“It’s not something you really sit down and decide,” admits Procession‘s Felipe Plaza Kutzbach when asked why he started playing a solemn and slow form of metal in a country mostly known for its rabid and primitive black and death metal scenes. “When I first heard Candlemass ‘Tales Of Creation’, Trouble ‘Psalm 9’ and Solitude Aeturnus ‘Beyond The Crimson Horizon’ in 1997 I was just a teenager obsessed with speed, thrash and death metal and it changed my whole perception of heavy metal. As I grew up and started discovering real life I realised that all those things that tormented me, disturbed me or pleased me had to come out in some sort of form, finding their way in the verminous, crawling, slow, heavy and dark music. Considering that back in 2007 there were no bands playing ‘classic’ doom metal music in Chile, right after we organised Candlemass’ first gig in Chile, we decided to make an unpretentious demo tape, started getting some feedback, an European offer for a vinyl release, etc… I guess we took one step at a time, were in the right place at the right time and realised that as unambitious and as unpretentious as we … Read More

When a band decides to avoid the Heavy Metal Mad Libs school of thought (i.e. Black, Dark or Death + any other word = instant band name!) and instead throws a curveball like Biipiigwan, it’s safe to assume that there’s a story behind it. “A biipiigwan is a type of flute that Anishinaabe people used as signalling devices in battles a long time ago. The etymology of the word relates to a general term for songbirds and though I didn’t know that at the time. I’m glad I learned that because I got tired of the name a few months after starting,” chuckles Musqwaunquot Rice, who handles guitars and vocals for the Canadian quartet. Rice’s First Nations heritage may have informed Biipiigwan’s christening, but their sound is a furious geographical mélange of Unsane, Black Cobra, Buzzoven and Neurosis, laced with enough acerbic grindcore to land them on stages with Canuck pals Fuck The Facts. Rice’s approximation of their sound keeps it simple.
“Loud, sludgy, a bit abrasive and kind of dark. People tend to hear different styles and influences in our music and most of the time it’s bands and even genres I’ve never heard of. I’m really not that metal, man.” Their … Read More

Italian death merchants Into Darkness are a very young band, teetering on the cusp of releasing their very first demo tape via Unholy Domain Records (which Iron Bonehead will then commit to 12” vinyl) but their sound is rooted firmly in the darkest, dankest corners of the past. Vocalist and axe-slinger Giulia Doomed Warrior asserts, “Into Darkness is for fans of death/doom in the late ’80s/early ’90s vein, like Asphyx, my favourite band, Bolt Thrower, Cianide, Coffins, Thorr’s Hammer, Disembowelment, Paradise Lost, Goatlord, Crypt of Kerberos…” and the list continues, as her passion for the most pestilential of death metal’s doomed offerings is made all too apparent. She’s got the chops to back it up, as well, as Into Darkness’ eponymous demo shows with its merciless onslaught of dirty, sewer-dwelling riffs, ragged howls, and searing solos.

“To be honest my first idea was to have a 100 percent female band in the vein of Derketa, Mythic and November Grief, but to find a skilled female drummer was impossible, and we are absolutely satisfied with Anguicious, both as musician and as person,” she explains. “We started to rehearse some riffs in late 2011, but it wasn’t until Anguicious (Mefitic’s drummer) joined us … Read More

When a musical genre is defined by the era in which it was prolific is it controversial to resurrect it? For many, old school death metal should be left to rot in its hellish graves and only the gruesome forefathers are allowed to bring it back to life. As the late 2000s saw the Internet-grown death metal rear its ugly head (some for better, some for worse), it seemed old school would stay “old” with the fresh flesh going for technicality over brutality and haircuts over heavy metal. However, push the weeds away from around the crypt door and it became clear that behind the backs of the the triggered, over-produced death metal hordes there was a new generation desperate to recapture the gory days.

Century Media was one such label that went grave-digging and while they’ve been busy reissuing classics from Marduk and Krisiun of late, it was their ear for the newer bands playing creepy, raw, decrepit death that marked them out. As well as snapping up bands like Morbus Chron and Necrowretch CM brought Isreali act Sonne Adam to our ears in 2011. That year, their debut ‘Transformation’ was thrown onto many an “albums of the year” list … Read More

Beware of masked men and strangers bearing knives. A murderous collective, fuelled by drug lust and naked disgust have risen from the North… and the East… and the West. They have no home base, per se, as much as one can imagine them hunkered down in some dank, cracked lair, plastered with lurid murder notices and decapitated starlets. I couldn’t even tell you how many of them there are. They’re fucking with you in those new promo photos, man – no one frame contains the same collection of bodies. The anonymous shtick is nothing new to metalloid scum or hip pretension machines, but with Dragged Into Sunlight, it actually seems fitting. The band thrives on chaos and is run entirely on dirty smoke, coke mirrors and painful feedback. Why should you care who they are? They don’t care about you. It’s DIS versus their audience, and they’ve brought a shiv to the gunfight.

