Majestic hard rock from Tasmania. Not a description we use very often! Formed in 2011, Tarot released three cassette EPs during 2014 and then in 2015 these songs – including two new ones – were compiled for ‘The Warrior’s Spell’ album. “We don’t consider it to be a full-length album, rather a look at the all the band’s output up until that point”, says frontman Will Fried, AKA The Hermit, who also happens to be the owner of Heavy Chains Records.

According to him, the mystical names behind the band, such as The Hermit, The Hierophant and The Magician are taken from tarot card suites and they chose to use pseudonyms so that the listener focuses entirely on the music they play, rather than who is playing it.

Musically, Tarot wants to capture the same mystical atmosphere created by bands like Rainbow, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash et al, all the while putting their own spin on things. “I think we have our own sound that incorporates these elements”, The Hermit believes, but words are also important. “In my opinion the lyrics of Tarot are better left to the listener to interpret in their own way, as for me they are … Read More

One of our favourite new bands of 2015, Saturn, have released their first video for ‘Rokktori’.

The song came from their debut album ‘Ascending (Live In Space), which came out earlier this year on Rise Above Records.

The band said on their Facebook page: “We’re releasing our first music video soon. We released the album last summer but fuck it, better late than never right?”

In issue 12, Iron Fist writer Marek Steven described the Swedish band as “Not a carbon copy of the multitude of other new bands repeating the heavy metal blueprint, Saturn have the chops to back up their groove and swagger”.

The band told us that “We are Saturn. We play Space Metal! We share the same passion for old school rock ‘n’ roll and heavy metal, primarily from the ’70s, but also older progressive rock and thrash. Firstly, we are friends and a band second, it’s all about having fun.”

Of the album, bass player Oscar Bo Valentine Pehrson said of the title: “It is semi-live. All instruments are recorded live in one take. ‘Live In Space’ is a bit of hint of this and a small joke on our part. Like I said, its all about having fun. However, I would not have anything against … Read More

If you’re looking for a name that’s synonymous with heavy metal in its purest, boldest and most untrammelled form, you could do a lot worse than Jag Panzer. Having taken their name from a mis-spelling of a German World War II tank, this titanic troupe’s landmark 1984 album ‘Ample Destruction’ LP stands proud to this day as a deathless pinnacle of heroic sturm-und-drang, bombastic glory and razor-sharp attack, and whilst the Colorado Springs-birthed bezerkers’ history has been filled with more than its fair share of ups and downs in the 30 plus years since, their admirable strike-rate clearly makes them far from one-album-wonders. This is a band who’ve quietly carried one of the greatest singers in the whole genre, Harry Conklin, in their ranks – how many of us wanted to see him replace Bruce Dickinson following his departure from Maiden in 1993? Not to mention Shrapnel shred-legend Joey Tafolla and Megadeth axeman, Chris Broderick. What’s more, despite some recent bad news, there is thankfully no breakup on the horizon. Mark Briody, Jag Panzer’s guitarist and founding member was kind enough to tell us more about both their history and their current plans, while we also caught up with the … Read More

With the Germany heavy metal titans coming to London tonight for an incredible show at The Kentish Town Forum with the mighty NWOBHM survivors Hell, we dug up this snippet of an interview from Iron Fist #8 where we celebrated 30 years of being ‘Balls To The Wall’

There’s a moment near the end of the post-apocalyptic video for Accept’s breakthrough hit ‘Balls To The Wall’, right at the moment the song’s climactic bridge kicks in, when suddenly a massive gust of wind whips the hair of the band and rain starts pelting the camera lens. For a song already so thunderous, it’s a perfect moment, so much so that one could be led to believe it was choreographed, but as it happens, it was all just a stroke of luck. Frigid, frigid luck. “It was miserably cold,” says guitarist Wolf Hoffmann, speaking on the phone from his home in Nashville, chuckling about the lengths the German band would go to make an impression on the public. “It was in the fall, might have been November, that time of year when it’s wicked cold. Of course we had to wear all the cool outfits on the stage, the leather pants. And we … 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

