Australian heavy metal
Encyclopedia
Australian heavy metal music has its roots in both the Australian hard rock
and pub rock
tradition of the 1970s and the American
and British heavy metal
scenes. Since the mid-80s, Australian heavy metal has been particularly influenced by foreign bands, particularly Swedish
death metal
, American
thrash metal
and black metal
from Norway
. Within Australia heavy metal has always remained part of the underground but since the mid-1990s many Australian metal acts have found widespread acceptance in overseas markets, particularly in Europe
.
is often cited as being Australia's foremost hard rock band. AC/DC's influence on metal is quite clear however, with a style built around a predominately loud, heavy riffing guitar sound. With regard to heavy metal, Sydney band Buffalo
could well be considered one of the country’s first exponents of the style. Originally formed under the name Head in 1967, Buffalo began playing a very similar style to that of Black Sabbath
from 1970. The band was the first non-British act to be signed to Vertigo
and released three albums with them between 1972 and 1975 but never found mainstream success in Australia. The group's bass guitar
ist Peter Wells formed Rose Tattoo
in 1976, another band often cited as laying a cornerstone for Australian metal, although their sound was more a cross between raw, heavy blues
and street-level punk rock
than metal. Like Buffalo, Rose Tattoo’s music was ignored by Australian radio while building a strong cult following internationally. Conversely, The Angels
always courted commercial success in Australia while finding progress tougher overseas. The Angels were probably closer to metal than Rose Tattoo, with the albums Night Attack, Watch The Red
and Two Minute Warning
harbouring a distinctly heavy metal sound, yet while all three charted highly (Two Minute Warning peaked at No. 2), none of their singles reached higher than No. 21 (“Stand Up”, (1982)). The Angels were rarely referred to as a heavy metal band in Australia however, and in the modern context would possibly not now be considered one.
Without support from radio airplay even well-established foreign metal bands found little success on the Australian singles charts until the last half of the 1980s. Albums, significantly those of Iron Maiden
, occasionally charted highly however, and Iron Maiden and Twisted Sister
were two of the few foreign metal bands to conduct Australian tours in the first half of that decade. In spite of this, metal music had a large underground following, with small independent retailers like Sydney’s Utopia Import Records catering for the audience. Utopia was established in 1978 by record collector John Cotter who began trading metal and punk albums that were generally not given release in Australia and by the early 1980s was the country’s best known retailer of heavy metal music.
Inspired by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal
, a small raft of bands had begun to emerge that would form the foundations of the modern Australian heavy metal scene. Some of the better known groups from this time included Taipan, Saracen, Virgin Soldiers, Prowler (who would soon change their name to Taramis), Black Jack, Rosanas Raiders, Axatak, Almost Human, Egypt ( Later to become Venom in Sydney), Tyrant and Bengal Tigers. Bengal Tigers had formed in Melbourne in 1979 and by 1982 had been signed to Mushroom Records
, releasing an EP called “Metal Fetish” although neither this release nor two later singles met with success. Saracen was a Perth
band that had formed in 1980. When guitarist John Meyer joined Rose Tattoo in 1983, Saracen replaced him with Jamie Page and changed its name to Trilogy, releasing two albums (the second of which was recorded after Meyer returned, and issued under the Saracen name). Axatak, who adopted a leather and hair look similar to the early LA
glam metal
scene and Taipan also released albums or EPs but all of these were generally passed over by the mainstream Australian music scene. Almost Human was an Adelaide band that formed in the late 70s playing covers before introducing original material. As one of that city's most prominent heavy bands they supported touring groups like Whitesnake
, Sweet
, Slade
and others and eventually released a self-financed single. Guitarist Chris Tennant went on to achieve some success with The Superjesus
during the 1990s and other members went on to play in bands like Heaven and BB Steal
.
Other bands were somewhat more successful, though success was fleeting. Boss had formed in Adelaide in 1979 and after moving to Sydney built up a following on the pub circuit, eventually signing to RCA Records
for worldwide release in 1983. The album was moderately successful in Europe and the group supported Iron Maiden, Twisted Sister and Dio
but disbanded after a US tour, reforming a brief time later under the name BB Steal, a band that still exists to the present time. In Melbourne
, Black Jack
formed in 1983. They released material (on a now defunct label associated with a local metal music shop) that showcased a distinctive blend of NWOBHM and power metal with undertones of doom metal.
The Melbourne heavy metal scene at this time was still very underground, and was supported by a handful of metal music shows on community radio
stations, especially 3PBS and 3RRR
. Local announcers included Allan Thomas who hosted the Metal for Melbourne show on 3RRR
for a number of years between the mid-1980s and 1990, and was a prominent, influential, and controversial figure in the local metal scene.
Heaven formed in Sydney out of an Adelaide band called Fat Lip in 1980 and became a second-tier attraction in the US on the strength of their second album, touring widely and opening for the likes of Judas Priest
, Kiss
and Mötley Crüe
before eventually imploding in 1985. Vice
was a glam metal
band from Brisbane who had formed in early 1984. They became one of the city's most prominent acts, releasing an EP and two albums, undertaking interstate tours and also supporting international acts such as Sweet and Stryper
.
The Tasmanian scene was non-existent except for one genuine metal act, Tyrant that formed in 1983, releasing a 4-track cassette titled "Never Too Loud" which topped the local metal charts and peaking at #7 at Melbourne's Central Station records. Tyrant re-located to Sydney in 1985, quickly establishing themselves and headlining the first Metal Crusade at the Coogee Bay Hotel on a lineup that also included Bengal Tigers, Shy Thunder, Statez and Vice before 1,800 people. Despite good reviews in both RAM and Juke magazines, not to mention a strong fan base, a record deal never eventuated and the group disbanded in late 1986. Over the next decade Tyrant played only a handful of shows, reforming in 1999 and have released 3 albums to date, Freaks Of Nature, Thunder Down Under and Live Bootleg. Tyrant still exists today with singer Neil 'Steel' Wilson being the only original member with a 25th Anniversary CD currently being recorded.
By the mid-1980s, music by American thrash bands like Metallica
and Slayer
had begun to filter through the local metal community and a group of newer bands started to appear that adopted similar styles. Arguably the earliest of these was Melbourne’s Nothing Sacred
, although other Melbourne bands like Renegade, Tyrus, Rampage, Mass Confusion, and Slaughter Lord from Sydney would soon also emerge. The most prominent early thrash acts, however, were Sydney’s Mortal Sin and Melbourne’s Hobbs' Angel of Death
. Mortal Sin had been formed in late 1985 by drummer Wayne Campbell and singer Mat Maurer out of a more traditional-styled band called Wizzard and within six months had recorded Mayhemic Destruction
. Originally meant as a demo, the group released it as an album in early 1987 and were soon signed internationally to Vertigo, before long becoming Australia’s highest-profile metal band by supporting Metallica on a national tour and later heading overseas to tour Europe and the US. Hobbs Angel of Death had begun as a solo project for Tyrus guitarist Peter Hobbs. After recording a series of demos with assistance from members of Nothing Sacred, Hobbs found interest in the project from German
label Steamhammer who released the album Hobbs' Angel of Death
in 1988. Armoured Angel
had formed in Canberra in 1984 and released their debut demo tape Baptism In Blood the following year. Another band, Sadistik Exekution
, had formed in Sydney in 1986. Solidifying its line-up by 1989 the group soon became an influence among both the local and foreign underground metal scenes for their chaotic death metal style and nihilistic behaviour .
The worldwide success of Metallica and the explosion of the hair metal scene in the US in the late 1980s had raised the level of interest in heavy metal music in Australia by the early 1990s but for the most part it was still primarily an underground scene.
A changing of the guard was also becoming evident. Mortal Sin had fizzled out after a US tour and while a new line-up had toured with Megadeth
and recorded an album it was quickly forgotten. Hobbs Angel of Death had really only existed as a studio band and virtually all the early bands except Armoured Angel
and Sydney’s Addictive
had drifted apart. Both of these groups had just entered their most successful periods. Armoured Angel had formed in Canberra in 1984 as a five-piece band before becoming a trio after an early demo recording. Developing a dense and very heavy style, they are often named as Australia’s first major death metal
band. Staying together until 1996, they came as close as any Australian metal band to attaining widescale success during this period, playing at the Big Day Out
on two occasions, touring Europe and having their two EPs distributed by Polygram Records. Addictive, who had been touted by Mortal Sin’s Mat Maurer as the country’s next big thrash act in a 1989 issue of Hot Metal magazine, had formed in 1988. Heavily influenced by Sacred Reich
, their first album Pity of Man had won European release, had headlined an event at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion called MetalFest with Motörhead and by 1991 was recording a follow-up album with Bob Daisley
. Daisley is one of Australia’s best-known metal musicians, having featured in Rainbow
, Uriah Heep
, Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne’s
band and by 1990 had played on more than 20 albums with 11 different artists. The resultant release Kick 'em Hard was plagued with problems, however, and Addictive faded away before splitting up in 1996.
Death and black metal bands from America, Sweden and Norway were now having a major influence, and slightly later in the decade the more aggressive stylings of Pantera
and Sepultura
began to win fans away from old guard acts like Metallica and Megadeth who were seen by many to have mellowed since their earlier recordings. The Sydney based Hot Metal magazine, a glossy monthly that had first appeared in 1988, was the first Australian publication devoted to heavy metal and gave considerable coverage to local acts. By the early 90s it had attained widespread mainstream circulation throughout the country and helped to introduce new audiences to metal music, and established fans to new bands, especially new Australian acts.
In 1990, youth broadcaster Triple J
introduced the heavy music program 3 Hours of Power to its formatting. Originally hosted by Helen Razer
, then Francis Leach
and, from 1998, by Costa Zouliou
, the show began to gradually introduce more and more Australian acts into its playlists, although it wasn’t until late in Leach’s tenure with the show did it begin to move away from heavier alternative music towards a clearly metal focus. Three compilation albums featuring music featured on the show eventually appeared, titled Eleven (after the Spinal Tap
philosophy that all guitar amps should go to 11), This is Twelve and Thirteen.
One of the other great boons to Australian heavy metal music was the Metal for the Brain
festival. Established by Armoured Angel’s drummer Joel Green to raise funds for a friend severely brain-damaged after an assault, the first concert in 1991 featured six Canberra bands in the afternoon with a later performance by some punk bands including the Hard Ons. By the end of the decade, the event had stretched out to a 12-hour festival featuring 18 groups from around the country and by 2000 was so big it was forced to move to a larger venue. When the final Metal for the Brain festival closed in November 2006, more than 100 different bands from every major centre in Australia and several from overseas including Voivod
had appeared at some time. Many bands considered it to be one of the pinnacles of their achievements.
During the early 90s, the influence of American and Swedish death metal bands was quickly evident. Many of the thrash bands of the 80s had disbanded and heavier groups were beginning to fill the void, such as Necrotomy, Acheron, Disembowlment, Corpse Molestation, Damnatory, Hecatomb, Damaged
, Anatomy and Blood Duster
in Melbourne, Obfuscate Mass, Misery
and Mausoleum in Brisbane, Aftermath, Apostasy and Cruciform from Sydney and Psychrist and Alchemist
from Canberra. Perhaps due to magazines like Hot Metal and the occasional exposure to extreme metal on some community radio
programs, bands like these were appearing at a high rate. Shock Records
, the Melbourne independent label, commissioned a compilation album to highlight some of these new acts. Come to Daddy was released in 1992 and compiled by Hot Metal writer Ian McFarlane
; it contained 14 tracks from bands like Necrotomy, Mausoleum, Mystic Insight, Deracination, Obfuscate Mass, Misery, Discarnated, Entasis, iNFeCTeD, Open Festering Wounds, and Persecution. When McFarlane went to Roadrunner Records'
Australian office the following year, he put together another compilation, Redrum, collecting tracks from another group of completely different bands like Alchemist, Sadistik Exekution, Frozen Doberman, Allegiance and Hecatomb.
