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

“The funny thing is that I’m not even a doom fan at heart! I’ve been playing in bands since 1987 in many different sub-genres but somehow the only ones who really had an impact were in the doom category. But believe me, Satan’s Wrath is a whole different beast!” Indeed, less than a minute into debut album ‘Galloping Blasphemy’, ‘Show No Mercy’ era Slayer, Bathory and early Celtic Frost spring to mind more than Black Sabbath’s heavy stampede and samples of rainfall and thunder in the distance. But such expectations are understandable, because besides having impressive facial tattoos, it’s with bands falling into that doom category – first, with the short-lived but awesome Great Coven and Eight Hands Of Kali and then with Electric Wizard – that the Greek-born Taz Danazoglou really made a name for himself.

Despite being spawned right after his exit from the Wiz, Satan’s Wrath is not just a way for him to reconnect with his roots though. “I’ve been playing in bands for a quarter of a century so I didn’t even considered stopping now,” Taz says. “I was always first and foremost a heavy and thrash fan so I wanted to pay tribute to the metal from … Read More