Danish sinister hard rockers Demon Head are about to unleash their second full-length album ‘Thunder On The Fields’ via The Sign Records and Caligari Records (it will also be available via Crypt Of The Wizard in London!). Their sound is a marvellously memorable mix of rockin’ riffing, Danzig-esque vocals and heady hooks, which will embed themselves into your memory, plus there’s an occult, organic nod to the past without sounding like a retro throwback. Their upcoming album has already caught the attention of Darkthrone drummer Fenriz, who recently made them a band of the week, and they’re set to turn more heads. We caught up with the band to find out more about this still quite mysterious musical entity.

You have a new album due out soon, what’s up with that? B.G.N (guitar): You can expect a very generous and honest record that mostly take use of guitars, bass, drums, voice and words as instruments of expression. M.S.F (bass): Real music for real people.

Are you chuffed with the end result?. M.F.L (vocals): Yes, as Birk says it has been a lot of hard work; recording it ourselves, making the artwork (luckily with help for the final layout part). We are perfectionists about the songwriting and … Read More

German doom rockers Naevus came back this summer with a new album via Bandcamp (and Meta Matter Records), their first since their debut album ‘Sun Meditation’ was released on Lee Dorrian’s Rise Above Records 17 years ago. We got in touch with frontman Uwe Groebel to find out about the new album and what happened to cause the band to split up soon after the release of the debut.

Hi Uwe, Naevus is back with a new album, please tell the readers a bit about your new recording? “Since the release in August we’ve been very pleased with reactions. People seem to like it a lot. It’s a very strong doom metal/rock album, maybe with a slight pop appeal, if I might say that. Some times very melodic. Each song is different in structure and we tried to be creative on this. All in all, it felt so good to write and record as four friends who were together again after so many years. We had a lot of fun.”

This is your first album since the 1998 debut, what are your feelings about that album looking back? “On my side I couldn’t listen to the album for a very long … Read More

As the celebrated Geordie folk song ‘The Lambton Worm’ kicks off; “Whisht! lads, haad yor gobs, I’ll tell ye aal an aaful story”.

Or for those of us who don’t speak Geordie, the awful story we’re asking you to hold your mouths for concerns an early-‘80s period in which the North-East was an epicentre for a shockwave of pulse-racing Heavy Metal whose influence can still be felt in extremis some thirty-five years on. Whereas The Lambton Worm was a mythical beast that rose to terrorise the North-East, a certain strain of terror was spawned in just such territory by three Tyne & Wear lads ripping apart the metal rulebook in search of shocks, horror and glory galore. This band, of course, was VENOM, and in this issue Iron Fist talk to Cronos on a four-decade mission of life as a blasphemous iconoclast and full-throttle Black Metal bezerker.

What’s more, we travel back in time to the dawn of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal to chart the roots of NEAT RECORDS, harking back to an era in which the upstairs of a bingo hall in Wallsend was the launchpad for a strain of supercharged audial aggro that would inspire a generation. … Read More

It’s increasingly hard for this life-long psych-doom obsessive to get excited about new bands, but the new generation is starting to spin some interesting tales. One such act is Sussex space rock three-piece Riddles. There is a definite garage-psych vibe going on with catchy raw fuzz leads cutting through some very British vocal delivery. It’s refreshing stuff. “We are definitely influenced by our own sound,” fills in charismatic mainman Jimi Riddle. “But there are some key bands that brought us to find it, like Hawkwind, Stooges, Motörhead, early Sabbath, Pentagram and Orang-utan. But it doesn’t end there, there are so many great genres and powerful bands to come out of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, it’s almost impossible to list every band that made us create the vibe we have.” The broad range of influences seems to have allowed them to create a distinct sound thus far, but are they part-timers or ambitious chaps? “We all put a lot of time and effort into this band and I think we all believe in it as its own entity. You get back what you put in and so we’re putting a lot into it. It’s like a plant, we’re giving it … Read More

“Everything’s good, everything’s fine” so sang Ian Gillan in 1971. And everything’s still good if North Carolinian, dark riffing, blue collar, horror novel rockers Demon Eye are anything to go by. Taking their name from that Deep Purple song, Paul Walz (bass), Bill Eagen (drums), Larry Burlison (guitars) and Erik Sugg (guitars, vocals) play laid-back, bluesy hard rock with more than a nod to their forebears, putting them alongside Orchid and Danava in today’s contemporary scene.

