Swedish death metal veterans Sarcasm have recently unleashed an album (yes, an actual album!) full of dark melodies, razor sharp riffing, atmospheric passages and catchy hooks. ‘Within The Sphere Of Ethereal Minds’ (recently released on Dark Descent) takes the listener on a multi-faceted musical journey with many twists and turns that takes you right back to the glory days of the early to mid ’90s melodic death metal scene before the genre became oversaturated and commercialised. There is a blackened edge to their aural aggression too much in the same vein as their fellow countrymen Unanimated and Dissection. Iron Fist spoke with frontman Heval Bozarslan to find out more about the album and comeback.

Your latest full-length ‘Within The Sphere Of Ethereal Minds’ just came out, what can we expect and are you pleased with it? They can expect 35 minutes of jaw-dropping, ball-crushing, catchy yet face-melting death metal. I’m more than satisfied, even though I listened to the pre-production demos a thousand times and knew that this material was strong I didn’t know it would turn out this good. All the people involved really gave 100 percent and believed in this. And so far the reaction from people who have heard it … Read More

Craven Idol return with a crash of thunder after almost four years of deadly silence. Not only do the London Black metallers have a killer new release, ‘Shackles Of Mammon’ (Via Dark Descent on April 14), they will also open for Nifelheim at the Underworld on May 26. All this with a brand new line-up, as guitarist Scourger and drummer Volgard, have been replaced by Obscenitor (also of Crom Dubh) and Heretic Blades.

“We entered Greg Chandler’s Priory Studios last year and emerged a week later with around 40 minutes of old school extreme metal swearing by the legacy of the first god.” That’s how frontman Wrath starts his epic story about their latest album, which the band launch with a gig at The Black Heart, Camden, this Saturday April 8.

“Our new album ‘The Shackles Of Mammon’ is more varied and way more aggressive than its predecessor ‘Towards Eschaton’,” he continues. “It is a ‘complete’ album with significantly better song-writing and a rawer, old school production. Greg Chandler, from Esoteric, is a brilliant producer and we spoke to him at length during the run-up to the session, and we had a clear vision for the sound. I had in mind the first wave … Read More

German death metallers Venenum have recently unleashed their debut full length album ‘Trance Of Death’ upon the extreme music scene via Sepulchral Voice Records, a multi-faceted album full of twists and turns that will slowly coil it’s way around your senses upon listening.

We caught up with vocalist/bassist F.S.A (who joins P.T. on guitars, D.P. on guitars and keys, and F.J.L on drums) to find out more about the album and gain more of an insight into the dark musical world of this very exciting new malevolent force in death metal.

Your debut album is due to be unleashed in the near future – what can the readers expect from your first full-length offering? Immense. Intense. In trance.

Where was the album recorded? The album was recorded at Tonstudio Katzer in Nuremberg, Germany. Our new guitarist suggested Romin Katzer because he did an internship at his old studio once. Since we hadn’t made up our mind on where to record the album, we visited Romin at his new studio, which is close by where we live and instantly knew that we wanted to work with him. At first we only booked one week with the focus on getting the drum tracks … Read More

The notorious Cleveland-based Midnight recently unleashed another punked-up metal massacre with the ‘Shox Of Violence’ EP via Hells Headbangers. It features four new songs and acts as a stop gap between the last album ‘No Mercy For Mayhem’ (released in 2014) and the upcoming new full-length. There is a compilation with the same title, which has also recently just come out, featuring the new EP plus a veritable feast of bonus cover songs, demo tracks and live recordings, including a couple of Venom covers, a host of covers by punk bands such as The Spits and Pagans, as well as Girlschool, Quiet Riot amongst others, all of which have been given the dirty, unholy and rotten Midnight treatment. We caught up with mainman/guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Athenar to find out more about the EP, compilation and the current activities of the band.

You have a new EP and compilation ‘Shox Of Violence’, can you elaborate on what this new release contains and what the readers can expect in comparison to the last full-length? Athenar: It’s a four song EP of tunes to blast out of your stereo! Please don’t expect much, keep your expectations in life low; it’s much easier that way. I don’t wanna … Read More

Crusty Death/Doom outfit Vallenfyre have returned to GodCity studio in Salem, MA to record the follow up to their second album ‘Splinters’ (2014). The new album, entitled ‘Fear Those Who Fear Him’, will be released by Century Media this summer and sees the band recording as a three-piece for the first time.

Joining Gregor Mackintosh (vocals and guitar – Paradise Lost) and Hamish Glencross (guitar/bass – ex-My Dying Bride) on the new record is Waltteri Väyrynen (drums – Paradise Lost) with production duties once again being helmed by Kurt Ballou (Converge).