The first group from this period to attain some prominence was Mortification, a Melbourne Christian metal
band that had evolved out of an 80s thrash group called Light Force. Having already established some international links from that time, Mortification was signed internationally by Nuclear Blast
almost immediately, becoming the first Australian band to be carried by the German metal-specialist label. Another Melbourne act establishing a legacy was diSEMBOWELMENT
, a studio bound band that was developing a unique blend of slow and heavy doom
mixed with ambience
and combined with death metal and grindcore
. A demo found the attention of Relapse Records
who released the Transcendence Into The Peripheral
album in 1993. Other Melbourne groups like Damaged and Blood Duster were also becoming established. Damaged, who had formed in Ballarat
in 1989, played violently extreme music that combined death and black metal and grindcore with a hardcore
element and Blood Duster mixed thirty-second grind songs with larrikinism and loutish humour. The notorious Sadistik Exekution had finally released an album, The Magus, in 1991 but their levels of extremity were rivalled by Melbourne band Corpse Molestation. By 1993, as the impact of Norway's black metal movement was beginning to be felt, this band had adopted the trappings and style of that scene and become known as Bestial Warlust
. After two albums, the group splintered apart but various members continued in a similar vein in other acts including Deströyer 666
, Abominator
and Gospel of the Horns
.
By 1993, Armoured Angel
had achieved some overseas success and with their EP "Stigmartyr" being distributed nationally by Polygram had been added to the bill of the Big Day Out. In Perth, a thrash band called Allegiance
had begun to win notice after a string of demos. In 1993 they were signed, also by Polygram, and released the album D.e.s.t.i.t.u.t.i.o.n. the following year which was supported by a national tour with Sydney hard rock band The Poor. By 1995, Allegiance
had toured nationally with the Big Day Out and supported bands like Slayer, Machine Head
and Fight
, whose singer Rob Halford
expressed managerial interest. Problems befell the group after this point however and the second album was long delayed.
in Sydney were strong supporters of local acts and both cities had particularly flourishing live metal circuits with established venues for bands to play. The smaller centres also harboured well-developed metal scenes, although Brisbane and particularly Perth were cut off from the growing south-east coast touring circuit by immense distances. Nevertheless, Australian metal bands were receiving more media coverage than ever before. As more local releases appeared, more were being added to the playlists of community radio and to 3 Hours of Power, and a second magazine with a metal focus had started to circulate. Hot Metal had become simply HM in the early 90s in order to widen its coverage to include other alternative music styles in the wake of grunge
and many metal fans had expressed a belief that the magazine no longer catered to their tastes. An offshoot of Sydney street paper On the Street, Rebel Razor was launched at the Alternative Nation Festival
in 1995. Produced on news print at a cheaper cost than HM, Rebel Razor did not cover metal exclusively either but it had a more prominent local focus.
The same year, however, Sydney's live metal scene suffered a series of blows when several venues closed down. The Lewisham
Hotel in the inner western suburbs, which as The Haunted Castle had hosted metal gigs up to four nights a week since the early 90s, decided to close its doors to metal bands after a series of vandalism incidents. The other premier venue was the Phoenician Club on Broadway in the inner city, which also hosted regular metal events including shows by international touring acts; the building's history as a live music venue dated back to the early 1970s when groups like AC/DC had played there. On 21 October 1995, however, the club hosted a dance party attended by 15-year old Anna Wood who died three days later after taking ecstacy there. During the resultant investigation, the Phoenician Club's entertainment license was withdrawn and with the closure of another two venues shortly afterward—including the Cobra Club at the Parramatta
Hotel which had been a key venue for every type of band from hair metal to thrash—the live heavy metal scene in Sydney almost came to a standstill. The Lewisham Hotel has since begun hosting metal gigs once more, although not as frequently. The old Phoenician Club building was eventually demolished in 2006 to make way for a residential precinct, and the Parramatta Hotel was similarly removed in 2003 and the site is now part of the enormous Westfield shopping complex.
Regardless of these closures, a steady stream of bands were beginning to develop considerable profiles. Alchemist, who had formed in Canberra in 1987, had finally refined its unique style that comprised elements of death metal, grindcore, surf rock and psychedelia
. A track from their second album Lunasphere
had been included on one of the 3 Hours of Power compilations and the group played at the 1996 Sydney Big Day Out. In Sydney, the symphonic black metal
band Lord Kaos
were filling the gap that had been left by the dissolution of Bestial Warlust
, and a core group of bands like Mortality, Cryogenic
and Segression
were proving that there was more to the local scene than just death metal. Death metal was the focus of Brisbane's scene, however, headed by Misery who had formed in 1992 and featuring others like Sakkuth
and Killengod. A developing melodic metal/power metal
scene led by Hyperion but also including groups like Pegazus
, Vanishing Point
and Eyefear
were starting to appear in the always diverse Melbourne. In Perth, isolation was a serious problem. Both Allegiance and iNFeCTeD, a death metal band that had released two albums on Shock, had self-destructed not long after returning from expensive east coast tours.
As the Sydney live metal scene began to recover with some new venues replacing those lost the year before, Rebel Razor ceased publication after the 24th issue in June 1996. Shortly afterward, Pacific Publications announced that HM was also being shut down. Several HM staff members including editor Jeremy Sheaffe then set up their own publishing house and produced the first issue of Loudmouth magazine in April 1997. By this time, nu metal
had begun to have a strong influence over the domestic metal scene, with several of the more established metal acts taking aspects of that sound into their own, or shifting toward it completely. Superheist
, a Melbourne group that had formed in the early part of the decade as a grindcore band, had re-invented themselves as a pop-laced nu metal act and before long was one of Shock's major bands with their songs being played on TV shows and added to mainstream compilation albums. Segression had begun to head in the same direction with their second album Fifth of the Fifth and by the time of their third release were well established as a nu metal band. Canberra band Henry's Anger
had started out playing a dark alternative rock style similar to Tool
but by 1997 they too were exploring a nu metal sound and by 1999 they were on the verge of a major breakthrough when their second album Personality Test was nominated for an ARIA
Award in the Best Album Category. Another group was a Messiah from the Gold Coast
. Formed in 1997 and with an 11-year old drummer, the band created such a positive vibe that before long they had been signed to Sony
and become Sunk Loto
, a group who would have a serious mid-level career in the first part of the next decade.
2000 - 2004
Despite the closure of Warhead Records and Loudmouth magazine, by 2000 Australian heavy metal was thriving like never before. By the end of that year the scene was much different from the one that had existed at the beginning of the previous decade. Many of the bands were beginning to be noticed beyond the underground by other sections of the industry and quite a few were establishing names overseas. Pegazus, a Melbourne power metal band that had formed at the beginning of the 90s, had become only the second Australian group after Mortification
to find themselves attached to Nuclear Blast Records. In 1998 they also became the first Australian act to appear at Germany's prestigious Wacken Open Air
Festival. Another Melbourne melodic metal band, Vanishing Point
, became the second in 2000. The Berzerker
, yet another Melbourne group, also appeared on the international scene when its self-titled debut album became the first release from an Australian band on the British extreme music label Earache Records
. Deströyer 666, a thrash band that had been formed by former Bestial Warlust guitarist KK Warslut, was another act developing a foreign profile, touring Europe (and eventually moving there in 2001) and linking up with Norway's influential Season of Mist
label. Earlier in the year, Alchemist, Cryogenic and a Sydney thrash band called Psi.Kore had staged a large-scale tour billed as "World War Three". Backed by Triple J's 3 Hours of Power program, Utopia Import Records and Sydney record label Chatterbox Records
, to whom two of the bands were signed, it was the first tour of its kind to feature Australian metal bands exclusively, and visited all the east coast state capitals and several regional centres. The Metal for the Brain festival had now become so large that the organisers had found it necessary to find a larger venue for it, moving the event from the Australian National University
to the University of Canberra
. Thirty bands played that year, with Canadian
group Voivod becoming the first foreign act to appear at the festival. For the first time, the event attracted publicity from the mainstream media, with the Weekend Australian including a feature story on it in its colour magazine several weeks later. Just over a year before, on 26 September 1999, The Sun Herald
had included a feature article on Australian metal in its Sunday Life! supplement. It was perhaps the first story of its kind in a major Australian daily newspaper. In terms of other media, Andrew Haug
had taken over from Costa Zouliou on 3 Hours of Power in 2001. Haug, who had previously presented a heavy metal program on Melbourne community station 3RRR
, is also Century Media's Australian label rep and the drummer for a band called Contrive
and under his direction the show began featuring more Australian metal than ever before. Soon after his tenure began, however, programming reshuffles at Triple J caused the show to be reduced by an hour and was renamed Full Metal Racket
. A monthly glossy magazine catering to the metal audience had not existed since Loudmouth had wound up in 1998 but in 2001 the Sydney office of EMAP Publications
began producing a local version of its long-running British magazine Kerrang!
, although it failed to provide the kind of coverage of Australian metal found in previous magazines.
More bands were bolstering the scene's increasingly healthier status and diversifying its fanbase. Brisbane band Astriaal had formed in 1998 and since then had bucked the trend for
black metal bands to remain mysterious and play live rarely or never. The group had released three EPs through Brisbane label Dissident by 2002, headlined Metal for the Brain and toured regularly. One band developing a profile was Psi.Kore, who had formed in 1996. They had been on the "World War Three" tour and, their self-titled EP was a best-seller. By going on to support Cradle of Filth
and Megadeth, Psi.Kore was on the verge of further success but split in 2002, with most of the band forming Daysend
who would have a similar ascent. Brisbane band Devolved
had attracted attention with a militaristic death metal style and at the end of 2001 were voted Australian Metal Band of the Year by Triple J. The following year they toured Europe and eventually moved to the US in 2005. Chalice
was an Adelaide band who had won wide acceptance with a symphonic Gothic metal
, a style that was gaining popularity but had few local exponents. The rise of Swedish melodic death metal had also spawned Australian practitioners such as Infernal Method
, a Sydney band that had formed out of the remnants of Deadspawn. At one time featuring a former member of Dimmu Borgir
, Infernal Method quickly established themselves as perhaps the best-known local band playing the style, but constant personnel reshuffles kept them from releasing anything more than a demo. Nu metal acts like Superheist and Sunk Loto were doing strongly, enjoying radio airplay and playing regularly at festival events. The pressure of further success weighed heavily on both acts however. At the end of 2001, Sunk Loto
virtually disappeared for almost two years and Superheist self-destructed at the end of 2003.
Other bands made significant comebacks. Damaged
had gone through a tumultuous history and by early 1999 was down to only two members. Late in 2000, however, the group had returned with a new vocalist, Brutal Truth
's Kevin Sharp, a new bass player Eddie Lacey from thrash metal band, The Wolves, and a new album. A national tour followed, but Sharp's association with the group would be brief. Eddie Lacey was also to depart the band. Three years later, Damaged returned once more but their always volatile personal relationships ended them for good within twelve months. Hobbs Angel of Death and Mortal Sin also returned. Peter Hobbs had rebuilt his band in 2002 and released an album of his early demos a few months later. In December 2003, the band played Metal for the Brain and featured at Wacken in mid-2004. Mortal Sin had reformed once before, in the mid-90s, but split up again within two years. By late 2003, however, the group had once again reunited and before long had recorded a live DVD and begun writing material for a new album. They went on to play Wacken in 2006.
2005–present
By the middle of the decade, nu metal had all but disappeared from the heavy metal landscape and metalcore
had taken its place among the more traditional forms of metal. Bands like Parkway Drive from Byron Bay
and I Killed the Prom Queen
from Adelaide had previously been seen as part of the hardcore scene but were finding their audience beginning to crossover as the definition between hardcore and metal became increasingly blurred. While they often found themselves to be alienated by fans of more traditional metal, these bands were soon being touted as Australia's most prominent metal groups and both had established credible followings internationally before I Killed the Prom Queen abruptly split up in early 2007. Things did not turn out so well for Sunk Loto, who had switched to an aggressive metalcore style on their second album Between Birth and Death
only to find little acceptance for it from more established fans and a difficulty attracting new ones, and the band broke up acrimoniously in mid-2007. Other bands with metal backgrounds like Daysend developed a deliberately metalcore style and found immediate acceptance. Within three years of forming in 2002 the band had toured constantly and opened for a range of foreign acts before heading to the US on a six week tour in 2005.
