Category Archives: Long Distance Runners

BLACK OATH: A totally different approach

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Black Oath!

Italy’s Black Oath is a band that I feel haven’t really got the attention they truly deserve. Their 2013 release “Of Qliphoth And Darkness” was a fine piece of melodic doom metal, gaining a lot of playing time at my house. The band’s new album, “To Below And Beyond” was released on CD-format last month, and shows a more diverse sound, keeping the best parts from the past, and adding some new and fresh elements which give even more diversity and dynamics to the songs. Vocalist and nowadays also bass player A. Th gave us a pretty interesting update on the band. Continue reading →

WARLOK: A form of escape and exploration

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Warlok who? you might ask. If it was spelled with a “c”, I am pretty sure everyone would have known that we were in for a piece on the now defunct German act fronted by Doro, but Warlok is something completely different. As it is now, this one man project has released a demo, available on tape only so far, through Swords And Chains. As a writer you’ll often wonder which band member will turn up to answer your questions, in this case it was no other choice than let Matt Edwards do the talking.

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HORACLE: A kind of magic

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Promo Shoot

Most of the time I try to help the bands by having the interview published when their new album is released, but when it comes to Belgium’s Horacle, things turned out a bit differently. An agreement to do this piece was in place several months ago, but I really struggled to find the time to finish my questions. Luckily, everything came together in the end, and singer Terry Fire as well as bass player L. Sabathan did a pretty good job by answering my questions.  Continue reading →

STEELWING: A fresh start

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After a flying start with the debut album ”Lord Of The Wasteland” and a chance to perform at Keep It True in 2010, things looked really bright for Steelwing. Unfortunately, the follow up, “Zone Of Alienation” wasn’t as strong, and things seemed  slow down a bit for the young Swedes.  I hooked up with guitarist Alex Vega, and ask him if he feels things took off a bit too fast with the debut… Continue reading →

MAGIC CIRCLE: Good music promotes itself

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With their self titled debut, Magic Circle from Massachusetts in the US, managed to gain a lot of interest in doom and traditional heavy metal-circles almost three years ago. It didnt make things less interesting when three of the same musicans released the brilliant Stone Dagger-demotape later the same year. Metal Squadron hooked up with with Magic Circle’s Chris Corry to discuss the band’s mighty fine new opus “Journey Blind.  Continue reading →

BLACK TRIP: A Malcolm rather than an Angus

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Black Trip turned a lot of people’s heads with their awesome debut album, “Going Under”. In this lengthy interview with main man Peter Stjärnvind you’ll get most of the details on the material that constituted the first album, songs that Peter had been working on for years on his own, before he had a real band to play with. Of course you’ll also get all the essential details on the brand new album “Shadowline”, which is more of a band effort, with most of the members involved in the songwriting.

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MAGISTER TEMPLI: “We want to sound underground”

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The statistics really speak for themselves. So far I’ve done something like a hundred interviews for Metal Squadron, and Magister Templi is only the second one conducted with a Norwegian band. Okay, so a real traditional metal scene never existed in this country, apart from a few bands during the eighties, but seeing how our neighbours in Sweden produce one great band after the other, its really a mystery why something decent can’t come out of Norway anymore. Magister Templi has already shown a lot of promise with their first few releases, the EP “Iao Sabao!” and the full length “Lucifer Leviathan Logos”, but their brand new one “Into Duat” is definitely a step up in my opinion.
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STEREO NASTY: Do or die

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In a time where the majority of new heavy metal-acts seem to rehash NWOBHM or mid eighties European metal, it’s refreshing to hear a band like Stereo Nasty. They might not be bringing anything new to the table either, but the mix of heavy metal with and powerful hard rock, is so seldomly done these days that the promo the band sent me really stood out. I caught up guitarist Adrian Foley to get the full story on this promising Irish newcomer. Continue reading →

LUNAR SHADOW: Shadows are spreading

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Lunar Shadow

While things are on the rise again now when we’re closing in on the autumn, this summer was pretty quiet when it came to new and interesting releases. One band that caught my attention was the German newcomer Lunar Shadows who put out a promising EP all on their own. A couple of spins was enough for me, the pure metal sound was right up my alley. I didn’ t hesitate and contacted the band’s main man Max “Savage” Birbaum who acted very professionally and put a lot of effort into answering my questions.

