With “The Reaper’s Spiral”, one of the strongest albums released in 2015, Terminus debuted with a bang. Packed with powerful epic metal, the album surprised a lot of people. In the wake of the album’s release, the band also built a reputation as a convincing live act, but something wasn’t quite right, and in October 2017, the news broke that the band had quit performing live. Continue reading
Metal Squadron was one of the very first medias to feature Lunar Shadow when the band put out the EP “Triumphator. However, we never got around to do an interview when «Far From Light» was released, so let’s start there. How do Max, guitarist and main man, view this album today, a couple of years after its release?
As documented very well on the recent, excellent compilation, “Trapped Under Ice”, the Canadian scene is really vital at the moment. While they’re not represented on that particular release, Smoulder is one of the bands leading the charge, catching many people’s attention with their “The Sword Woman”-demo, released on tape and as a 7″ vinyl through Hoove Child Records last year. With their first album out on Cruz Del Sur, wonderfully titled “Times Of Obscene Evil And Wild Daring”, pretty much the whole band gathered to answer Our questions.
“The Poisoner” is here, the follow up to the highly acclaimed “A Funeral For The World”, and it’s pretty natural to get in contact with the New York-based trio for a chat about the past as well as the new offering. All members of the band, Jeremy (guitar), Erica (vocals and bass) and Nathan (drums) that is, contributed to this feature. Continue reading
Traveler was featured here at Metal Squadron less than a year ago when their superb demo was released. Things have happened really fast for Matt Ries and Jean-Pierre Abboud since they recorded the demo tunes. A record deal is in place, the lineup completed and the band is already confirmed for some prestigous underground fests. Have Matt simply followed along with all the stuff happening to the band, or has he had to put on the brakes somewhere in the process? Continue reading
With the stellar first full length, “Illusions In Infinite Void”, Sacral Rage from Athens, Greece showed that they can provide competition for absolutely everyone out there. Their brand new album, “Beyond Celestial Echoes” is more or less of thee same sky high quality, and I needed to get in contact with singer Dimitris K. once again. I take for granted that you still have strong feeling for “Illusions In Infinite Void”, but do you sometimes go back and listen to your first EP, “Deadly Bits of Iron Fragments” as well? Continue reading
As we have already covered the early days in not only one, but two previous interviews, it felt natural to catch up with the happenings after the split Gatekeeper did with Eternal Champion in March 2015. To help us out, we got Geoff as usual, but new singer Jean-Pierre, who is also Geoff’s roommate, filled in on some of our questions. Continue reading
Metal Squadron was one of the first, if not the first, to feature Walpyrgus, back when their demo was first released on tape through Swords & Chains. Some time ago I was contacted by Sure Shot who does promotion for Cruz Del Sur, the band’s label nowadays, but as this happened around the time I had strong doubts about the future of this webzine, nothing came out of it. When I contacted Scott Waldrop some months later, I have to admit that I didn’t expect such an inspired feature as this one became. After all, he had already chatted to quite a few different medias when this interview materialized. As you can see for yourself, Scott did an excellent job answering my questions in an honest way, and I tried to get him to speak about some stuff that hasn’t already been covered to death in previous features. Enjoy! Continue reading
I’ve covered Dark Forest before, both when “Dawn Of Infinity” and “The Awakening” were released. The result of those two email-conversations can be read here. Even though Christian Horton is one of those musicians that put a lot of effort into his answers when he does interviews via the internet, I really wanted to speak to him personally this time in an old school phone interview. Christian accepted, and here you can read the result of our hour long chat about past, present and future in the Dark Forest-camp. The main focus however, is the brand new album “Beyond The Veil”, to be released through Cruz Del Sur towards the end of this month. Continue reading
For me, personally, “The Cycle Never Ends” is one of the most anticipated heavy metal releases of 2016. I love the raw, barbaric sounds of Ravensire, and I thought the songwriting on their previous effort “We March Forward” was rock solid. So good in fact, that I awarded the album with a 85/100 rating here at Metal Squadron, which in turn led to a place on my top five-list for 2013. So, is the new album worth the wait and the anticipation? For sure, “The Cycle Never Ends” is another highlight of pure and crushing heavy metal, at least as good as it’s predecessor. Guitarist and main songwriter Nuno Mordred was happy to answer all our questions.
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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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
1. SACRAL RAGE “Illusions In Infinite Void” (Cruz Del Sur)
– Riffs and vocals straight out of the US school of metal. The best Greek band ever! Interview coming very soon.
2. SORCERER “In The Shadow Of The Inverted Cross” (Metal Blade)
– High quality power doom with superb vocals. Interview coming soon! Continue reading
So, Visigoth turns out to be the first band featured twice with an interview here at Metal Squadron. As we go into our second year of existence, I guess it’s just natural that a few acts that we have featured before, pops up again. While the band had just released the cool EP “The Final Spell”,when we last featured them, they’ve now taken a step further and is ready to unleash their first full length releases onto the masses. We hooked up with singer Jake Rogers to get all the essential details on Visigoth’s Metal Blade debut. Enjoy! Continue reading
Finland’s Mausoleum Gate is the latest in a line of bands trying to do their own thing rather than just copying the NWOBHM, which has already been the flavor of the month, for some time now. Their self titled, debut album has just been unleashed onto the metalheads longing for some really obscure metal influenced by acts from both the seventies and eighties. We spoke to guitarist Count La Fey about most things related to Mausoleum Gate. In short: the past, present and future. Enjoy! Continue reading
1. DEMON BITCH “Death Is Hanging…” (Dying Victims)
– So far only available on tape.Not that far away from the sound of fellow Detroit-outfit Borrowed Time. Unique vocals and a nod to bands like Mercyful Fate and Helstar too. Four really cool songs!
2. STONE DAGGER “The Siege Of Jerusalem” (Electric Assault)
– With the release of this 7″ inch, finally the tape can get some rest. One of the most promising new epic metal bands for a long time. Believe the hype!
I’ve followed the band that is now called Darkest Era since they were Nemesis and released their self titled demo back in 2006. After a while, a change of bandname became necessary, partly because there were already too many bands peforming under the same monicker. Darkest Era was chosen, and early in 2008 the band’s first release under the name was made available through Germany’s Eyes Like Snow. The title was “The Journey Through Damnation”, an EP containing four songs.
1. DARKEST ERA ”Severance” (Cruz Del Sur)
– Grey and melancholic with more identity than on the first one. Lots of atmosphere and some great melodies too. Interview coming up!
2. THE DAGGER “The Dagger” (Century Media)
– A huge surprise. Very seventies inspired from these (mainly) death metal musicians. Influences ranging from Black Sabbath, via Deep Purple to Judas Priest showing clearly in the material. Interview coming soon.
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
1. BATTLEROAR “Blood Of Legends” (Cruz Del Sur)
– With Gerrit singing, this sounds quite different, still very cool. Needs a bit of time.
2. PORTRAIT ”Crossroads” (Metal Blade)
– Can’t stop spinning this one. So many storng songs and exciting parts. Vocals not as upfront as on the last one.