It was not just Australia's metalcore contingent that was breaking into overseas markets. Alchemist, who had long sustained a dedicated cult-level foreign following, finally broke through in the middle of the decade and toured Europe in late 2004. The Berzerker was by now well established at an international level and had supported their first three albums with lengthy tours across Europe and North America. A technical death metal band from Hobart called Psycroptic
was also making inroads beyond Australian shores. The band undertook a European tour in 2004 after the release of their second album and by the middle of 2006 had signed to French
label Neurotic, before touring Europe once more.
Blood Duster also toured Europe in June 2005. At one point, the bands found themselves playing at the same venue on concurrent nights, possibly the first time such a thing had happened in Australian metal history. Blood Duster had toured with the Big Day Out the year before, the first domestic metal band to play at every show since Allegiance ten years previously, and had even attained the rare distinction of having a song featured in a TV commercial. In 2008, Truth Corroded became the first Australian band to tour China
, with Contrive becoming the first Australian metal group to tour Thailand
following in 2009. In 2010, Australian metal upstarts Universum
bridged gaps between Australian underground metal scenes and European markets with the collaboration of prominent metal figures on their 'Mortuus Machina' release. Featuring members from Scar Symmetry
, Soilwork
, MyGrain
, Nightrage
and Mors Principium Est
, Universum
have taken a major step forward in bringing attention to Australia's metal scene.
An increasingly popular export, the latter half of the 2000's has seen a marked increase in the number of Black Metal artists achieving high distinction and domestic and international success. In the footsteps of the highly successful Destroyer 666 and Gospel of the Horns, Melbourne bands Adamus Exul and Order of Orias have achieved critical acclaim in recent years in the Americas and Europe respectively, achieving collaborative signings with Misanthropic Spirit Records (Argentina) and Obscure Abhorrence Productions (Ger.) for upcoming full-length releases.
In spite of such successes, Australian heavy metal continues to remain a fringe underground culture still widely ignored by the mainstream industry and media. When it was announced in mid-2006 that the annual Metal for the Brain festival would be no more after a final event on 4 November, no regular news service outside of Canberra carried word of it, even though it had often attracted up to 3000 people and had been running as long as the Big Day Out. In an interview with Australian metal webzine HailMetal.com, festival director Adam Agius
suggested the festival would return in 2008; this now seems unlikely.
On 7 November 2009, the Australian Metal Awards were held in Sydney. The event was billed as part concert and part awards show featuring Sadistik Exekution
's first performance in ten years, along with a host of other leading Australian metal bands. Psycroptic (6 awards) and Chaos Divine
(5 awards including 'Band of the Year') dominated proceedings. This was the third such attempt at an awards event for the local metal scene. Previously, one such awards night had been tied to Metal for the Brain in 2005 and there was an even earlier attempt hosted in Melbourne during the mid-1990s.
Australian heavy metal music has established itself as a healthy if overlooked part of the wider Australian music industry, and many of the bands involved in it continue to be signed to foreign labels and build international fanbases.
In 2008, Metal Obsession entered the market offering extensive news, reviews, interviews and gig guide for all states of Australia and New Zealand. Metal Obsession received an Australian Metal Award in 2009 for best Metal Fan/Web/Magazine. Metal as Fuck also offer updates of Australian metal in a global context. The Aus Metal Gig Guide also provides a decent contributor based gig listing.
Brad Sims established Warhead Records by selling demos from local groups and CDs by underground foreign bands. In 1993 Warhead then issued the EP Atavism by Sydney doom band Cruciform followed by Fear of the Future from teenage thrash group Neophobia. Expanding to a store called the Hammerhouse in Parramatta in Sydney’s west, the business traded in metal exclusively while the label released only Australian artists, by far the most successful at the local level being Cryogenic who went on to do a small scale European tour in 1998. Warhead eventually disappeared in early 2000 and none of the bands attached to it still exist although several have formed the core of other groups currently at the forefront of the scene, including Daysend.
Melbourne enterprise Metal Warriors/Samson Productions is another small label dedicated to heavy metal music. Run by Steve Ravic, Metal Warriors has produced several compilations on VHS
and DVD
and managed and released music by Dungeon, Pegazus and Vanishing Point among others, however Ravic has been concentrating his efforts on film making in recent years.
Prime Cuts is a Perth label handling a range of metal bands from that city . Started by metal musicians Glen Dyson and Brad Wesson in 2002, the company has since expanded to incorporate the promotions and touring arm Soundworks Entertainment which in the last few years has conducted numerous Australian tours by foreign bands. In late 2007, this label released A Blaze in the Southern Skies, a double CD of metal music by Australian and New Zealand artists. The label's roster is now quite extensive and includes bands from all over Australia.
The Coffins Slave also in Sydney is a label and distribution working with exclusive distribution deals from [Dark Decsent Records] [Svart Records] [Cruz del Sur Music] carrying titles ranging from Black metal, Thrash, NWOBHM, Doom, and so on, mainly dealing in the VINYL format they also carry CDS. The Coffins Slave also has a roster of signed bands from Australia and over seas. The Coffins Slave also runs a yearly festival in Sydney called EVIL INVADERS and a Heavy metal nightclub KILLED BY DEATH!
Truth Inc. is an Adelaide based metal label run by members of long-standing acts Truth Corroded and Double Dragon. The labels current roster includes Double Dragon, Truth Corroded, Black Like Vengeance, Closed Casket, A Red Dawn, Separatist, The Omen and Lynchmada.
Faultline Records is another Melbourne company with a heavy metal focus. Set up in 2004 by DW Norton of Superheist, the label's current roster includes Daysend, the hard rock band Head Inc. and mathcore
group Five Star Prison Cell
.
White Noise Productions have been a forerunner in the establishment of a regulated and competitive schedule of live events accommodating the more obscure and extreme underground metal artists across Australia, including hosting the annual 'Hellraiser' festival, catering to artists such as Canberra's Alchemist
, Mephistopheles
and Be'lakor
, prior to their appearance at 2010's 'Summer Breeze' festival in Germany.
The Wollongong
-based Riot! Entertainment began as primarily a distribution label, acting as the Australian agent for such foreign companies as Nuclear Blast, Relapse
, Earache
, Metal Blade
and SPV
among others. In recent years the label has directly signed a number of local and foreign metal acts including Universum
, Ace Frehley
, Stuck Mojo
, Fozzy, Paindivision
, Mortal Sin, Arcane, Be'lakor
, The Poor and more.
Sydney label Grindhead Records was established in the early 00s by the vocalist of grindcore band Ebolie to release not only his own albums but those from other groups, mostly other Sydney grind and brutal death metal acts. Another label specialising in grind is Melbourne's No Escape, set up by two members of Fuck... I'm Dead and releasing both local and international grind and death bands.
Obsidian Records is Brisbane label dealing with extreme acts from the state.
Several smaller and even more underground metal labels also emerged during the 90s, including Dissident, now based in London
, which released albums by Astriaal and Psychrist, and the short-lived Venomous, who briefly handled Misery.
Local metal releases are not the sole domain of small, metal-specific underground labels however. Melbourne independent Shock Records established a subsidiary arm called Thrust in the early 90s to handle releases by Abramelin and Alchemist. Alchemist is now attached to Chatterbox Records, a Sydney label with a wide repertoire of artists that has previously released albums by other metal bands like Daysend and Henry’s Anger. Traditionally, major labels have had little interest in Australian metal acts, although there has been notable exceptions. Allegiance and Mortal Sin, for example, were attached to Polygram (who also handled distribution for Armoured Angel's early releases), and Boss and a Perth band called Black Alice were signed to RCA
in the early 1980s.
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
and pub rock
Pub rock (Australia)
Pub rock is a style of Australian rock and roll popular throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and still influencing contemporary Australian music today....
tradition of the 1970s and the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and British heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
scenes. Since the mid-80s, Australian heavy metal has been particularly influenced by foreign bands, particularly Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
death metal
Death metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
, American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
thrash metal
Thrash metal
Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...
and black metal
Black metal
Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, raw recording, and unconventional song structure....
from Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
. Within Australia heavy metal has always remained part of the underground but since the mid-1990s many Australian metal acts have found widespread acceptance in overseas markets, particularly in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
History
AC/DCAC/DC
AC/DC are an Australian rock band, formed in 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Commonly classified as hard rock, they are considered pioneers of heavy metal, though they themselves have always classified their music as simply "rock and roll"...
is often cited as being Australia's foremost hard rock band. AC/DC's influence on metal is quite clear however, with a style built around a predominately loud, heavy riffing guitar sound. With regard to heavy metal, Sydney band Buffalo
Buffalo (band)
Buffalo was an early heavy metal band formed in Sydney, Australia in 1971. The band left a legacy with Australia's heavy metal, pub rock and alternative rock movements. The band had evolved from the Brisbane blues-rock outfit Head, which was originally formed in 1968 by Dave Tice and Peter Wells...
could well be considered one of the country’s first exponents of the style. Originally formed under the name Head in 1967, Buffalo began playing a very similar style to that of Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
from 1970. The band was the first non-British act to be signed to Vertigo
Vertigo Records
Vertigo Records today is a UK-based record label operated by Universal Music UK.-History:Vertigo Records was the name Philips Records chose in the late 1960s for its record sub-label to counter the progressive labels of its rivals EMI with Harvest Records and Decca Records with Deram...
and released three albums with them between 1972 and 1975 but never found mainstream success in Australia. The group's bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
ist Peter Wells formed Rose Tattoo
Rose Tattoo
Rose Tattoo is an Australian rock and roll band, now led by Angry Anderson, that was formed in Sydney in 1976. Their sound is hard rock mixed with blues rock influences, with songs including "Bad Boy for Love", "Rock 'n' Roll Outlaw", "Nice Boys", "We Can't Be Beaten" and "Scarred for Life"...
in 1976, another band often cited as laying a cornerstone for Australian metal, although their sound was more a cross between raw, heavy blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and street-level punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
than metal. Like Buffalo, Rose Tattoo’s music was ignored by Australian radio while building a strong cult following internationally. Conversely, The Angels
The Angels (Australian band)
The Angels are a hard rock band that formed in Adelaide, Australia in 1970. The band later relocated from Adelaide to Sydney and enjoyed huge local success until well into the 1990s. For the purposes of international release, their records were released under the names Angel City and later The...
always courted commercial success in Australia while finding progress tougher overseas. The Angels were probably closer to metal than Rose Tattoo, with the albums Night Attack, Watch The Red
Watch The Red (The Angels - Album)
Watch The Red is the sixth album by Australian band The Angels, it was released in 1983.In June 2002, Shock Records issued The Complete Sessions 1980 - 1983. The 4 CD box set included remasters of Dark Room , Night Attack , Watch The Red and The Blow...
and Two Minute Warning
Two Minute Warning (The Angels - Album)
Two Minute Warning is the seventh album by Australian band The Angels, it was released in 1984. This is the domestic release under their own name...
harbouring a distinctly heavy metal sound, yet while all three charted highly (Two Minute Warning peaked at No. 2), none of their singles reached higher than No. 21 (“Stand Up”, (1982)). The Angels were rarely referred to as a heavy metal band in Australia however, and in the modern context would possibly not now be considered one.
Without support from radio airplay even well-established foreign metal bands found little success on the Australian singles charts until the last half of the 1980s. Albums, significantly those of Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in east London, formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Since their inception, the band's discography has grown to include a total of thirty-six albums: fifteen studio albums; eleven live albums; four EPs; and six...
, occasionally charted highly however, and Iron Maiden and Twisted Sister
Twisted Sister
Twisted Sister is an American heavy metal band from Long Island. Musically, the band implements elements of traditional heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, along with a style that is similar to early glam metal bands...
were two of the few foreign metal bands to conduct Australian tours in the first half of that decade. In spite of this, metal music had a large underground following, with small independent retailers like Sydney’s Utopia Import Records catering for the audience. Utopia was established in 1978 by record collector John Cotter who began trading metal and punk albums that were generally not given release in Australia and by the early 1980s was the country’s best known retailer of heavy metal music.