“I was playing with a high energy, MC5 inspired band called the Dragstrip Syndicate. After that I played with some similar styled bands, always tending to borrow from ‘60s Detroit rock or heavy psych groups like Blue Cheer,” explains Erik of how Demon Eye came to be. “When I first met Larry and Bill they were playing with Richard Bacchus from the old New York City rock band, D-generation. Demon Eye was born after the four of us got together to play in a ‘70s rock cover band called Corvette Summer. After about a year of playing tunes by groups like Budgie, UFO and Humble Pie we started writing our own music.

“There are many things that attract me to this music,” he continues of why … Read More

25 years in the making, PENTAGRAM CHILE, are finally ready to unleash their debut album, and it’s made the wait all worth while and a true contender for death metal album of the year. OLIVIER ‘ZOLTAR’ BADIN meets ANTON REISENEGGER to find out what took so long…

Anton Reisenegger is a man that loves to defy time. Even if like most of his contemporaries he first picked up a guitar in his early teens, a couple of years later his penpals were riding high the wave of extreme metal and being sent overseas to record with fancy producers while he was struggling just to do gigs in his own country, let alone do an actual album. It was only at the turn of the century, when his now fully grown compadres were starting to drop the ball that he, on the other hand, was finally starting to reap the harvest of what he had sown. And now 44 years old and a family man living in the south of Spain, he’s never been busier. Although Criminal, his main priority in the early 2000s, has been put “on ice” until further notice, he’s been replacing the late Jesse Pintado in the international … Read More

If you’ve been paying any attention to the bludgeoning South American underground there is a fair chance you’ll be able to name one or two Chilean black or death metal bands such as Pentagram, Death Yell, Force Of Darkness or Unaussprechlichen Kulten. But heavy metal warriors? Okay, we’re stumped. “It’s true that the genre has always been under-represented over here,” agrees Metal Grave‘s bass player Christopher Falk. “In the ’80s there was only Tumulto, Feedback, Panzer or Vastator to speak of. Then later on Inquisicion, but that’s about it. But, even though there are few of us, each one is unique and very dedicated!”

Formed in 2010 by the two guitar players of local thrash heroes Sacrilegio and influenced by “Mercyful Fate, Iron Maiden and Running Wild”, but also more obscure doom outfits, after two demos in 2011 and 2012, they’re about to release their debut full-length ‘The Eternal Flame Of Deception’, a seven tracker that includes a re-recording of their nearly ten minute epic ‘Journey Into The Unknown’. A conceptual album inspired by Dante’s ‘Inferno’, it tells the story of “one crusader knight, led by Richard Lionheart, who dies on the battlefield. However, unlike all his beliefs, he wakes up … Read More

It may be a common thing in jazz or blues circles but there’s no precedent for it in heavy metal. We’re talking about a 56 year old musician putting out his debut LP, more than four decades after he first picked up an instrument. Bedemon, which initially started as a Pentagram offshoot in 1973, finally release their first proper album ‘Symphony Of Shadows’ this year and it means much, much more to drummer Geof O’Keefe than simply making his childhood dreams come true. It’s the culmination of ten years of hard work and grief, his way of staying true to a promise he made to a dear friend whose only passions in life were horror movies and playing guitar. Alas, Bedemon’s founder and one-time Pentagram guitarist Randy Palmer died in tragic car accident on August 8, 2002, four months after he, Geof and bass player Mike Matthews recorded the basic tracks of what would become, a decade later, ‘Symphony of Shadows’. Iron Fist talked to Geof about the sadness and the story behind one of metal’s forgotten bands.

Last time we spoke, it was in 2002, to promote Pentagram’s ‘First Daze Here’ compilation. Back then, you revealed that Pentagram’s alter-ego Bedemon … Read More