“Dragged Into Sunlight comprises individuals of a very similar mindset and it is a very close knit collective. Anonymity comes with the territory,” according to the vocalist, a slip of a man with hooded eyes and a shifty demeanour. “DIS has no mandate for the reward sought by … Read More

“Doomed to death, damned in hell.” Few have summed it all up quite as succinctly as Japanese burial advocates Coffins, but our own Indesinence have surely taken that tenet to heart on their latest album and Profound Lore debut, ‘Vessels Of Light And Decay’. The album is a desolate affair, downtuned towards the serpent’s lair, littered with pummelling riffs and sepulchral howls, and masterfully executed by homegrown talent. Are Indesinence England’s Great Doomed Hope? You’d be hard-pressed to convince us otherwise.

“Each of us are here to shine, for some length of time, as bright as we are able or as circumstances allow; then we must reach an end to make way for new beginnings, yet still struggle to secure some tiny shot at immortality through our work and deeds. And so do these songs. Much like our previous work, we view the album as an individual take on what are admittedly typically “doom”-centric themes: the passage of time, and the sometimes overwhelming inevitability of the certainties this entails. It could be broadly described as the rude awakening following [2006 debut] ‘Noctambulism’s hazier, dreamlike horrors, to face something more ‘real’ but no less intense,” muses their guitarist and vocalist, Ilia Rodriguez, … Read More

FULL MOON DOG FESTIVAL LEEDS COCKPIT Once again held in memory of Asomvel founder and frontman Jay-Jay Winter, the second annual Full Moon Dog Festival also honours the spirit of the ’80s, or as the organisers themselves put it: “The days when hordes of metal fans would cram into local venues to see their favourite bands for a meagre couple of quid and ‘social networking’ meant actually getting off your backside and leaving the house!” I’m sure we all raise an iron fist to that.

In what’s a less than ideal start to the day, last-minute ‘logistical difficulties’ prevent your humble correspondent from witnessing either Mercenary or Screaming Eagles in what was surely their unfettered glory. It falls instead to West Midlands trad metallers Dark Forest to open our account and, as one of the most promising UK newcomers of recent years, they do not fail to deliver. Decked out in some choice old-school clobber and armed with a luridly-hued and suitably spiky selection of vintage axes, they launch into a scintillating set of heavy/power somewhere between the NWOBHM and the European trad scene of the same era. There are touches of contemporary power metal too, but they steer well clear of anything … Read More

Let’s let Oslo’s grind youngers Gouge have the first words. “We are Gouge, we play music. We listened to Repulsion a lot and formed Gouge because we felt we had to. So Repulsion is a big influence and Dr Shrinker, Autopsy, Nihilist and the Funeral demo.” Gouge arrived on the scene recently with a cast-iron demo that is arguably one of the best ‘grind’ debuts released since the old days. Herman plays drums and Christoffer plays guitars and sings. Their first gig was actually on the mid-September day in 2012 that Iron Fist and Gouge had a chat. The two core members employed Jonas Bye of Mabuse for bass duties for the live show and they don’t plan to play many gigs but a full length album is halfway finished and likely to see the light of day in 2013. Until then they, “will just keep on working, drinking beer and playing music.” They’re a great example of the new generation bringing unshakable energy into the extreme music scene. They naturally employ a fresh approach, which is entirely unprejudiced by modern versions of our music. They only know the greats and use a similar sound to the classics to play new … Read More

VOIVOD + DOOM LONDON GARAGE Tonight is all about surprises. Special guests Doom surprise by delivering a digestible set. Firmly crust – they lack the necessary graft and craft to be grind – it’s nonetheless obvious why these British veterans influenced so many. Loud and explosive, a battering attack of dreadlocks, black and white newspaper cuttings and walls of guitar noise regularly overloading into feedback, Doom are one noise, one moment in time regurgitated for remembrance. Our headliners are something else. Their creative endeavours now span four decades and still they surprise. Opening with the primal scream of ‘Voivod’, they begin on a chronological path, pulling out rarely aired numbers ‘Ripping Headaches’ and ‘Forgotten In Space’ early, before unveiling the title track to the forthcoming ‘Target Earth’ and later strumming out the recently unleashed ‘Mechanical Mind’. Snake is in fine voice, perhaps his finest since rejoining Voivod a decade ago. ‘The Prow’ (from 1991’s divisive ‘Angel Rat’) evidences this early, but it is after he announces, “We have a surprise for you,” that things really get incredible.

An air of mystery lingers, Snake bows his head – and for a minute, it’s as if Voivod have decided to go drone. Then it hits. … Read More

Based on their moniker alone, Lord Fist, who formed in 2011 in Mekkali, Finland, were bound to appear in these pages, right? But our main source of motivation to shine the light on them remains their extremely promising old school, NWOBHM-inspired four-track demo ‘Spark For The Night’, released both on CDr and tape and whose logo alone (designed by Possessor who already worked with Armour and Axegressor) will take you back to 1982!

“Lord Fist got started with a friendly jam session,” reveals drummer, Eetu Orbinski. “We were just jamming some riffs and suddenly we had this ‘Chains Of Steel’ tune put together. After all those years of playing extreme metal styles, it just sounded and felt heavier than anything we had done before. When playing this kind of music we enter a whole other level of existence and we’re seriously addicted to it. People have different ways to reach these kind of feelings and for us it’s heavy metal. We actually think that this very song still holds the very finest essence of what Lord Fist is about.”

Like fellow retro-obsessed bands Speedtrap or Evil-Lÿn, Eetu doesn’t deny their eyes are set on the golden era of the genre but according … Read More