Inspired by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal
New Wave of British Heavy Metal
The New Wave of British Heavy Metal was a heavy metal movement that started in the late 1970s, in Britain, and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. The movement developed as a reaction in part to the decline of early heavy metal bands such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black...
, a small raft of bands had begun to emerge that would form the foundations of the modern Australian heavy metal scene. Some of the better known groups from this time included Taipan, Saracen, Virgin Soldiers, Prowler (who would soon change their name to Taramis), Black Jack, Rosanas Raiders, Axatak, Almost Human, Egypt ( Later to become Venom in Sydney), Tyrant and Bengal Tigers. Bengal Tigers had formed in Melbourne in 1979 and by 1982 had been signed to Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records is an Australian recoJrd company formed by Michael Gudinski and Ray Evans in Melbourne in 1972. After its sale in 1998, it merged into Festival Mushroom Records. From 2005 to 2009, it is one of the record labels operated by Warner Bros...
, releasing an EP called “Metal Fetish” although neither this release nor two later singles met with success. Saracen was a Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
band that had formed in 1980. When guitarist John Meyer joined Rose Tattoo in 1983, Saracen replaced him with Jamie Page and changed its name to Trilogy, releasing two albums (the second of which was recorded after Meyer returned, and issued under the Saracen name). Axatak, who adopted a leather and hair look similar to the early LA
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
glam metal
Glam metal
Glam metal is a subgenre of hard rock and heavy metal that arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, particularly on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip music scene...
scene and Taipan also released albums or EPs but all of these were generally passed over by the mainstream Australian music scene. Almost Human was an Adelaide band that formed in the late 70s playing covers before introducing original material. As one of that city's most prominent heavy bands they supported touring groups like Whitesnake
Whitesnake
Whitesnake are an English rock band, founded in 1978 by David Coverdale after his departure from his previous band, Deep Purple. The band's early material has been compared by critics to Deep Purple, but by the mid 1980s they had moved to a more commercial hard rock style...
, Sweet
Sweet (band)
Sweet was a British rock band that rose to worldwide fame in the 1970s as one of the most prominent glam rock acts, with the classic line-up of lead vocalist Brian Connolly, bass player Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott, and drummer Mick Tucker.Sweet was formed in 1968 and achieved their first...
, Slade
Slade
Slade are an English rock band from Wolverhampton, who rose to prominence during the glam rock era of the early 1970s. With 17 consecutive Top 20 hits and six number ones, the British Hit Singles & Albums names them as the most successful British group of the 1970s based on sales of singles...
and others and eventually released a self-financed single. Guitarist Chris Tennant went on to achieve some success with The Superjesus
The Superjesus
The Superjesus were an ARIA award–winning rock band from Adelaide, Australia. They are best known for their singles "Shut My Eyes", "Down Again" and "Gravity".-History:...
during the 1990s and other members went on to play in bands like Heaven and BB Steal
BB Steal
BB Steal are an Australian band formed circa 1987. Lead vocalist Craig Csongrady has been the only permanent member.The band originally featured former Boss members lead vocalist Craig Csongrady and guitarist Kevin Pratt, as well as guitarist Warren Mason, bassist Peter Waterank, and drummer Peter...
.
Other bands were somewhat more successful, though success was fleeting. Boss had formed in Adelaide in 1979 and after moving to Sydney built up a following on the pub circuit, eventually signing to RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
for worldwide release in 1983. The album was moderately successful in Europe and the group supported Iron Maiden, Twisted Sister and Dio
Dio (band)
Dio was an American heavy metal band from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Formed in 1982 and led by vocalist Ronnie James Dio, after he left Black Sabbath with intentions to form a new band with fellow former Black Sabbath member, drummer Vinny Appice. Naming the band Dio made sense from a commercial...
but disbanded after a US tour, reforming a brief time later under the name BB Steal, a band that still exists to the present time. In Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Black Jack
Black Jack (heavy metal band)
Black Jack was an Australian heavy metal band that was active in the 1980s.-History:Black Jack formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1983, and released one EP on the Metal for Melbourne label in 1985, Five Pieces of Eight. Their musical style included elements of NWOBHM, Power metal and Doom metal...
formed in 1983. They released material (on a now defunct label associated with a local metal music shop) that showcased a distinctive blend of NWOBHM and power metal with undertones of doom metal.
The Melbourne heavy metal scene at this time was still very underground, and was supported by a handful of metal music shows on community radio
Community radio
Community radio is a type of radio service, that offers a third model of radio broadcasting beyond commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting. Community stations can serve geographic communities and communities of interest...
stations, especially 3PBS and 3RRR
3RRR
3RRR is a popular Australian community radio station, based in Melbourne. It is the largest per capita subscribed radio station in the world....
. Local announcers included Allan Thomas who hosted the Metal for Melbourne show on 3RRR
3RRR
3RRR is a popular Australian community radio station, based in Melbourne. It is the largest per capita subscribed radio station in the world....
for a number of years between the mid-1980s and 1990, and was a prominent, influential, and controversial figure in the local metal scene.
Heaven formed in Sydney out of an Adelaide band called Fat Lip in 1980 and became a second-tier attraction in the US on the strength of their second album, touring widely and opening for the likes of Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,...
, Kiss
KISS (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...
and Mötley Crüe
Mötley Crüe
Mötley Crüe is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1981. The group was founded by bass guitarist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, who were later joined by lead guitarist Mick Mars and lead singer Vince Neil...
before eventually imploding in 1985. Vice
Vice
Vice is a practice or a behavior or habit considered immoral, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a defect, an infirmity, or merely a bad habit. Synonyms for vice include fault, depravity, sin, iniquity, wickedness, and corruption...
was a glam metal
Glam metal
Glam metal is a subgenre of hard rock and heavy metal that arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, particularly on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip music scene...
band from Brisbane who had formed in early 1984. They became one of the city's most prominent acts, releasing an EP and two albums, undertaking interstate tours and also supporting international acts such as Sweet and Stryper
Stryper
Stryper is a Christian glam metal band from Orange County, California. The group's lineup consists of Michael Sweet , Oz Fox , Tim Gaines , and Robert Sweet...
.
The Tasmanian scene was non-existent except for one genuine metal act, Tyrant that formed in 1983, releasing a 4-track cassette titled "Never Too Loud" which topped the local metal charts and peaking at #7 at Melbourne's Central Station records. Tyrant re-located to Sydney in 1985, quickly establishing themselves and headlining the first Metal Crusade at the Coogee Bay Hotel on a lineup that also included Bengal Tigers, Shy Thunder, Statez and Vice before 1,800 people. Despite good reviews in both RAM and Juke magazines, not to mention a strong fan base, a record deal never eventuated and the group disbanded in late 1986. Over the next decade Tyrant played only a handful of shows, reforming in 1999 and have released 3 albums to date, Freaks Of Nature, Thunder Down Under and Live Bootleg. Tyrant still exists today with singer Neil 'Steel' Wilson being the only original member with a 25th Anniversary CD currently being recorded.
By the mid-1980s, music by American thrash bands like Metallica
Metallica
Metallica is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1981 when James Hetfield responded to an advertisement that drummer Lars Ulrich had posted in a local newspaper. The current line-up features long-time lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo ...
and Slayer
Slayer
Slayer is an American thrash metal band formed in Huntington Park, California, in 1981 by guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. Slayer rose to fame with their 1986 release, Reign in Blood, and is credited as one of the "Big Four" thrash metal acts, along with Metallica, Megadeth and...
had begun to filter through the local metal community and a group of newer bands started to appear that adopted similar styles. Arguably the earliest of these was Melbourne’s Nothing Sacred
Nothing Sacred (band)
Nothing Sacred were a thrash metal band from Australia that existed in the 1980s.- History :One of the earliest Australian bands to play thrash metal, Nothing Sacred formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1983. After recording a demo, they released their first EP Deathwish, an independent release, and...
, although other Melbourne bands like Renegade, Tyrus, Rampage, Mass Confusion, and Slaughter Lord from Sydney would soon also emerge. The most prominent early thrash acts, however, were Sydney’s Mortal Sin and Melbourne’s Hobbs' Angel of Death
Hobbs' Angel of Death
Hobbs' Angel of Death are an Australian thrash metal band that began in 1987 in Melbourne, and are one of the first Australian groups to perform in that genre. They released two studio albums, Hobb's Angel of Death and Inheritance before disbanding in 1996...
. Mortal Sin had been formed in late 1985 by drummer Wayne Campbell and singer Mat Maurer out of a more traditional-styled band called Wizzard and within six months had recorded Mayhemic Destruction
Mayhemic Destruction
Mayhemic Destruction is the first album by the Australian thrash metal band Mortal Sin. The album was designed as a demo but released as an album by the band on its own Mega Metal Productions imprint in 1986...
. Originally meant as a demo, the group released it as an album in early 1987 and were soon signed internationally to Vertigo, before long becoming Australia’s highest-profile metal band by supporting Metallica on a national tour and later heading overseas to tour Europe and the US. Hobbs Angel of Death had begun as a solo project for Tyrus guitarist Peter Hobbs. After recording a series of demos with assistance from members of Nothing Sacred, Hobbs found interest in the project from German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
label Steamhammer who released the album Hobbs' Angel of Death
Hobbs' Angel of Death
Hobbs' Angel of Death are an Australian thrash metal band that began in 1987 in Melbourne, and are one of the first Australian groups to perform in that genre. They released two studio albums, Hobb's Angel of Death and Inheritance before disbanding in 1996...
in 1988. Armoured Angel
Armoured Angel
- External links :*** *...
had formed in Canberra in 1984 and released their debut demo tape Baptism In Blood the following year. Another band, Sadistik Exekution
Sadistik Exekution
Sadistik Exekution is an Australian Death Metal band that formed in 1985 and has existed somewhat sporadically ever since. While last playing live in 1999, the band recorded two more albums and while they have publicly declared to have disbanded several times since, the group reunited for a single...
, had formed in Sydney in 1986. Solidifying its line-up by 1989 the group soon became an influence among both the local and foreign underground metal scenes for their chaotic death metal style and nihilistic behaviour .
1990 - 1995
A changing of the guard was also becoming evident. Mortal Sin had fizzled out after a US tour and while a new line-up had toured with Megadeth
Megadeth
Megadeth is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California which was formed in 1983 by guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine, bassist Dave Ellefson and guitarist Greg Handevidt, following Mustaine's expulsion from Metallica. The band has since released 13 studio albums, three live albums, two...
and recorded an album it was quickly forgotten. Hobbs Angel of Death had really only existed as a studio band and virtually all the early bands except Armoured Angel
Armoured Angel
- External links :*** *...
and Sydney’s Addictive
Addictive (band)
Addictive was an Australian thrash metal band, that formed in 1988. It was part of the Sydney thrash metal scene of the late 1980s. It was particularly influenced by Metallica and Sacred Reich.-History:...
had drifted apart. Both of these groups had just entered their most successful periods. Armoured Angel had formed in Canberra in 1984 as a five-piece band before becoming a trio after an early demo recording. Developing a dense and very heavy style, they are often named as Australia’s first major death metal
Death metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
band. Staying together until 1996, they came as close as any Australian metal band to attaining widescale success during this period, playing at the Big Day Out
Big Day Out
The Big Day Out is an annual music festival held in several cities in Australia and New Zealand in late January. It started in Sydney in 1992, spread to Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth by 1993, with the Gold Coast and Auckland joining in 1994...
on two occasions, touring Europe and having their two EPs distributed by Polygram Records. Addictive, who had been touted by Mortal Sin’s Mat Maurer as the country’s next big thrash act in a 1989 issue of Hot Metal magazine, had formed in 1988. Heavily influenced by Sacred Reich
Sacred Reich
Sacred Reich is a Phoenix, Arizona-based thrash metal band that formed in 1985. Singer/songwriter Phil Rind's interest was in socially conscious and political speed metal. After several records on Metal Blade Records, they signed to Hollywood Records for a short stint, but later returned to Metal...
, their first album Pity of Man had won European release, had headlined an event at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion called MetalFest with Motörhead and by 1991 was recording a follow-up album with Bob Daisley
Bob Daisley
Robert John "Bob" Daisley is an Australian musician, bassist and lyricist who has performed in genres of rock, blues, R&B, hard rock and metal.-Early career:...
