You know life has taken a surreal turn for the better when you’re at an invite-only Iron Maiden party and Doro has just cadged a fag off you (“I don’t normally smoke,” she whispers conspiratorially). Doro is regaling us with tales about her travels. She’s an incredible raconteur, she holds court making us howl with stories about fans bringing her beetles to eat in South East Asia – and all I’m thinking is, wow, this is Doro. She was in Warlock, she was the first woman to front a band at Monsters At Rock. She’s a legend. That was years ago now, we’ve met many times since, but I’ll never shake the feeling of being a “fan”. The dictionary describes being a fan as “a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal (as in religion or politics)”, but I think they’re missing the words “as in music”, because that extreme enthusiasm manifests itself in an uncontrollable manner when you press play on a new album or watch a musician in the live arena. A piece of music or concert can conjure up the time and place when you first saw or heard that particular artist and take you … Read More

By now, it’s been three years since Tribulation’s breakout LP, ‘The Horror,’ was unleashed, and fans of their sinister death metal odes have been clamouring for more. The album dropped just on the cusp of what would become the recent old school death metal explosion, and immediately stood out from the pack with its sheer power and diabolical intent. Turns out this Swedish mob were just as impatient to record its successor, but, like any good band, were unwilling to sacrifice quality for speed.

“It’s actually been over five years since we recorded the album,” their guitarist, Adam Zaars, reveals from their studio in Arvika. “I wouldn’t say that anything kept us from doing it, it just took that long because of the way we worked on it. When you write songs in an unconventional way, as we did this time, things might take time. We waited for the album to come to us rather than sitting down forcing it out.”

Good things come to those who wait, and it already seems like we’ll be in for a treat come 2013, thanks to Ireland’s mighty Invictus Productions.

“We actually had a lot of labels hover over our heads trying to pull us into … Read More

Keep It True Festival, Germany, 2011. The storm is coming thick and fast and whenever there’s a flash of lightning some guys start singing ‘Lightning Strikes Again’. Suddenly there’s a crash of thunder and another group of guys on the opposite side of the field started singing ‘Thunder On The Tundra’. It’s a moment we’ll never forget, and proves how much THOR has become a heavy metal legend. Once we heard he was working on a new album Dave Sherwood tracked down the hero to talk movies, music, comics and hot water bottles.

I can’t honestly think of any other acts hailing from Canada during the early to mid-’70s who were playing heavy rock and metal; do you think you were the first? Were you aware of any other bands playing with such force back in the day? “There was no one else in the world who not only played heavy rock/metal with such force but also performed the concept of the superhuman frontman who could bend steel in his bare hands in the arena while singing and performing theatrics on stage. I started the first Muscle Power Gladiator rock band ever. There were other rock acts in the ’70s as the tag … Read More

Bristol’s Jaguar are a pioneering band of the prime NWOBHM era. Forming in 1979 shortly after leaving school, their first gig was just prior to the coining of the term NWOBHM by Geoff Barton. Guitarist Garry Peppard and bassist Jeff Cox were joined by singer Rob Reiss and the then 16-year-old Chris Lovell on speed beats. The band were typically influenced by the usual metal gods Motörhead, Priest, Sabbath, UFO and Deep Purple but Garry particularly was also a huge fan of punk. As a result they quickly developed a distinctly fast and raw sound that influenced the birth of speed metal. Jaguar, alongside their friends Raven and Venom were the fastest bands around in the early ’80s. Their pioneering speed and heaviness undoubtedly helped birth the thrash Metal monster that still stalks today.

A couple of killer demos in ’80 and ’81 led to the fast-selling single ‘Back Street Woman’ (Heavy Metal Records, 1981). The band then parted ways with singer Rob Reiss and tracked down Paul Merrell (ex-Stormbringer) to voice their classic period. Legendary label Neat Records snapped them up at this point for the 1982 single ‘Axe Crazy’ and the fantastic ‘Power Games’ (Neat Records, 1983) album.

Jaguar famously … Read More

Indisputably one of the first ever heavy metal bands in Finland, if not the world, SARCOFAGUS and their leader KIMMO KUUSNIEMI were always pushing the limits of rock ‘n’ roll, even becoming one of the first metal bands to make a full-length music video. But after 30 years they’re back with a new album and tell IRON FIST how it pays respect to a legacy they thought was dead and buried.