Gregor Mackintosh says: “Twelve songs. No samples. No triggers. No bullshit. Instead you get crucifyingly loud amps, ferocious drumming, and vicious vocals spitting out hate and venom. Raw honest brutality. No conformity. No compromise. A murderous nightmare vomiting poisonous bile onto a twisted world. Yeah, that’s the bits I like…”

You can find more information at www.facebook.com/Vallenfyre or www.vallenfyreuk.bigcartel.com

Old school death metallers Memoriam (featuring ex and current members of Bolt Thrower and Benediction) are set to unleash their debut album ‘For The Fallen’ on March 24 through Nuclear Blast Records. It will contain eight tracks, including ‘War Rages On’, ‘Resistance’ (both featured on ‘The Hellfire Demos II’) and ‘Surrounded (By Death)’ (featured on ‘The Hellfire Demos II’).

The album’s impressive artwork was created by Dan Seagrave (Benediction, Dismember, Hypocrisy, Suffocation). He said: “[I started] from the band’s thoughts on visualising a kind of funeral procession with a theme of combat, war and in conjunction with the title ‘For the Fallen’. As with all my works, I then attempted to make the information evolve in my mind’s eye, and allow imagination to take over those elements, but retaining the core concept. The painting thus depicts a funeral procession moving through a long war torn cityscape; twisted shards of towers and buildings. A cathedral facade stands defiantly, yet riddled with destruction and decay. At closer inspection the structures all seem to be infected with an element of natural decomposition, as if organically inclined to fade with the demise of the season.

“The season itself lost in a timeless void. The figures appear … Read More

The Ajna Offensive have just announced that March 17 will mark the international release date for Venenum‘s highly-anticipated debut album, ‘Trance Of Death’, saying “It makes a difference in effort and time, either to dig six feet deep or to build a necropolis. Venenum decided for the latter…and it was worth every fucking second of waiting.”

Five years after the self-titled mini-album, Venenum strike with their debut full-length. According to the label, who will co-release the album with German death metal stable, Sepulchral Voice (the masters behind Degial and Charon); “The album presents Venenum on a new level of devotion and continues new and never-before-heard layers of darkness. The six new compositions and introduction theme are a grand melding of unique visions and unaltered traditions woven and blended into a complex unit of sacred horror. ‘Trance Of Death’ is far away from being another one-dimensional tribute to the grave: it is reverence and praise, a hymn to the impending end of all things.”

Artwork and layout is by Iron Fist favourite Timo Ketola (Dissection, Deathspell Omega).

From their debut mini-album:

Venenum by Venenum

The bedrock – some may say – on which death metal is based, Morbid Angel and Possessed have both been added to Party.San Festival at Schlotheim, Flugplatz Obermehler in Germany alongside cult underground death-thrashers Demolition Hammer.

They join Candlemass, Marduk, Mourning Beloveth and Autopsy, amongst others at the weekend long festival which takes place on August 10-12.

Tickets are available here.

Marduk, Immolation and Origin @ The Fleece, Bristol

Weekday gigs are often strange affairs and especially so in Bristol where the local metal scene will invariably turn out in droves for bands such as Alestorm but often overlook the more extreme end of the spectrum, ironically leaving some gigs as barren as the graveyards and mortuaries that provide a wealth of lyrical inspiration. Luckily for Marduk however, this Wednesday night sees a crowd who are more than willing to have the midweek blues literally beaten out of them, Scandinavian style.

First up is Origin, with their brand of technical death metal that seems to this scribe to be an odd choice of opener for a legendary Swedish black metal band but regardless their ultra-tight, hyper-fast metal elicits a lot of movement from the crowd.

It’s been four years since New York death metal powerhouse Immolation graced UK shores and it’s like déjà vu as that too was in support of Marduk. It might be all genial banter with the crowd between tracks but when it comes to it this band can dish out an arse-kicking. As with every performance of theirs, the group are as tight as the nun’s … Read More

Oscar Karlsson 1976 – 2016

On March 4 the Swedish death metal band Gates Of Ishtar posted on their Facebook page: “It is with much sadness and regret that we have learned that our drummer and friend Oscar Karlsson has passed away at the age of 39. Words cannot express how we feel. Oscar was a fantastic human being and a great friend and he will be dearly missed.”

It is currently unclear and undisclosed what happened but the extreme music scene has lost a great drumming talent at such a young age. Oscar first came onto the worldwide album scene as a teenager with Gates Of Ishtar and played on two of their three albums that were released very close together in the mid to late ’90s; the 1996 debut ‘A Bloodred Path’ and the band’s third and final album before they prematurely broke up, 1998’s ‘At Dusk And Forever’. The band’s debut is regarded by many as one of the finest examples of melodic Swedeath, mixing the razor sharp riffing and melodies much like their countrymen Dissection, At The Gates and Unanimated with the galloping heavy metal and harmonies of classic Maiden with Oscar’s impressive drumming driving the songs along. All … Read More