“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

Making it to three decades for any band is a rarity, but when you’ve had to overcome near-death experiences, small-town bullying and worse of all, the grunge boom, 30 years is most definitely something to celebrate. Louise Brown talks to the queen of survival about how there’s 30 more years in her yet

When did you first discover your passion for music? Doro: “I was three-years-old. The first real experience that totally got me hooked was Little Richard’s ‘Lucille’. That song was so high energy. When I listened to it I thought, ‘I want to do that, I want to sing’. Later I had some contact with some older boys. They had posters of Alice Cooper, Sweet, Slade, T-Rex. I was always singing along to their hard rock records and they thought it was very funny. I was screaming my heart out, I could really yell. They were shocked, they said, ‘Wow, how can a little girl make that noise?’. I was fascinated with all the guys with long hair, like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and the glam rock. And then there was Suzi Quatro, the first girl I heard, I loved her. Metal didn’t exist and when I was 15 then … Read More

“I was inspired by something that happened to us and made me conclude that everything you do has a consequence. If you do bad things, bad things will come your way. If you can’t take responsibility for your decisions, you become a victim of yourself.” Brazil’s Nervosa believe karma is a bitch and won’t blame anyone but themselves for life’s outcomes. It’s a philosophy that bassist/vocalist Fernanda Lira treasures and has made the dominant theme of debut album, ‘Victim Of Yourself’. Though, when you consider the stigma that unfortunately still follows the phrase ‘all-female band’ and their hailing from a country whose geography and infrastructure isolates them from the epicentres of metal business, Nervosa know they’ll have to work twice as hard to expose half as many people to their fiery thrash. Good thing they’re not afraid of a little elbow grease.

Both Lira and guitarist Prika Amaral (drummer Pitchu Ferraz completes the line-up) tell familiar tales of making developmental leaps from Maiden and Sabbath to Metallica and Slayer before becoming obsessed with “old-school American and German thrash.” They played in various São Paulo bands before stumbling upon on each other and the idea of getting rid of the figurative, and literal, … Read More

Blazing a burning path in the ‘80s, LEATHER LEONE fronted bands like Rude Girl, Malibu Barbi and the mighty CHASTAIN. But after a 12 year break, where she felt side-lined by the over-sexualised music industry, she’s back with a vengeance and SARAH KITTERINGHAM finds out that the reign of Leather is still going strong…

Chastain could have been, but sure as shit should not be, one of those bands consigned to the “who the hell is that?” bin. Lead by guitarist, songwriter and “guitar god” David T Chastain, they blasted through the ‘80s, combining classic heavy metal with the driving, melodic, anthem qualities of power metal. Fronted by the snarling Leather Leone – whose style is oddly comparable to Metal Church’s David Wayne – the band lost their footing in the early ‘90s. Tired of working her ass off and not seeing results, Leone departed. The band’s bassist and drummer followed suit. Although new members rounded out the lineup, the magic was gone and over the next two decades, Chastain releases were sadly sub-standard.

Then something changed, and Chastain has now returned in a classic guise: Leather is back from her self-imposed musical exile, bassist Mike Skimmerhorn has returned, and Mr David … Read More

‘CHASING THE DREAM’ might be the name of their new album, but SKULL FIST  singer JACKIE SLAUGHTER has been living the dream since he moved to the big city of Toronto from his hick-town home aged 19. Yeah, he may have broken a few bones along the way but is showing no signs of slowing…

“I tried to do this handrail, and I hadn’t skated in a while so I somehow thought I was better than I was. I snapped a bone in my neck, right where it holds onto your head… Man, people always make that sound when I tell them.”

Fuck. Of all the hardcore things we’ve written about in Iron Fist that’s gotta be one of the grimmest, but we deserve it, after all we did ask the question; “So what exactly happened to delay the latest Skull Fist album?”

In true, care-free (some might say careless) abandon, Skull Fist founder, frontman and guitarist Jackie Slaughter is doing this interview by phone, while biking to work. “Biking, as in Motorbiking?” He laughs; “C’mon, I don’t have a motorbike. I hurt myself skateboarding, imagine a motorbike!”

Still, we’re not sure health and safety killjoys would recommend cycling while being interviewed, especially in downtown … Read More