Australian Heavy Metal - 2000s

2000s

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 2000s 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.