Sarcofagus was laid to rest in 1982, when did you realise that there was an interest in the band again? Kimmo: “I think it was around 2000, because [legendary Finnish rock radio DJ] Klaus Flaming wanted to find the ‘Motorbirds’ film. That’s when I realised on the internet there was so many stories about Sarcofagus and that these albums had become cornerstones of Finnish metal. Of course back in the day, when I started to make films I never showed the ‘Motorbirds’ video to any places that I was looking for a job because I was embarrassed by it. And I was embarrassed by Sarcofagus for probably the whole of the ’80s. Metal was like a bastard, all the progressive bands thought it would die and it’s a joke, so in the … Read More

You may not know the name but you know the faces in Necrocurse. If you’ve paid any attention to what happened to the Swedish death metal scene post-‘Storm At The Light’s Bane’ there is a fair chance you have at least one album featuring the multi-talents of one Nicklas ‘Terror’ Rudolfsson. A man of many facets, while his first weapon of choice is the drums, he also plays guitar and bass and is handy with a microphone. And while his first big break came after joining Dissection wannabes Sacramentum, in time to record their classic debut ‘Far Away From The Sun’ at Dan Swanö’s Unisound studio in July ‘95, the second half of the ’90s saw him going into hyperdrive as between 1995 and 2000 he took part in no less than 12 full-lengths and various EPs under four different banners. But fast-forward a few years and his source of inspiration seemed to show traces of exhaustion. Nicklas had become focused on his main project Runemagick, a mostly studio outlet for him and his bass playing wife Emma. Ultimately, in 2008 after an impressive outcome of no less than 11 full-lengths, a laconic message on the band’s webpage simply stated … Read More

Don’t call John McEntee a legend. A simple “true fan” will do. The man may have been onboard the Starship Death Metal since day one and has survived to tell the tale, releasing few mighty classics along the way; but despite being in his 40s he still can rave on about his favourite metal albums or bands as if he first heard them yesterday, and he can still act the fanboy, giggling like a teenager when he reveals that last July, when Incantation played with Immolation in Belo Horizonte, he went straight up to former Sarcofago leader Wagner Antichrist who “was attempting to stay incognito at the show” so he could have his picture taken with him. And even over the phone you can still sense his excitement when mentioning “life-changing shows”, such as when Voivod and Kreator toured the US for the first time. Or when, in the fall of 1988, he did two shows in New York with Immolation and Morbid Angel. “Morbid had such a strong vibe… I mean, they were out for blood! Pete Sandoval had joined two months prior and their sound guy back then was Jon DePlachett from Necrovore so being able to pick … Read More

Black Magician, a relatively new quintet hailing from Liverpool, craft dark, wicked doom metal infused with folk touches and mind-expanding prog flourishes. Now before you scream, “Not another doom band from the UK!” please allow vocalist Liam Yates to explain.

“Doom for me is the purest form of heavy metal. Bands like Trouble and Candlemass were at one time just called ‘heavy metal’, without the need for the ‘doom’ label. What we do harkens back to the early roots of heavy metal in its rawest, most satisfying form. A simple, powerful riff can create so much more intensity and atmosphere than any fast technical playing. “Black Magician formed a year ago. I was complaining to a friend when my previous band didn’t go anywhere, and asked him if he knew anyone around who was into the same stuff and wanted to do more than drink beer in the rehearsal space. He recommended I speak to Kyle [Nesbitt – guitars] who was looking to get something started. I had seen him around and he certainly looked like the kind of fellow eccentric I would get on well with. I approached him at a gig and a drunken rant about old heavy metal and … Read More

When it comes to heavy metal teaming witchcraft with Lovecraft (Arkham is a place in his books in case you were wondering) is a winning combination, but having a good name is only a small piece of the puzzle – you’ve still got to put together some killer tunes. However, Arkham Witch vocalist Simon Iff? knows that his troupe have a lot of heritage to contest with. “This music has a history, a heart and a substance that has, and will, stand the test of time. It may fade in and out of fashion in the mainstream, but it will always be the backbone of innovation and integrity in any guitar based musical form.”

A legacy like that is hard to live up to, no matter how awesome your band name. Hailing from Yorkshire, a county of doom and gloom so naturally a hotbed for doom bands (there must be something in the water, or is it mead?) Arkham Witch are influenced by a mix of the greats Saint Vitus, Pentagram, Cirith Ungol and of course the mighty Witchfinder General, a splattering of Hammer horror films and HP Lovecraft novels and through it all runs a thick undercurrent of sardonic humour.

With … Read More

It’s difficult to pinpoint what separates one “occult” band from another, especially when it seems like everyone and his nan has started one. The strength of such a band’s convictions, of course, and the depth of their commitment to both their subject matter and their presentation are key factors when it comes to the business of being taken seriously. Without those elements, you’re just another twat in a dress with some hasty pentangles scrawled across your album cover, and metal definitely has no need for any more of those.

Necros Christos have always understood this and taken great pains to ensure that their visual approach matches and accentuates what they’re doing musically. What they’ve been doing for the past decade is crafting multi-faceted, atmospheric, oppressive death metal of the most serious intent. Now, in their 12th year and with a third, and, perhaps, final album on the way, the band clearly have nothing left to prove. To know them is to love them, and to be ignorant of their existence or of their message is to cheat yourself out of one of modern death metal’s most furiously blazing stars.

I’m a massive fan, if you couldn’t tell, and alongside my friend and … Read More