. Daisley is one of Australia’s best-known metal musicians, having featured in Rainbow
Rainbow (band)
Rainbow were an English rock band, controlled by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore from 1975 to 1984 and 1994 to 1997. It was originally established with American rock band Elf's members, though over the years Rainbow went through many line-up changes with no two studio albums featuring the same line-up...
, Uriah Heep
Uriah Heep (band)
Uriah Heep are an English rock band formed in London in 1969 and regarded as a seminal classic hard rock act of the 1970s. Uriah Heep's progressive/art rock/heavy metal fusion's distinctive features have always been massive keyboards sound, strong vocal harmonies and David Byron's operatic vocals...
, Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne’s
Ozzy Osbourne
John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal...
band and by 1990 had played on more than 20 albums with 11 different artists. The resultant release Kick 'em Hard was plagued with problems, however, and Addictive faded away before splitting up in 1996.
Death and black metal bands from America, Sweden and Norway were now having a major influence, and slightly later in the decade the more aggressive stylings of Pantera
Pantera
Pantera was an American heavy metal band from Arlington, Texas. Formed by the Abbott brothers, Vinnie Paul and Dimebag Darrell in 1981, bassist Rex Brown would join in late 1981 with vocalist Terry Glaze. Looking for a new and heavier sound, Pantera had Terry replaced in 1987 with Phil Anselmo as...
and Sepultura
Sepultura
Sepultura is a Brazilian heavy metal band from Belo Horizonte, formed in 1984. The band was a major force in the death metal, thrash metal and ultimately groove metal realms during the late 1980s and early 1990s, with their later experiments melding nu metal, hardcore punk and industrial.Sepultura...
began to win fans away from old guard acts like Metallica and Megadeth who were seen by many to have mellowed since their earlier recordings. The Sydney based Hot Metal magazine, a glossy monthly that had first appeared in 1988, was the first Australian publication devoted to heavy metal and gave considerable coverage to local acts. By the early 90s it had attained widespread mainstream circulation throughout the country and helped to introduce new audiences to metal music, and established fans to new bands, especially new Australian acts.
Triple J
triple j is a nationally networked Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners between the ages of 18 and 30. The government-funded station is a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...
introduced the heavy music program 3 Hours of Power to its formatting. Originally hosted by Helen Razer
Helen Razer
Helen Razer is a Melbourne-born and Canberra-raised radio presenter and writer. She is the author of four non-fiction books and a columnist with the Australian version of The Big Issue, Melbourne newspaper The Age, and contributor to monthly magazine, Cherrie .-Media work:Razer was a prominent...
, then Francis Leach
Francis Leach
Francis Leach is an Australian radio announcer.He began his career at 3JJJ in the early 1990s as a self styled "Love Guru" hosting the Three Hours of Power show, the weekly late night heavy metal show. Later on he transferred to Creatures of the Spotlight, the Sunday night arts show...
and, from 1998, by Costa Zouliou
Costa Zouliou
Costa Zouliou is an Australian radio announcer best known for his work at Triple J. Although born in Melbourne, he was raised, and now lives in Brisbane. He is currently working behind-the-scenes and presenting fill-in shifts at radio station ABC Classic FM...
, the show began to gradually introduce more and more Australian acts into its playlists, although it wasn’t until late in Leach’s tenure with the show did it begin to move away from heavier alternative music towards a clearly metal focus. Three compilation albums featuring music featured on the show eventually appeared, titled Eleven (after the Spinal Tap
Spinal Tap (band)
Spinal Tap is a parody heavy metal band that first appeared on a failed 1979 ABC TV sketch comedy pilot called "The T.V. Show", starring Rob Reiner...
philosophy that all guitar amps should go to 11), This is Twelve and Thirteen.
One of the other great boons to Australian heavy metal music was the Metal for the Brain
Metal for the Brain
Metal for the Brain was Australia's largest heavy metal music festival. The event was held in Canberra annually, usually towards the end of the year, and featured Australian bands almost exclusively...
festival. Established by Armoured Angel’s drummer Joel Green to raise funds for a friend severely brain-damaged after an assault, the first concert in 1991 featured six Canberra bands in the afternoon with a later performance by some punk bands including the Hard Ons. By the end of the decade, the event had stretched out to a 12-hour festival featuring 18 groups from around the country and by 2000 was so big it was forced to move to a larger venue. When the final Metal for the Brain festival closed in November 2006, more than 100 different bands from every major centre in Australia and several from overseas including Voivod
Voivod (band)
Voivod are a Canadian heavy metal band from Jonquière, Quebec, Canada. Their musical style has changed several times since the band's origin in the early 1980s...
had appeared at some time. Many bands considered it to be one of the pinnacles of their achievements.
During the early 90s, the influence of American and Swedish death metal bands was quickly evident. Many of the thrash bands of the 80s had disbanded and heavier groups were beginning to fill the void, such as Necrotomy, Acheron, Disembowlment, Corpse Molestation, Damnatory, Hecatomb, Damaged
Damaged (band)
Damaged was an Australian deathgrind band from Ballarat in Victoria, Australia, active from 1989 to 2004.-History:The band was formed by drummer Matt "Skitz" Sanders...
, Anatomy and Blood Duster
Blood Duster
Blood Duster is a extreme metal/stoner rock band from Melbourne, Australia. Their name comes from the song "Blood Duster" by John Zorn, from the 1989 album Naked City.-History:...
in Melbourne, Obfuscate Mass, Misery
Misery (Australian band)
Misery are a death metal band from Brisbane, Australia. Since forming in 1991, the band has released four albums and an EP. The band split in 2005, but has reformed once more for an East Coast Australian tour in support of its final album On Demon Wings in 2009.- Background :The group was formed in...
and Mausoleum in Brisbane, Aftermath, Apostasy and Cruciform from Sydney and Psychrist and Alchemist
Alchemist (band)
Alchemist is an Australian progressive metal band from Canberra whose style combines death metal, progressive rock, psychedelic, Eastern, Aboriginal and electronic influences. The band formed in 1987 and has so far released six studios albums, an EP and a compilation album. Work began on a new EP...
from Canberra. Perhaps due to magazines like Hot Metal and the occasional exposure to extreme metal on some community radio
Community radio
Community radio is a type of radio service, that offers a third model of radio broadcasting beyond commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting. Community stations can serve geographic communities and communities of interest...
programs, bands like these were appearing at a high rate. Shock Records
Shock Records
Shock Records is Australia's largest independent record label. It helps distribute records from overseas records labels such as Epitaph Records, and also for small record labels designed specifically for that band such as Cement Records...
, the Melbourne independent label, commissioned a compilation album to highlight some of these new acts. Come to Daddy was released in 1992 and compiled by Hot Metal writer Ian McFarlane
Ian McFarlane (music journalist)
Ian McFarlane is an Australian music journalist and author of The Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop.-Biography:McFarlane started as a freelance music journalist in 1984 writing for Juke, The Edge and From the Vault...
; it contained 14 tracks from bands like Necrotomy, Mausoleum, Mystic Insight, Deracination, Obfuscate Mass, Misery, Discarnated, Entasis, iNFeCTeD, Open Festering Wounds, and Persecution. When McFarlane went to Roadrunner Records'
Roadrunner Records
Roadrunner Records is an American record label that concentrates primarily on heavy metal bands. It is currently a subsidiary of Warner Music Group.-History:...
Australian office the following year, he put together another compilation, Redrum, collecting tracks from another group of completely different bands like Alchemist, Sadistik Exekution, Frozen Doberman, Allegiance and Hecatomb.
The first group from this period to attain some prominence was Mortification, a Melbourne Christian metal
Christian metal
Christian metal, also known as white metal, is a form of heavy metal music usually defined by its message in a song's lyrics as well as the band's dedication to Christianity...
band that had evolved out of an 80s thrash group called Light Force. Having already established some international links from that time, Mortification was signed internationally by Nuclear Blast
Nuclear Blast
Nuclear Blast is an independent record label and mail order record distributor with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States and Brazil. The record label was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Germany. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label moved on to releasing albums by melodic...
almost immediately, becoming the first Australian band to be carried by the German metal-specialist label. Another Melbourne act establishing a legacy was diSEMBOWELMENT
Disembowelment (band)
Disembowelment is a Australian death/doom band from Melbourne, Australia that was formed in November 1989 out of the ashes of two-piece grind band Bacteria, featuring drummer Paul Mazziotta and guitarist/vocalist Renato Gallina...
, a studio bound band that was developing a unique blend of slow and heavy doom
Doom metal
Doom metal is an extreme form of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other metal genres...
mixed with ambience
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
and combined with death metal and grindcore
Grindcore
Grindcore is an extreme genre of music that started in the early- to mid-1980s. It draws inspiration from some of the most abrasive music genres – including death metal, industrial music, noise and the more extreme varieties of hardcore punk....
. A demo found the attention of Relapse Records
Relapse Records
Relapse Records is an independent record label based in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Matthew F. Jacobson in 1990.-History:The label was started by Matthew F. Jacobson in August, 1990 in his parents' basement in Aurora, Colorado...
who released the Transcendence Into The Peripheral
Transcendence into the Peripheral
Transcendence Into the Peripheral is the first full-length album by the Australian death/doom band Disembowelment. The album was originally released in 1993...
album in 1993. Other Melbourne groups like Damaged and Blood Duster were also becoming established. Damaged, who had formed in Ballarat
Ballarat, Victoria
Ballarat is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately west-north-west of the state capital Melbourne situated on the lower plains of the Great Dividing Range and the Yarrowee River catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth...
in 1989, played violently extreme music that combined death and black metal and grindcore with a hardcore
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
element and Blood Duster mixed thirty-second grind songs with larrikinism and loutish humour. The notorious Sadistik Exekution had finally released an album, The Magus, in 1991 but their levels of extremity were rivalled by Melbourne band Corpse Molestation. By 1993, as the impact of Norway's black metal movement was beginning to be felt, this band had adopted the trappings and style of that scene and become known as Bestial Warlust
Bestial Warlust
Bestial Warlust was a underground cult death metal band formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1993.- Biography :The band was first formed under the name Corpse Molestation and at the time played death metal with five demos and one demo compilation under the name. Their lyrical themes involved death,...
. After two albums, the group splintered apart but various members continued in a similar vein in other acts including Deströyer 666
Destroyer 666
Deströyer 666 is a black/death/thrash metal band formed in 1994 by guitarist K.K. Warslut. The group originated in Melbourne, Australia however moved to Europe.- History :...
, Abominator
Abominator
Abominator is an Australian black/death metal band formed in Melbourne, Australia 1994. Their lyrics commonly deal with war and spirituality. They have been compared to Angelcorpse and Morbid Angel.-History:...
and Gospel of the Horns
Gospel of the Horns
Gospel of the Horns is a black metal band that was formed in 1993 by guitarist Shane Transvaal D & Mark Howitzer. Originating from Brisbane, Australia, the band released 2 EP's and 2 full-length albums.- History :...
.
By 1993, Armoured Angel
Armoured Angel
- External links :*** *...
had achieved some overseas success and with their EP "Stigmartyr" being distributed nationally by Polygram had been added to the bill of the Big Day Out. In Perth, a thrash band called Allegiance
Allegiance (Australian band)
Allegiance was an Australian thrash metal group. They formed in 1990 in Perth, Australia and disbanded in 1997. They released two studio albums, D.e.s.t.i.t.u.t.i.o.n in 1994 and Skinman in 1996...
had begun to win notice after a string of demos. In 1993 they were signed, also by Polygram, and released the album D.e.s.t.i.t.u.t.i.o.n. the following year which was supported by a national tour with Sydney hard rock band The Poor. By 1995, Allegiance
Allegiance (Australian band)
Allegiance was an Australian thrash metal group. They formed in 1990 in Perth, Australia and disbanded in 1997. They released two studio albums, D.e.s.t.i.t.u.t.i.o.n in 1994 and Skinman in 1996...
had toured nationally with the Big Day Out and supported bands like Slayer, Machine Head
Machine Head (band)
Machine Head is an American heavy metal band from Oakland, California. Formed on October 12, 1991, the group was founded by Robb Flynn and Adam Duce. There have been 4 member changes since their inception. The current lineup of the band comprises Flynn , Duce , ex-Vio-Lence guitarist Phil Demmel ,...
and Fight
Fight (band)
Fight was an American heavy metal band assembled by Judas Priest frontman, Rob Halford, after his departure from that band in 1992. He took with him from Judas Priest and Racer X drummer Scott Travis, though Travis also continued to drum for Judas Priest...
