Iron Fist Magazine

FEN INTERVIEW: “WE RAISED THE PROFILE OF UK-BASED BLACK METAL FROM A LAUGHING STOCK INTO SOMETHING THAT HAS REAL ARTISTIC MERIT”

2012 is dead and gone, and by the time you read this, it’ll be as distant a memory as the trees who met their doom to give this story life. It was a good year for a lot of things, and a terrible one for others, of course (the passage of time is funny like that), but, to abandon the bigger picture and hunker down into our black metal bunkers for a few hundred more words, it’s been a goddamn fantastic year for the strange little beast known as British black metal. After years of enduring the dread goblin king Dani Filth’s stranglehold on the title, a good number of UK lads got their collective shit together and released a bumper crop of killer jams that roved from Winterfylleth’s grandiose Northern sagas and White Medal’s crippling Yorkshire steel down into Anaal Nathrakh’s Brummie madhouse and further into smoke with the return of London’s grimiest, Necrosadistic Goat Torture. Toss in Wodensthrone, Code and A Forest of Stars, and Blighty’s not doing too poorly. Now that said banner year has ended, one’s holding onto the hope that the trend will continue to bear fruit, and thanks to the Southern boys in Fen, … Read More

ENFORCER INTERVIEW: “WE ARE MORE EXTREME THAN ANY OTHER BAND”

There’s a particular type of scream in heavy metal that sends shivers down the spine. It’s a key signifier – like a yell from beyond that acts like a clarion call to all heavy metal heathens. If you have the scream all is good in the world. Halford had it – he was the king of the sustained “yeaaaahhhhh”. Dio, Kiske, Adams – hell, even Deceptor who are featured elsewhere in this issue have the scream. It’s up there with the Tom G “OOH”. The “yeah” in ‘Number Of The Beast’ takes some beating, but 27 seconds into brand new single ‘Mesmerised By Fire’ by Swedish leather boys Enforcer and we’re won over. We’re home. There’s something so comforting about that high-pitched cry of determination. Fuck the world. We are heavy metal. We are strong.

There’s always that fear of the new. It’s not a worry that’s left only to the metal tribes, all groups of music fan have it we’re sure, but it’s maybe moreso in heavy metal because it’s a love born of passion and, yes, we’ll admit it, ownership; so when a band you’ve loved since you heard their demo in 2006, and who you’ve made a pact … Read More

ASOMVEL INTERVIEW: “WE’VE GOT A BUNCH OF SONGS READY THAT WILL BLOW YOUR DICKS OFF”

Forming in 1993, it took Yorkshire, UK’s traditional metal mob ASOMVEL 16 years to put out their debut full-length, but 2009’s ‘KAMIKAZE’ was the attack British metal needed. Four years on and the band are not resting and in the wake of the death of founding frontman JAY-JAY WINTER they are fired up and ready for their next onslaught. 

Forming in the early 1990s and almost adopting the name The Hairy Mary’s, Songs Of Praise were never really on the agenda for this Yorkshire outfit. Luckily the band conceived by Lenny Robinson and Jay-Jay Winter chose the less hirsute moniker of Asomvel and another classic UK heavy metal group slowly emerged. Asomvel, which actually has no significant meaning, saw a band with no real goals or direction forming from humble origins as Lenny reflects: “I asked Jay if he wanted to start a band, ‘cos I got on with him. He was the coolest bloke in town and we seemed to have the same attitude to things. I was gonna play bass (‘cos I had one) and Jay was gonna sing and we were gonna have two guitarists. Of course, nobody else was interested, so Jay ended up with the bass … Read More

INTO BATTLE: CHAPEL OF DISEASE

We wanted to make plain death metal with some doom influences,” says Chapel Of Disease singer Laurent Teubl matter-of-factly. “We wanted to make the sort of music that we would listen to at home and that only few still do. We missed that old Tampa sound, where death metal was still very close to aggressive thrash and it didn’t have to be clean or technical. [We wanted to] summon the ancient gods of death metal.”

It would seem that Cologne, Germany based death cult Chapel Of Disease are not only using their sound to summon the ancient gods of death metal, but also their moniker, which appears to be a mash-up of Morbid Angel’s “Chapel Of Ghouls” and “Angel Of Disease” – arguably two of the greatest death metal songs ever written.

“I think it isn’t to deny that somehow we threw those two song titles together,” Laurent laughs. “But I think it’s a good band name, since it is nothing complicated. It gets stuck in one’s head easily. ‘Altars Of Madness’ is an all-time favourite for the whole band. It’s an amazing album that easily beats the aggression and madness of many later recorded black metal albums… It simply is and … Read More

Latest Issue

Facebook