Author: Web Rock Radio News Dept

The pouring rain, howling wind and ominous sound of thunder. The tolling bell and that doomy, oppressive riff. Ozzy Osbourne’s stark, terrified howl: “What is this that stands before me?” Few songs are as memorable as Black Sabbath’s Black Sabbath, the track which opened their landmark 1970 debut album.

That song, and the album from which it was taken, are rightly credited as helping lay the foundations for heavy metal – not just sonically but aesthetically too. Sabbath were bleaker and more malevolent than anything that had come before them. With their creepy, horror-movie atmospherics and references to Satan, these four working class kids from Birmingham were seemingly playing with dark forces. Metal wasn’t even in its infancy, but its obsession with the occult was already in place.

But were Black Sabbath really the first band to marry rock and the occult? Not according to Mikael Åkerfeldt, frontman wiuth Swedish prog metallers Opeth and noted connoisseur of obscure music.

Speaking to Metal Hammer in 2019, Åkerfeldt pointed to another album danced with the devil several months before Black Sabbath’s debut album came out. Formed in Chicago in 1966 and fronted by teenage singer Jinx Dawson, Coven wore their fascination with the occult on their sleeves.

The band’s debut album, the vividly titled Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls, was a slab of psychedelia-influenced 60s rock released in June 1969, six months before Black Sabbath was unleashed on the world. If songs such as Coven In Charing Cross and Pact With Lucifer didn’t make the band’s occult leanings clear, the self-explanatory, 13-minute Satanic Mass did. In a truly weird coincidence, the opening song on Coven’s album was titled Black Sabbath, while the band’s bassist was named Oz Osbourne.

For Akerfeldt, it’s Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls that is the ground zero of occult rock, not their more famous British counterparts’ debut.

“This was the first album of its kind,”’ Åkerfeldt told Metal Hammer. “I can’t think of any other band like them from that time. The whole Satanic thing was, of course, pioneering. Black Sabbath only really had one song on the topic of the occult. Coven had a 13-minute spoken-word black mass on the B-side of their album.

“There’s some great songs on there, like White Witch Of Rose Hall. And the lyrics are intriguing. They’re like brief horror novels. Musically, it had more of an affinity with the West Coast bands like Jefferson Airplane than Sabbath. It had a strong hippie vibe with some quite unpleasant lyrics with not so much of a hippie vibe. The vocal delivery by Jinx Dawson is second to none, and there’s some super-nice vocal harmonies on there.”

While Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls didn’t sound out of place in the post-Summer Of Love landscape, lyrically it was far too ahead of its time – its chants of “Hail Satan!” were too much for hippie-era America. Coven themselves released two more albums, 1971’s Coven and 1974’s Blood On The Snow, but it’s their debut that remains a cult classic.

“It’s an odd record all in all,” said Åkerfeldt. “Most odd records need some time to mature until people realise it’s a potential landmark. They probably made a bit of an impact in the middle of the Vietnam protest song scene and the generic hippie stuff about getting high and making love. And it’s refreshing still to this day. Why is it such a landmark? The short answer would probably be: Satan and Jinx Dawson.”

Founded in 1983, Metal Hammer is the global home of all things heavy. We have breaking news, exclusive interviews with the biggest bands and names in metal, rock, hardcore, grunge and beyond, expert reviews of the lastest releases and unrivalled insider access to metal’s most exciting new scenes and movements. No matter what you’re into – be it heavy metal, punk, hardcore, grunge, alternative, goth, industrial, djent or the stuff so bizarre it defies classification – you’ll find it all here, backed by the best writers in our game.

The late Marianne Faithfull, who died on January 30 at the age of 78, spent much of the 60s at the centre of the British music scene. In 2011, as she prepared to release her latest album, Horses And High Heels, she looked back on her friendship with such luminaries as the Rolling Stones and The Beatles – and the rumours about what really happened the night Jim Morrison died.

Spring 1964. Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham is about to introduce Mick Jagger, the dark prince of British pop, to a fashionable society girl called Marianne Faithfull (who happens to be related to 19th-century Austrian nobleman Leopold von Sacher-Masoch) and has pretensions to be a folk singer. We’re at a smartly Swinging London party thrown by Beatles pal Peter Asher, so Lennon and McCartney are also in the house, as are the rest of the Stones. Before Oldham can do the honours, Jagger – evidently smitten by the blonde 18-year-old convent girl – suddenly pours his glass of champagne down her very impressive and highly visible cleavage. Not the most romantic of gestures, perhaps, since Faithfull is also with her future husband, art gallery owner John Dunbar, at the time. Salacious tales have dogged Faithfull ever since, which is why she admits that today she is better known for her life story than for her career.

Marianne, today sitting in the penthouse suite of the Mayfair Hotel in London W1, is approaching her 64th birthday with aplomb. “I like to live in a very high style indeed,” she announces. “I never made a lot of money out of the music business, but spending so much time with Mick spoiled me. I saw myself as a rich person, because I hung with the Stones, who were stinking rich. I’m not – although I do live in the most wonderful apartment in Paris with a huge fireplace. But we really must talk about my album, darling, or I’ll get into trouble.”