, whose singer Rob Halford
Rob Halford
Robert John Arthur "Rob" Halford is an English singer-songwriter, who is best known as the lead vocalist for the Grammy Award-winning heavy metal band Judas Priest. He is nicknamed the "Metal God" as a tribute to his influence on metal, and after the Judas Priest song of the same name from 1980's...
expressed managerial interest. Problems befell the group after this point however and the second album was long delayed.
Mid-90s - 1999
By the middle of the decade, the Australian heavy metal music scene was a well-established underground culture. Small metal labels like Modern Invasion in Melbourne and Warhead RecordsWarhead Records
Warhead Records was an independent record label based in Sydney, Australia that specialised in releasing albums by Australian heavy metal bands. It was formed in 1992 by British migrant Brad Sims and Julie Martin who began by selling demo tapes of local bands at heavy metal shows at Sydney's...
in Sydney were strong supporters of local acts and both cities had particularly flourishing live metal circuits with established venues for bands to play. The smaller centres also harboured well-developed metal scenes, although Brisbane and particularly Perth were cut off from the growing south-east coast touring circuit by immense distances. Nevertheless, Australian metal bands were receiving more media coverage than ever before. As more local releases appeared, more were being added to the playlists of community radio and to 3 Hours of Power, and a second magazine with a metal focus had started to circulate. Hot Metal had become simply HM in the early 90s in order to widen its coverage to include other alternative music styles in the wake of grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
and many metal fans had expressed a belief that the magazine no longer catered to their tastes. An offshoot of Sydney street paper On the Street, Rebel Razor was launched at the Alternative Nation Festival
Alternative Nation Festival
Alternative Nation was a series of music festivals held in Australia in 1995. It was organised by a consortium of concert promoters, Michael Coppell, Michael Chugg and Michael Gudinski and backed by the Triple M radio network as an alternative to the Big Day Out...
in 1995. Produced on news print at a cheaper cost than HM, Rebel Razor did not cover metal exclusively either but it had a more prominent local focus.
The same year, however, Sydney's live metal scene suffered a series of blows when several venues closed down. The Lewisham
Lewisham, New South Wales
Lewisham is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Lewisham is located 8 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Marrickville Council. The postcode is 2049...
Hotel in the inner western suburbs, which as The Haunted Castle had hosted metal gigs up to four nights a week since the early 90s, decided to close its doors to metal bands after a series of vandalism incidents. The other premier venue was the Phoenician Club on Broadway in the inner city, which also hosted regular metal events including shows by international touring acts; the building's history as a live music venue dated back to the early 1970s when groups like AC/DC had played there. On 21 October 1995, however, the club hosted a dance party attended by 15-year old Anna Wood who died three days later after taking ecstacy there. During the resultant investigation, the Phoenician Club's entertainment license was withdrawn and with the closure of another two venues shortly afterward—including the Cobra Club at the Parramatta
Parramatta, New South Wales
Parramatta is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located in Greater Western Sydney west of the Sydney central business district on the banks of the Parramatta River. Parramatta is the administrative seat of the Local Government Area of the City of Parramatta...
Hotel which had been a key venue for every type of band from hair metal to thrash—the live heavy metal scene in Sydney almost came to a standstill. The Lewisham Hotel has since begun hosting metal gigs once more, although not as frequently. The old Phoenician Club building was eventually demolished in 2006 to make way for a residential precinct, and the Parramatta Hotel was similarly removed in 2003 and the site is now part of the enormous Westfield shopping complex.
Regardless of these closures, a steady stream of bands were beginning to develop considerable profiles. Alchemist, who had formed in Canberra in 1987, had finally refined its unique style that comprised elements of death metal, grindcore, surf rock and psychedelia
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
. A track from their second album Lunasphere
Lunasphere
Lunasphere is the second full-length album by the Australian progressive metal band Alchemist, and the first of their albums to be released by Shock Records through its metal subsidiary Thrust, in 1995...
had been included on one of the 3 Hours of Power compilations and the group played at the 1996 Sydney Big Day Out. In Sydney, the symphonic black metal
Symphonic black metal
Symphonic black metal is a black metal subgenre that emerged in the mid to late 1990s. The genre is known for its symphonic and orchestral elements and is centralized in Europe.-Characteristics:...
band Lord Kaos
Lord Kaos
Lord Kaos was an Australian black metal band that formed in Sydney in 1994. For several years the group was the most prominent act of its style in the country with one founding member going on to record and perform with several Norwegian black metal bands including Dimmu Borgir...
were filling the gap that had been left by the dissolution of Bestial Warlust
Bestial Warlust
Bestial Warlust was a underground cult death metal band formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1993.- Biography :The band was first formed under the name Corpse Molestation and at the time played death metal with five demos and one demo compilation under the name. Their lyrical themes involved death,...
, and a core group of bands like Mortality, Cryogenic
Cryogenic (Band)
Cryogenic was an Australian thrash metal/death metal band formed in 1992 in Wetherill Park, a suburb of Sydney, Australia.-Early:The band originally featured guitarist Steve Essa, bass player Anthony Henning, singer/guitarist Russell Player and drummer Chad Bartosik, who was also a member of...
and Segression
Segression
Segression is a heavy metal band from Wollongong, Australia. Originally known as Eezee and playing sleaze metal, the group decided to change its name after moving into in a thrash direction in mid-1994.-Early years:...
were proving that there was more to the local scene than just death metal. Death metal was the focus of Brisbane's scene, however, headed by Misery who had formed in 1992 and featuring others like Sakkuth
Sakkuth
Sakkuth is a band based in Brisbane in Queensland. They describe themselves as "melodic metal". They have been active in the Brisbane heavy metal scene and around Australia for nearly 10 years.-The beginning:...
and Killengod. A developing melodic metal/power metal
Power metal
Power metal is a style of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional metal with speed metal, often within symphonic context. The term refers to two different but related styles: the first pioneered and largely practiced in North America with a harder sound similar to speed metal, and a...
scene led by Hyperion but also including groups like Pegazus
Pegazus
-External links:**...
, Vanishing Point
Vanishing Point (band)
Vanishing Point are an Australian power/progressive metal band from Melbourne. The band incorporates symphonic elements into their sound through a prominent keyboard role in their music...
and Eyefear
Eyefear
Eyefear is a progressive metal band from Melbourne, Australia. They were formed in 1994 by founding members; Con Papazoglou, Rob Gorham, Zain Kimmie and Ken Taylor. They have released four full-length albums, one EP and one promo...
were starting to appear in the always diverse Melbourne. In Perth, isolation was a serious problem. Both Allegiance and iNFeCTeD, a death metal band that had released two albums on Shock, had self-destructed not long after returning from expensive east coast tours.
As the Sydney live metal scene began to recover with some new venues replacing those lost the year before, Rebel Razor ceased publication after the 24th issue in June 1996. Shortly afterward, Pacific Publications announced that HM was also being shut down. Several HM staff members including editor Jeremy Sheaffe then set up their own publishing house and produced the first issue of Loudmouth magazine in April 1997. By this time, nu metal
Nu metal
Nu metal is a subgenre of heavy metal. It is a fusion genre which combines elements of heavy metal with other genres, including grunge and hip hop...
had begun to have a strong influence over the domestic metal scene, with several of the more established metal acts taking aspects of that sound into their own, or shifting toward it completely. Superheist
Superheist
Superheist was an Australian nu metal band that attained a significant degree of success with a string of EPs and singles and two full-length albums that charted in the Top 40 before suddenly disbanding in 2004.-Formation and early period:...
, a Melbourne group that had formed in the early part of the decade as a grindcore band, had re-invented themselves as a pop-laced nu metal act and before long was one of Shock's major bands with their songs being played on TV shows and added to mainstream compilation albums. Segression had begun to head in the same direction with their second album Fifth of the Fifth and by the time of their third release were well established as a nu metal band. Canberra band Henry's Anger
Henry's Anger
Henry's Anger was a Canberra based heavy metal band. Their second album Personality Test was nominated for an Aria Award for Best Rock Album and reached #38 on the alternative charts...
had started out playing a dark alternative rock style similar to Tool
Tool (band)
Tool is an American rock band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1990, the group's line-up has included drummer Danny Carey, guitarist Adam Jones, and vocalist Maynard James Keenan. Since 1995, Justin Chancellor has been the band's bassist, replacing their original bassist Paul D'Amour...
but by 1997 they too were exploring a nu metal sound and by 1999 they were on the verge of a major breakthrough when their second album Personality Test was nominated for an ARIA
Australian Recording Industry Association
The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956...
Award in the Best Album Category. Another group was a Messiah from the Gold Coast
Gold Coast, Queensland
Gold Coast is a coastal city of Australia located in South East Queensland, 94km south of the state capital Brisbane. With a population approximately 540,000 in 2010, it is the second most populous city in the state, the sixth most populous city in the country, and also the most populous...
. Formed in 1997 and with an 11-year old drummer, the band created such a positive vibe that before long they had been signed to Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
and become Sunk Loto
Sunk Loto
Sunk Loto was an alternative metal band from Queensland, Australia. The band's members were vocalist, Jason Brown, lead guitarist/backing vocalist Luke McDonald, drummer Dane Brown and Sean Van Gennip who was the bass player in the band from 1998 until 2006...
, a group who would have a serious mid-level career in the first part of the next decade.
2000s
Despite the closure of Warhead Records and Loudmouth magazine, by 2000 Australian heavy metal was thriving like never before. By the end of that year the scene was much different from the one that had existed at the beginning of the previous decade. Many of the bands were beginning to be noticed beyond the underground by other sections of the industry and quite a few were establishing names overseas. Pegazus, a Melbourne power metal band that had formed at the beginning of the 90s, had become only the second Australian group after Mortification
Mortification (band)
Mortification is an Australian Christian extreme metal band which was formed in 1987 as a heavy metal group, Lightforce, by mainstay Steve Rowe on bass guitar and vocals. By 1990, in the Melbourne suburb of Moorabbin, they were renamed as Mortification with the line-up of Rowe, Michael Carlisle on...
to find themselves attached to Nuclear Blast Records. In 1998 they also became the first Australian act to appear at Germany's prestigious Wacken Open Air
Wacken Open Air
Wacken Open Air is a summer open air heavy metal music festival. It takes place annually in the small town of Wacken in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany...
Festival. Another Melbourne melodic metal band, Vanishing Point
Vanishing Point (band)
Vanishing Point are an Australian power/progressive metal band from Melbourne. The band incorporates symphonic elements into their sound through a prominent keyboard role in their music...
, became the second in 2000. The Berzerker
The Berzerker
The Berzerker was an extreme metal band from Melbourne, Australia and was formed in 1995. The band's music, heavily influenced by older death metal and grindcore, can be characterized as a fusion of these with speedcore, and gabber...
, yet another Melbourne group, also appeared on the international scene when its self-titled debut album became the first release from an Australian band on the British extreme music label Earache Records
Earache Records
Earache Records is a heavy metal-oriented record label based in Nottingham, UK and New York, USA. It helped to pioneer extreme metal by releasing many of the earliest grindcore and death metal records in the period 1988-1994.-History:...
