Category Archives: Long Distance Runners

BATTLEROAR: The Swords Are Drawn

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Albums like Slough Feg’s  creative “Digital Resistance”, the  melodic bliss of “The Awakening” by Dark Forest or Nocturnal’s relentless ”Storming Evil” are all among the early highlights of 2014, but come April 25th, and they are all surpassed by Battleroar’s new opus, the magnificent “Blood Of Legends”. A more than good enough reason to hook up with guitarist and original member Kostas Tzortzis for a chat about the new album, the new singer and all the latest happenings within and around the band since “To Death And Beyond” was released. Continue reading →

BELOW: Drinking Tea With The Devil

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Below, from Nyköping in Sweden made securing a record deal look easy, as the band received an offer from Metal Blade after the band’s very first demo last year. I phoned bass player Andreas Hedman to talk about this, and of course the band’s debut album, “Across The Dark River”.  Continue reading →

RABID BITCH OF THE NORTH: From the kennel to the castle

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I’ve always found it very interesting trying to cover the acts that not many apart from maybe the inner circle of fans in their hometown know a lot about. I guess Rabid Bitch Of The North from Belfast in Northern-Ireland fits this description. The band has just issued a three track tape through Sarlacc, and fortunately, guitarist Gerry Mulholland put a lot of effort into answering my questions, making this the in depth feature I wanted it to be. Continue reading →

COBRA: Venomous heavy metal

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Good timing or bad timing? I am not really sure, but the fact is that the day after I put the finishing touches to this interview, the news that Cobra had secured a deal with the quality label Ván Records, reached me. Of course I am happy for the band, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to discuss what must be a big triumph and maybe also a huge surprise for the Peruvian quintet. Continue reading →

NOCTURNAL: Unholy thrash

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The new Nocturnal-album “Storming Evil” really took me by surprise. Don’t misunderstand me, I enjoyed the stuff I heard from the band in the past as well, but this new one, the band’s first for High Roller, really made an impression with it’s extremely high level of aggression and energy combined with the bands ability to pen great songs. Continue reading →

METAL INQUISITOR: New album, new label

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Metal_Inquisitor_BandWelcome to another interview, this time with the mighty Metal Inquisitor, surely one of the best German bands of the last fifteen years. The whole band, apart from drummer Havoc that is, sat down together to give us all the relevant information on their brand new album “Ultima Ratio Regis”, out on Massacre now. Continue reading →

SPEEDTRAP: Heavy metal thunder

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I worked hard preparing the questions for this interview back in August 2013, but unfortunately never heard back from the band. A week or two back, half a year later, the answers finally reached me. Completely out of the blue, I would say.

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SLOUGH FEG: The war against technology

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sloughfeg1largeI’ve done a couple on Slough Feg for Scream Magazine, but only once before have I been able to do it via phone. This time I called Mike to speak mainly about the new album, “Digital Resistance”. Continue reading →

LUCIFER’S HAMMER: Power and passion

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lhammerA few really splendid demos have been unleashed lately, it’s enough to mention names like Stone Dagger and The Unholy. Chiles’ Lucifer’s Hammer, formed by brothers in metal as well as by blood, Rodrigo and Andre, also sprung onto the scene late last year with their very impressive tape only-demo.   Continue reading →

ALIVE AFTERSHOCK PT 2: Wrathblade – Aftershock

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wrathbladeThis is part two of a feature based around the split-EP “Alive Aftershock”, released by Eat Metal towards the end of last year, containing one self composed tune and a cover song by Greek comrades in metal, Convixion and Wrathblade. To celebrate this release, I decided to hook up with both bands to discuss the split as well as future plans. Continue reading →

ALIVE AFTERSHOCK PT 1: Convixion – Alive

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convixionThis feature is based around the split-EP “Alive Aftershock”, released by Eat Metal towards the end of last year, containing one self composed tune and a cover song by Greek comrades in metal, Convixion and Wrathblade. To celebrate this release, I decided to hook up with both bands to discuss both the split as well as future plans. Continue reading →

CRUSADER: Not only about war

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Crusader, picture1Just like the recently covered Blade Killer, Chicago’s own Crusader is a relatively new heavy metal-band that has been given the chance to spread their music in physical format through one of the most hyperactive labels out there, Stormspell Records. While Blade Killer just put out their first EP, Crusader released theirs a couple of years ago. Right now, they’re ready to unleash their debut full length on the heavy metal audience. Continue reading →

DARK FOREST: Nature as inspiration

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DarkForest_Photo2The first part of this feature consists of an interview I conducted with main man Christian Horton in September 2011. I decided to include it for a couple of reasons. It has never been published online before, it covers many aspects of the time around and between the releases of the band’s self titled debut and the follow up “Dawn Of Infinity” and it’s also a damn good read, due to Christians interesting and in depth answers even when my questions turned just a little bit critical. Continue reading →

REALMBUILDER: Building worlds

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Ever since Realmbuilder released their first album, “Summon The Stone Throwers” during the spring of 2009, I have considered the band to be something really unique in today’s heavy metal scene. Call them epic metal, call them doom metal, or call them heavy metal, it really doesn’t matter, as long as the duo, consisting of Czar and JH Halberd continues to carve out their own path, far away from most contemporary acts. Continue reading →

CRUXITER: No noisy guitar tones

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Crux1Just like the last band I featured, Cromlech, Texas based Cruxiter is an up and coming act who has just released their debut album. As many bands had to do during the nineties, when traditional metal really went underground, Cruxiter has put out their album on their own, without the support of a label. Continue reading →

CROMLECH: The Face Of Canadian Heavy Metal

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Cromlech-bildeCromlech out of Canada just released their first album through Italy’s My Graveyard Records. The band is far from the finished article yet, but the strong self confidence they seemingly possess as well as their desire to do things their own way, resulting in a quite original form of epic metal, are reasons good enough to warrant a feature here at Metal Squadron. The five guys gathered at band practice to answer my questions.  Continue reading →

BLITZKRIEG: A Full On British Metal Band

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What a year 2013 must have been for Brian Ross. Not only was “Life Sentence”, the comeback album from Satan  (go to the bottom of the page to check out the long interview I did with Steve Ramsey) released to rave reviews, the charismatic and highly original singer also managed to put out the first Blitzkrieg album in six years.  We’ll touch on both subjects in this interview of course, along with Metallica, Judas Priest and the new compilation album. Continue reading →

RAVENSIRE: Passionate And Raw

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(Photo: Luis Jordão) Just when I thought it was pretty safe to think about relaxing in front of the stereo with this year’s finest offerings of heavy metal, Portugal’s Ravensire unleashes a beast of an album on Eat Metal Records. In my opinion, “We March Forward” is a huge improvement on the “Iron Will”-EP, with new singer Rick Thor adding more power and aggression to the band’s sound.  Continue reading →

ARGUS: The full story

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With their blend of seventies hard rock, heavy metal and doom metal, Argus out of Pennsylvanias in the US has established themselves as one of the finest new bands to grace the scene during the last five years.

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THE UNHOLY: A Chain Of Savage Warriors

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TU1Seemingly out of nowhere rises The Unholy, another promising Portuguese act, following great newer bands like Ironsword, Ravensire and Midnight Priest. However, apart from sharing some members with the latter, The Unholy doesn’t have much in common musically with the aforementioned acts, as they have a sound that is close to the more melodic US metal bands from the second half of the eighties. Continue reading →