Australian Heavy Metal - 1990 - 1995

1995

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 and Nuclear Assault, 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, Dreamkillers, 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.