. Deströyer 666, a thrash band that had been formed by former Bestial Warlust guitarist KK Warslut, was another act developing a foreign profile, touring Europe (and eventually moving there in 2001) and linking up with Norway's influential Season of Mist
Season of Mist
Season of Mist is a record label and record distributor with subsidiaries in France and the United States. The record label was founded in 1996 by Michael S. Berberian in Marseille, France. From the start releasing black metal, pagan metal and death metal records, the label moved on to releasing...
label. Earlier in the year, Alchemist, Cryogenic and a Sydney thrash band called Psi.Kore had staged a large-scale tour billed as "World War Three". Backed by Triple J's 3 Hours of Power program, Utopia Import Records and Sydney record label Chatterbox Records
Chatterbox Records
Chatterbox Records was an independent record label based in Sydney, Australia, founded in 1997 by musician Nik Tropiano and Sebastian Chase of Phantom Records. The label boasts an eclectic mixture of artists across various genres. Its first release was a vinyl EP from Sydney electro-goth band Cult 45...
, to whom two of the bands were signed, it was the first tour of its kind to feature Australian metal bands exclusively, and visited all the east coast state capitals and several regional centres. The Metal for the Brain festival had now become so large that the organisers had found it necessary to find a larger venue for it, moving the event from the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
to the University of Canberra
University of Canberra
Over the years the Stone Day program has gradually become larger and larger, taking up a whole week and now Stonefest is one of Australia's most popular music festivals. The first foundation celebrations were held in 1971. In 1973 Stone Day celebrations were held over two days, which was expanded...
. Thirty bands played that year, with Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
group Voivod becoming the first foreign act to appear at the festival. For the first time, the event attracted publicity from the mainstream media, with the Weekend Australian including a feature story on it in its colour magazine several weeks later. Just over a year before, on 26 September 1999, The Sun Herald
The Sun-Herald
The Sun-Herald is an Australian tabloid newspaper published on Sundays in Sydney by Fairfax Media. It is the Sunday counterpart of The Sydney Morning Herald. In the 6 months to September 2005, The Sun-Herald had a circulation of 515,000...
had included a feature article on Australian metal in its Sunday Life! supplement. It was perhaps the first story of its kind in a major Australian daily newspaper. In terms of other media, Andrew Haug
Andrew Haug
Andrew Haug is a radio announcer and heavy metal musician from Melbourne, Australia. He is one of the most prominent figures on Australia's largely underground heavy metal scene....
had taken over from Costa Zouliou on 3 Hours of Power in 2001. Haug, who had previously presented a heavy metal program on Melbourne community station 3RRR
3RRR
3RRR is a popular Australian community radio station, based in Melbourne. It is the largest per capita subscribed radio station in the world....
, is also Century Media's Australian label rep and the drummer for a band called Contrive
Contrive
Contrive are a heavy metal band from Melbourne, Australia formed in 1999. Their musical style has been compared to that of Sepultura.The band consists of bassist Tim Stahlmann and twin brothers Paul Haug and Andrew Haug...
and under his direction the show began featuring more Australian metal than ever before. Soon after his tenure began, however, programming reshuffles at Triple J caused the show to be reduced by an hour and was renamed Full Metal Racket
Full Metal Racket
The Racket is an Australian heavy metal radio show airing on alternative youth broadcaster Triple J. It is hosted by Andrew Haug, who is also the drummer for Melbourne metal band Contrive...
. A monthly glossy magazine catering to the metal audience had not existed since Loudmouth had wound up in 1998 but in 2001 the Sydney office of EMAP Publications
EMAP
Emap Limited is a British media company, specialising in the production of business-to-business magazines, and the organisation of business events and conferences...
began producing a local version of its long-running British magazine Kerrang!
Kerrang!
Kerrang! is a UK-based magazine devoted to rock music published by Bauer Media Group. It was first published on June 6, 1981 as a one-off supplement in the Sounds newspaper...
, although it failed to provide the kind of coverage of Australian metal found in previous magazines.
More bands were bolstering the scene's increasingly healthier status and diversifying its fanbase. Brisbane band Astriaal had formed in 1998 and since then had bucked the trend for
black metal bands to remain mysterious and play live rarely or never. The group had released three EPs through Brisbane label Dissident by 2002, headlined Metal for the Brain and toured regularly. One band developing a profile was Psi.Kore, who had formed in 1996. They had been on the "World War Three" tour and, their self-titled EP was a best-seller. By going on to support Cradle of Filth
Cradle of Filth
Cradle of Filth are an English extreme metal band, formed in Suffolk in 1991. The band's musical style evolved from black metal to a cleaner and more "produced" amalgam of gothic metal, symphonic black metal, and other extreme metal styles, while their lyrical themes and imagery are heavily...
and Megadeth, Psi.Kore was on the verge of further success but split in 2002, with most of the band forming Daysend
Daysend
Daysend was a metalcore/melodic death metal band from Sydney, Australia, assembled in 2002. Their debut album, Severance, was released the following year.-History:...
who would have a similar ascent. Brisbane band Devolved
Devolved (band)
Devolved is a technical death metal band originally from the Gold Coast, Australia but based in Los Angeles, California since 2005. Led by founding member John Sankey the band has so far released three full-length albums with a fourth studio album scheduled for 2012, and toured throughout...
had attracted attention with a militaristic death metal style and at the end of 2001 were voted Australian Metal Band of the Year by Triple J. The following year they toured Europe and eventually moved to the US in 2005. Chalice
Chalice (band)
Chalice was a Gothic-doom metal band from Adelaide, South Australia. The group released three albums and was perhaps Australia's most notable Gothic metal band for a number of years before splitting up in 2007....
was an Adelaide band who had won wide acceptance with a symphonic Gothic metal
Gothic metal
Gothic metal or goth metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music that combines the aggression of doom metal with the dark melancholy of gothic rock. The music of gothic metal is diverse with bands known to adopt the gothic approach to different styles of heavy metal music...
, a style that was gaining popularity but had few local exponents. The rise of Swedish melodic death metal had also spawned Australian practitioners such as Infernal Method
Infernal Method (band)
Infernal Method was a melodic death metal band from Sydney, Australia. Despite the volatility of its line-up, the band was a dominant presence on Sydney's live metal music scene between early 2002 and late 2006 and notable for featuring an array of members who came from or later joined other bands...
, a Sydney band that had formed out of the remnants of Deadspawn. At one time featuring a former member of Dimmu Borgir
Dimmu Borgir
Dimmu Borgir is a Norwegian black metal band from Oslo, Norway, formed in 1993. Dimmu borgir means "dark cities" or "dark castles/fortresses" in Icelandic, Faroese and Old Norse. The name is derived from a volcanic formation in Iceland, Dimmuborgir...
, Infernal Method quickly established themselves as perhaps the best-known local band playing the style, but constant personnel reshuffles kept them from releasing anything more than a demo. Nu metal acts like Superheist and Sunk Loto were doing strongly, enjoying radio airplay and playing regularly at festival events. The pressure of further success weighed heavily on both acts however. At the end of 2001, Sunk Loto
Sunk Loto
Sunk Loto was an alternative metal band from Queensland, Australia. The band's members were vocalist, Jason Brown, lead guitarist/backing vocalist Luke McDonald, drummer Dane Brown and Sean Van Gennip who was the bass player in the band from 1998 until 2006...
virtually disappeared for almost two years and Superheist self-destructed at the end of 2003.
Other bands made significant comebacks. Damaged
Damaged
Damaged is the debut studio album by the American hardcore punk band Black Flag. It was released in December 1981 through SST Records. In 2003, the album was ranked number 340 on Rolling Stones list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time....
had gone through a tumultuous history and by early 1999 was down to only two members. Late in 2000, however, the group had returned with a new vocalist, Brutal Truth
Brutal Truth
Brutal Truth is an American grindcore band from New York City, formed by ex-Anthrax, Nuclear Assault, and Stormtroopers Of Death bass guitarist Dan Lilker in 1990. The group disbanded in 1999, but reformed in 2006 and continue to release new music.-History:...
's Kevin Sharp, a new bass player Eddie Lacey from thrash metal band, The Wolves, and a new album. A national tour followed, but Sharp's association with the group would be brief. Eddie Lacey was also to depart the band. Three years later, Damaged returned once more but their always volatile personal relationships ended them for good within twelve months. Hobbs Angel of Death and Mortal Sin also returned. Peter Hobbs had rebuilt his band in 2002 and released an album of his early demos a few months later. In December 2003, the band played Metal for the Brain and featured at Wacken in mid-2004. Mortal Sin had reformed once before, in the mid-90s, but split up again within two years. By late 2003, however, the group had once again reunited and before long had recorded a live DVD and begun writing material for a new album. They went on to play Wacken in 2006.
2005–present
By the middle of the decade, nu metal had all but disappeared from the heavy metal landscape and metalcore
Metalcore
Metalcore is a subgenre of heavy metal combining various elements of extreme metal and hardcore punk. The name is a portmanteau of the names of the two genres. The term took on its current meaning in the mid-1990s, describing bands such as Earth Crisis, Deadguy and Integrity...
had taken its place among the more traditional forms of metal. Bands like Parkway Drive from Byron Bay
Byron Bay, New South Wales
Byron Bay is a beachside town located in the far-northeastern corner of the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located north of Sydney and south of Brisbane. Cape Byron, a headland adjacent to the town, is the easternmost point of mainland Australia. At the 2006 Census, the town had a...
and I Killed the Prom Queen
I Killed the Prom Queen
I Killed the Prom Queen is an Australian metalcore band which formed in 2000 with mainstays JJ Peters on drums and Jona Weinhofen on guitar. The band featured prominently on the Australian live music scene and toured the USA, Japan and parts of Europe several times...
from Adelaide had previously been seen as part of the hardcore scene but were finding their audience beginning to crossover as the definition between hardcore and metal became increasingly blurred. While they often found themselves to be alienated by fans of more traditional metal, these bands were soon being touted as Australia's most prominent metal groups and both had established credible followings internationally before I Killed the Prom Queen abruptly split up in early 2007. Things did not turn out so well for Sunk Loto, who had switched to an aggressive metalcore style on their second album Between Birth and Death
Between Birth and Death
Between Birth and Death is the second full-length studio album by alternative metal band Sunk Loto.Released in 2003, it featured the singles "Everything Everyway" and "Starved", for which music videos were made....
only to find little acceptance for it from more established fans and a difficulty attracting new ones, and the band broke up acrimoniously in mid-2007. Other bands with metal backgrounds like Daysend developed a deliberately metalcore style and found immediate acceptance. Within three years of forming in 2002 the band had toured constantly and opened for a range of foreign acts before heading to the US on a six week tour in 2005.
It was not just Australia's metalcore contingent that was breaking into overseas markets. Alchemist, who had long sustained a dedicated cult-level foreign following, finally broke through in the middle of the decade and toured Europe in late 2004. The Berzerker was by now well established at an international level and had supported their first three albums with lengthy tours across Europe and North America. A technical death metal band from Hobart called Psycroptic
Psycroptic
-External links:**...
was also making inroads beyond Australian shores. The band undertook a European tour in 2004 after the release of their second album and by the middle of 2006 had signed to French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
label Neurotic, before touring Europe once more.
Blood Duster also toured Europe in June 2005. At one point, the bands found themselves playing at the same venue on concurrent nights, possibly the first time such a thing had happened in Australian metal history. Blood Duster had toured with the Big Day Out the year before, the first domestic metal band to play at every show since Allegiance ten years previously, and had even attained the rare distinction of having a song featured in a TV commercial. In 2008, Truth Corroded became the first Australian band to tour China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, with Contrive becoming the first Australian metal group to tour Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
following in 2009. In 2010, Australian metal upstarts Universum
Universum (band)
UNIVERSUM are a melodic death metal band hailing from Adelaide South Australia. The band completed formation in early 2007 and describe their sound a fusion of Scandinavian melodic death metal, new wave American metal, old school thrash metal and progressive metal...
bridged gaps between Australian underground metal scenes and European markets with the collaboration of prominent metal figures on their 'Mortuus Machina' release. Featuring members from Scar Symmetry
Scar Symmetry
Scar Symmetry is a Swedish melodic death metal band from Avesta in Dalarna County, formed in 2004. The band has released five albums, with six released singles...
, Soilwork
Soilwork
Soilwork is a Swedish melodic death metal band from Helsingborg. They are currently signed to Nuclear Blast. Formed in late 1995 by Björn Strid and Peter Wichers, originally under the name Inferior Breed, the band changed their name in late 1996 to Soilwork .Their sound is a fusion of the classic...
