to the upper echelon of extreme metal manifests. As is the case … Read More

“When you look at death from death’s perspective, you realise the pettiness of humanity. death cares not for your grievances or troubles, it comes to take you when you least expect. It is the power that supersedes our human creations: religion, politics, philosophy,” offers Todd Burdette, he of Tragedy/His Hero Is Gone fame and now one half of Nighfell, the band he formed two years ago with Tim Call (Aldebaran, The Howling Wind). The power of death casts a grim shadow over Nightfell’s stunning debut for Southern Lord, ‘The Living Ever Mourn’. “Envisioned and executed in a period of grief, delirium, and loss of life,” according to Burdette the creation of ‘The Living Ever Mourn’ was a cathartic experience, telling us “Catharsis is the primary force, death is close behind. We lament the lost, but we still breathe.” This defiant statement defines their debut album in its entirety, as even though death is laid bare in all its stark reality, there is hope and strength to be taken from ‘The Living Ever Mourn’. In terms of sound, it is an open-ended album, one which spans doom, death and black metal – but not exclusively so, as there’s plenty of punk aggression, … Read More

When your vocalist sounds like a young Martin Van Drunen and you ask legendary designer Dan Seagrave to do the artwork for your debut album, the message is pretty clear, isn’t it? Try to tickle Rude’s guitarist and frontman Yusef Wallace by stating that their debut album ‘Soul Recall’ is “a classic death metal sounding record stuck in 1991” and he’ll answer: “I guess that’s a compliment. I’d have to say most anything from 1995 onward, until the last couple of years, sounds like crap, so I’d rather be on the good side of things.” Formed in 2008, initially Rude had a thrashier vibe and even switched monikers to suit their more straight-forward and primitive sound, calling themselves Forsaker. But after one self-titled demo, they turned back to both their initial name and a more death metal direction. “We still have that thrash aspect in our music but with a different second guitar player and we’re now tuned down half a step,” Yusef admits. “I like that genre still, not the corny stuff though, but I don’t think it’s what makes us different. I’m leaning more towards us playing death metal in E flat. I do like listening to bands in … Read More

With a bizarrely titled debut album on a hot label, a penchant for really bad puns, and eye-popping, Jesús Franco-referencing cover art, Salem’s Pot has made an immediate impression in early 2014, not the least of which is thanks to the actual music therein, a lysergic combination of hazy psychedelic rock and woozy, lumbering doom metal. When asked about what inspired the Swedes to venture down the path forged by Black Sabbath and Hawkwind, guitarist/singer Knate’s answer is succinct. “Blues and hallucinogens; the same thing that inspired those bands. For us it always feels like they were on to something and they wanted to tell the truth. Whatever the path we choose, in the end, for us it’s all about reality. We live in a small town where it’s really hard to find people to play with, but we found each other eventually. We were all lonesome riffers that just worshipped sleazy old slasher-movies before we came together. But we still don’t have a permanent drummer so we haven’t really come together completely just yet.” Released on California’s EasyRider, a record label that’s on a seriously impressive roll these days, ‘…Lurar Ut Dig På Prärien’ might be comprised of only three … Read More