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ZODIAC: No bullshit heavy metal

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IMG_2378A few of you have probably noticed the stream of the excellent new EP “Stone Command” by Zodiac, the heavy/doom metal outfit from Brisbane, Australia. If you haven’t checked out those three tracks yet, go here and listen to them straight away. The EP is also just released on tape by the ever reliable Heavy Chains, if you prefer to have it on some kind of physical format.  I guess there are more people than me who don’t know a lot about this promising act, so I hooked up with a couple of the members, mainly guitarist Leo, but singer Ben also popped in with a few answer, to learn about the past, present and future in the Zodiac-camp.

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TERMINUS: Substance over hype

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As most of the regular readers have  probably noticed by now, I was offered the chance to stream one of the very best metal albums released this year here at Metal Squadron. The album in question is of course “The Reaper’s Spiral”, from Terminus, soon to be released on CD by Stormspell and on vinyl and tape format by Horror Records. Continue reading →

SIN STARLETT: Hard’n heavy

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It’s all a bit predictable, isn’t ìt? A band releases an album, and since they want to promote it as good as they possibly can, they say “yes” when you approach them about an interview.  Sometimes it makes things more interesting when you are able to break out of this pattern and do an interview when a band is at a different stage in the process. This is exactly what happened this time around, as I approached  Sin Starlett in the wake of the release of their very impressive vinyl single. Continue reading →

STARBORN: Practice is the key

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Starborn - Regular I have to admit I wasn’t too impressed by “Born By The Wind”, the debut demo from Starborn, the Newcastle outfit formed back in 2012. When I heard the preview track, “Triumphant Resolve” from the forthcoming EP “The Dreaming City”, things really changed. I was astonished to hear how much the band had improved. The vocals, the general performance, the songwriting…Pretty much everything was two steps above the demo. Continue reading →

RAVEN: Do or die

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Raven were extremely important for me developing an interest for the whole NWOBHM-movement during the late eighties. I remember buying the rather suspect sampler “The Devil’s Carrion” on vinyl for as little as five dollars, and also recall how impressed I was with the quality of the songs. Continue reading →

HERZEL: An anthem to Brittany

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  Herzel3Herzel is a new band from the region of Brittany in France, and like most good French acts, they use their native language. Their first demo, “Unis Dans La Gloire” was released earlier this year, and we invited one of the guitarists in the band, Kevin Le Vern to shed a little light on the history of Herzel as well as the recent developments in the band in the wake of the demo-release. Continue reading →

CRYPT SERMON: Territory to be explored

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So far, the highlight of 2015 when it comes to epic doom metal, surely belongs to Crypt Sermon. What this Philadelphia-based quintet has achieved on their first full length release, “Out Of The Garden”, is nothing but impressive. Metal Squadron got in conctact with guitarist Steve Jansson to get more information on the band and the new album. Continue reading →

“RETALIATOR/VIGILANCE” PT 2: Gatekeeper

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I hope some of you took the time to read the first part of this special about the newly released split featuring Eternal Champion and Gatekeeper. This second part focuses on the the Canadians in Gatekeeper. Judged by the quality of the new material on this release as well as the forthcoming split with Funeral Circle, the guys have taken huge strides since we last caught up with them here at Metal Squadron, when the EP “Prophecy And Judgement” was released. As always, guitarist Jeff Black is the one answering our questions, and you can always count on him putting his heart into it. Continue reading →

“RETALIATOR/VIGILANCE” PT 1: Eternal Champion

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eternal champion1Similar to the feature I did when Convixion and Wrathblade released their split-EP “Alive Aftershock” via Eat Metal towards the end of 2013, I decided to hook up with Eternal Champion and Gatekeeper to discuss both bands contribution to the recently released “Retaliator/Vigilance”-split on No Remorse Records. This first part, focuses on Eternal Champion, and all the questions are answered by singer Jason Tarpey. Continue reading →

SACRAL RAGE: Songs like illusions

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It’s early days, but Sacral Rage might well be the underground heavy metal sensation of 2015. Even though the quartet showed great promise with their EP “Deadly Bits Of Iron Fragments” released back in 2013, the brand new full length, titled “Ilusions In Infinite Void”, due out at the end of this month through Cruz Del Sur is even more intricate and mature. Continue reading →

TEUTON: Dirty and dusty

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Alongside the established acts that we featured quite a few of lately, the main idea behind Metal Squadron is to give exposure to new and upcoming acts. Having only released a promo tape containing two tracks, Australia’s Teuton is probably a new acquaintance to many, but judging from the quality of the material, the band, featuring a couple of members currently also in Outcast, needs to be followed. Singer and guitarist Jake gives you everything you need to know about this promising act.   Continue reading →