, MyGrain
MyGRAIN
myGRAIN is a melodic death metal band from Helsinki, Finland. They are currently signed to Spinefarm Records. They have released three studio albums.-Background:...
, Nightrage
Nightrage
Nightrage is a Greek/Swedish melodic death metal band formed by guitarist Marios Iliopoulos and his close friend Gus G. who later re-located to Gothenburg, Sweden.-Sweet Vengeance:...
and Mors Principium Est
Mors Principium Est
Mors Principium Est is a Finnish melodic death metal band formed in 1999.- History :The band was formed in 1999 in Pori, Finland by singer/lead guitarist Jori Haukio, guitarist Jarkko Kokko and keyboardist Toni Nummelin...
, Universum
Universum (band)
UNIVERSUM are a melodic death metal band hailing from Adelaide South Australia. The band completed formation in early 2007 and describe their sound a fusion of Scandinavian melodic death metal, new wave American metal, old school thrash metal and progressive metal...
have taken a major step forward in bringing attention to Australia's metal scene.
An increasingly popular export, the latter half of the 2000's has seen a marked increase in the number of Black Metal artists achieving high distinction and domestic and international success. In the footsteps of the highly successful Destroyer 666 and Gospel of the Horns, Melbourne bands Adamus Exul and Order of Orias have achieved critical acclaim in recent years in the Americas and Europe respectively, achieving collaborative signings with Misanthropic Spirit Records (Argentina) and Obscure Abhorrence Productions (Ger.) for upcoming full-length releases.
In spite of such successes, Australian heavy metal continues to remain a fringe underground culture still widely ignored by the mainstream industry and media. When it was announced in mid-2006 that the annual Metal for the Brain festival would be no more after a final event on 4 November, no regular news service outside of Canberra carried word of it, even though it had often attracted up to 3000 people and had been running as long as the Big Day Out. In an interview with Australian metal webzine HailMetal.com, festival director Adam Agius
Adam Agius
Adam Agius is the vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist and a founding member of the progressive metal band Alchemist. He formed Alchemist in 1987 while still in high school and is the group's only remaining original member...
suggested the festival would return in 2008; this now seems unlikely.
On 7 November 2009, the Australian Metal Awards were held in Sydney. The event was billed as part concert and part awards show featuring Sadistik Exekution
Sadistik Exekution
Sadistik Exekution is an Australian Death Metal band that formed in 1985 and has existed somewhat sporadically ever since. While last playing live in 1999, the band recorded two more albums and while they have publicly declared to have disbanded several times since, the group reunited for a single...
's first performance in ten years, along with a host of other leading Australian metal bands. Psycroptic (6 awards) and Chaos Divine
Chaos Divine
Chaos DivineOriginPerth, Western AustraliaGenresProgressive metalYears active2005–presentLabelsFirestarter Music & DistributionStudio Albums2011 - The Human Connection2009 - AvalonEPs2006 - RatioMembersSimon Mitchell...
(5 awards including 'Band of the Year') dominated proceedings. This was the third such attempt at an awards event for the local metal scene. Previously, one such awards night had been tied to Metal for the Brain in 2005 and there was an even earlier attempt hosted in Melbourne during the mid-1990s.
Australian heavy metal music has established itself as a healthy if overlooked part of the wider Australian music industry, and many of the bands involved in it continue to be signed to foreign labels and build international fanbases.
Online Media
Starting in 2001, the first website devoted to Australian heavy metal coverage was launched by Perth based site Western Front, since 2009 this has been expanded to cover a local awards night for WA heavy metal bands. Other online coverage of Australian heavy metal was founded by Sydney based sites Hail Metal and Pyro Music who provided regular reviews and interviews from the local and international scene.In 2008, Metal Obsession entered the market offering extensive news, reviews, interviews and gig guide for all states of Australia and New Zealand. Metal Obsession received an Australian Metal Award in 2009 for best Metal Fan/Web/Magazine. Metal as Fuck also offer updates of Australian metal in a global context. The Aus Metal Gig Guide also provides a decent contributor based gig listing.
Record labels
Few Australian record labels have specialised in heavy metal, and even fewer have focused solely on Australian heavy metal. Two of the best known are Melbourne’s Modern Invasion Music and Sydney’s now defunct Warhead Records. Daniel Janecka began Modern Invasion by managing bands like Hobbs Angel of Death and distributing early Norwegian black metal albums before releasing the first Bestial Warlust album in 1994. Since then the label has maintained its distribution service along with its own roster and now carries acts that include Chalice, Deströyer 666, Long Voyage Back and former Sadistik Exekution guitarist Rev. Kriss Hades, along with a selection of overseas bands and a small number of non-metal bands.Melbourne enterprise Metal Warriors/Samson Productions is another small label dedicated to heavy metal music. Run by Steve Ravic, Metal Warriors has produced several compilations on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and managed and released music by Dungeon, Pegazus and Vanishing Point among others, however Ravic has been concentrating his efforts on film making in recent years.
Prime Cuts is a Perth label handling a range of metal bands from that city . Started by metal musicians Glen Dyson and Brad Wesson in 2002, the company has since expanded to incorporate the promotions and touring arm Soundworks Entertainment which in the last few years has conducted numerous Australian tours by foreign bands. In late 2007, this label released A Blaze in the Southern Skies, a double CD of metal music by Australian and New Zealand artists. The label's roster is now quite extensive and includes bands from all over Australia.
The Coffins Slave also in Sydney is a label and distribution working with exclusive distribution deals from [Dark Decsent Records] [Svart Records] [Cruz del Sur Music] carrying titles ranging from Black metal, Thrash, NWOBHM, Doom, and so on, mainly dealing in the VINYL format they also carry CDS. The Coffins Slave also has a roster of signed bands from Australia and over seas. The Coffins Slave also runs a yearly festival in Sydney called EVIL INVADERS and a Heavy metal nightclub KILLED BY DEATH!
Truth Inc. is an Adelaide based metal label run by members of long-standing acts Truth Corroded and Double Dragon. The labels current roster includes Double Dragon, Truth Corroded, Black Like Vengeance, Closed Casket, A Red Dawn, Separatist, The Omen and Lynchmada.
Faultline Records is another Melbourne company with a heavy metal focus. Set up in 2004 by DW Norton of Superheist, the label's current roster includes Daysend, the hard rock band Head Inc. and mathcore
Mathcore
Mathcore is a rhythmically complex and dissonant fusion style of hardcore punk and Metal. It has its roots in bands such as Converge, Botch, and The Dillinger Escape Plan. The term mathcore is suggested by analogy with math rock. Both math rock and mathcore make use of unusual time signatures...
group Five Star Prison Cell
Five Star Prison Cell
Five Star Prison Cell was a four-piece band from Melbourne, Australia, whose music was generally labelled as tech metal or math rock. They were known for their use of unusual time signatures, dissonant guitar riffs, and a vocal approach that explored many different avenues and styles.-History:Five...
.
White Noise Productions have been a forerunner in the establishment of a regulated and competitive schedule of live events accommodating the more obscure and extreme underground metal artists across Australia, including hosting the annual 'Hellraiser' festival, catering to artists such as Canberra's Alchemist
Alchemist
An alchemist is a person who practices alchemy. Alchemist may also refer to:-People and groups:*The Alchemist , a hip hop music producer and rapper*Alchemist , an Australian progressive metal band...
, Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles is a demon featured in German folklore...
and Be'lakor
Be'lakor
-History:Be'lakor formed as a band in 2004, but didn't start playing concerts until 2005. The band's name comes from the character Be'lakor the Dark Master in the game Warhammer Fantasy that some of the members used to play, for its uniqueness. In 2007, the band self-released their debut album,...
, prior to their appearance at 2010's 'Summer Breeze' festival in Germany.
The Wollongong
Wollongong, New South Wales
Wollongong is a seaside city located in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. It lies on the narrow coastal strip between the Illawarra Escarpment and the Pacific Ocean, 82 kilometres south of Sydney...
-based Riot! Entertainment began as primarily a distribution label, acting as the Australian agent for such foreign companies as Nuclear Blast, Relapse
Relapse Records
Relapse Records is an independent record label based in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Matthew F. Jacobson in 1990.-History:The label was started by Matthew F. Jacobson in August, 1990 in his parents' basement in Aurora, Colorado...
, Earache
Earache Records
Earache Records is a heavy metal-oriented record label based in Nottingham, UK and New York, USA. It helped to pioneer extreme metal by releasing many of the earliest grindcore and death metal records in the period 1988-1994.-History:...
, Metal Blade
Metal Blade Records
Metal Blade Records is a record label which was founded by Brian Slagel in 1982. The U.S. corporate office for Metal Blade is located in Agoura Hills, California. It also has offices in Arizona, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the UK. The label is distributed in the U.S. by Sony BMG Music...
and SPV
SPV GmbH
SPV GmbH is an independent German record label.Founded on January 1, 1984, it has slowly grown to be one of the largest independent distributors and record labels worldwide....
among others. In recent years the label has directly signed a number of local and foreign metal acts including Universum
Universum (band)
UNIVERSUM are a melodic death metal band hailing from Adelaide South Australia. The band completed formation in early 2007 and describe their sound a fusion of Scandinavian melodic death metal, new wave American metal, old school thrash metal and progressive metal...
, Ace Frehley
Ace Frehley
Paul Daniel "Ace" Frehley is an American musician best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Kiss. He took on the persona of the "Spaceman" or "Space Ace" when the band adopted costumes and theatrics...
, Stuck Mojo
Stuck Mojo
Stuck Mojo is an American heavy metal band from Atlanta, Georgia. Formed in 1989 by guitarist Rich Ward, Stuck Mojo is considered to be one of the pioneers of rap metal. Touring alongside bands such as Machine Head and Slapshot. Stuck Mojo's most successful album, Rising, peaked at #48 on the...
, Fozzy, Paindivision
Paindivision
Paindivision is an Australian heavy metal band, formed in late 2005 by guitarist Stu Marshall while he was concurrently a member of the Sydney band Dungeon. Paindivision has released two albums and toured extensively in Australia and Japan and opened for a range of touring acts including Armored...
, Mortal Sin, Arcane, Be'lakor
Be'lakor
-History:Be'lakor formed as a band in 2004, but didn't start playing concerts until 2005. The band's name comes from the character Be'lakor the Dark Master in the game Warhammer Fantasy that some of the members used to play, for its uniqueness. In 2007, the band self-released their debut album,...
, The Poor and more.
Sydney label Grindhead Records was established in the early 00s by the vocalist of grindcore band Ebolie to release not only his own albums but those from other groups, mostly other Sydney grind and brutal death metal acts. Another label specialising in grind is Melbourne's No Escape, set up by two members of Fuck... I'm Dead and releasing both local and international grind and death bands.
Obsidian Records is Brisbane label dealing with extreme acts from the state.
Several smaller and even more underground metal labels also emerged during the 90s, including Dissident, now based in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, which released albums by Astriaal and Psychrist, and the short-lived Venomous, who briefly handled Misery.
Local metal releases are not the sole domain of small, metal-specific underground labels however. Melbourne independent Shock Records established a subsidiary arm called Thrust in the early 90s to handle releases by Abramelin and Alchemist. Alchemist is now attached to Chatterbox Records, a Sydney label with a wide repertoire of artists that has previously released albums by other metal bands like Daysend and Henry’s Anger. Traditionally, major labels have had little interest in Australian metal acts, although there has been notable exceptions. Allegiance and Mortal Sin, for example, were attached to Polygram (who also handled distribution for Armoured Angel's early releases), and Boss and a Perth band called Black Alice were signed to RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
in the early 1980s.
External links
- Australian Metal Guide
- Australian Black Metal Ring
- Brismetal.com
- HailMetal.com
- Archive of known Australian Metal Bands
- Metal as Fuck
- MetalObsession.net
- Pyromusic.net
- Sinister.com (now defunct)
- The Western Front
- VoltageMedia.com.au
- Lifes Punishment (Adelaide)
- http://www.reverbnation.com/robertboundy#!/page_object/page_object_bio/artist_1819154}