Australian Heavy Metal - Record Labels

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.

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 in Sydney, is mainly a distribution label that deals in vinyl although they do carry CDs and have a small roster of signed bands from Australia and overseas. The label works with exclusive distribution deals from carrying titles ranging from Black metal, Thrash, NWOBHM, Doom, and so on. They also run 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. The label has since released a wider range of extreme styles including doom and sludge bands as well as a few international releases and has been running two all day festivals: Slaughterfest, which showcases a mixed line up of Death, Grindcore and Doom bands and East West Death Grind Fest which focuses mainly on Brutal Death Metal and Grindcore bands. 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.

In 2006 Animus Industries released a mixed bag of nu-metal, hardcore and hard rock music videos on a DVD called 'Broken' including: The Butterfly Effect, Karnivool, The Mark of Cain, .hinge, Nokturnl, Side Effect X, Greyn, Sick Puppies, No Grace and A Darker Shade. Also included are: Chton, Keep of Kalessin and Forty-Two direct from the Norwegian underground scene of Hardcore and Metal.