Ah yes, Marianne Faithfull’s new album. It’s called Horses And High Heels. Produced by her long-time collaborator, the musicologist Hal Willner, it’s not a full-on Mazzer-and-guests affair like Kissin’ Time and Easy Come Easy Go. “I’m covering some great songs, like Goin’ Back, and a Jackie Lomax number and an Allen Toussaint song. There are guests: Dr. John – groovy old Mac Rebennack – Lou Reed, and Wayne Kramer from MC5. But he was dubbed on. In fact so was Keith Richards when we recorded Sing Me Back Home. That was a shame, but probably better because I get fraught around Keith. I loved his book, Life. I’ve just read it.”

In that autobiography, Richards refers to Marianne’s old boyfriend Jagger’s “tiny todger”. Was that accurate?

“Not quite, but nearly. When he writes about me I’m rather touched, especially when he admits that I contributed to Stones songs. He almost treats me like an equal! The one I claimed above all is Sister Morphine. It took me years to get a writing credit [Faithfull also kick-started Sympathy For The Devil, since she gave Jagger the book that inspired it, and she was the subject of Wild Horses and Dead Flowers].

“Trouble is the Stones don’t give points. Mick won’t do it. They don’t ‘write’ with other people – in theory. But they were grateful to use my mind and my talents – without credit. I kinda knew that was the deal, but when I was with Mick in the mid-sixties I was really young and naïve, so I sacrificed my name. Obviously I also contributed to You Can’t Always Get What You Want and Dear Doctor – junk songs. I don’t listen to the Stones any more, but I know they used me as a muse for those tough drug songs. I knew I was being used but it was for a worthy cause. I don’t feel that any more. I’d love to get: a) some credit, and b) some bloody money for the songs I helped on. Mere inspiration? I did bloody more than that.”

Is Mick as selfish as legend portrays him to be?

“No comment. But it would be unrealistic to expect him to share. He isn’t like that. I can’t help loving Keith, not on a Christmas-card level but I’ll send him a copy of the album with a fax and a note: ‘Here it is, loved your book, thank you for everything you said about me.’ I’m very fond of Keith and Anita Pallenberg [Richards’ 60s girlfriend – the three of them are said to have enjoyed an intimate relationship]. I’d meet up with them; I’d only bump into Mick in a concert situation. Friendship is totally inappropriate. I still see Charlie [Watts] because he lives in Paris.”

Indelibly linked to the Rolling Stones at their most hedonistic, Faithfull still recalls some good times. “Plenty. Everyone focuses on the Redlands bust at Keith’s house, but that’s a negative. Mick and I had wonderful times when we’d go off ley-line hunting in his Aston Martin, or in Keith’s Bentley. We travelled all over the West Country and Ireland. We went to the north in disguise. Mick was very interested in all that ley-line stuff and the Arthurian legends [at one point he believed he and Keith were Lancelot and Galahad and Faithfull was Guinevere]. He was into aliens and UFOs. I got into the communing with the earth stuff from my husband, John Dunbar. Mick was a wonderfully civilised partner in all that. We used to go travelling with the actor James Fox [who played opposite Jagger in Nic Roeg’s classic film Performance]. It’s such a shame that everything I did with the Stones is boiled down to the Sussex bust when Mick was such a very interesting companion. Fuck yeah!”

Marianne ascribes her subsequent recording career after her string of 60s hits, including As Tears Go By and This Little Bird – to time spent hanging out with the highest echelons of rock royalty ever: The Beatles and the Stones.

“I probably couldn’t write now without those experiences. I met The Beatles straight away. I met Paul McCartney via Peter Asher [brother of Macca’s 60s girlfriend Jane Asher], and I met John Lennon because Paul and John were close friends of John Dunbar. Lennon and John took thousands of acid trips together. Lennon’s attitude towards me changed a lot when I went off with Mick. He didn’t like that at all. I’d see him and he was always in such a wild state on acid it scared me. He really scared me, actually. All the emotion that came out on the Plastic Ono Band was there for years for all to see. He had huge number of demons. Maybe we all do, but he had more than most.

“I’m still very close to Paul. I sang on All You Need Is Love. I went to a lot of Paul’s sessions – I was there when he did Lovely Rita and Fixing A Hole. Always late evening. That’s when I saw John [Lennon] mostly. He was very forbidding. He didn’t like other people being there. I was always very shy and quiet. Even with the Stones I didn’t want to be noticed. I sang on You Can’t Always Get What You Want, but I wore a dark green floppy hat so you couldn’t see me. At least Paul was welcoming. I liked Linda McCartney very much but she didn’t like me. She wasn’t sure whether I’d had an affair with Paul. She thought everybody had because he had a lot of affairs. Not me though. I wasn’t one of his affairs.”

Once the pot and acid wore off and heroin became the drug of choice in London rock circles after 1968, Faithfull’s relationship with Jagger deteriorated rapidly. “It sickens me, now that I’m clean. Heroin is bad and cocaine may be worse. It ruins you. And it’s so easy. Even after I took treatment at rehab, I relapsed. I took coke and alcohol and sleeping pills. Then I gave up the first two because I contracted hepatitis C. The sleeping pills were the last to go – apart from the fags. I’ve got an addictive personality. I just can’t take it. I’d stop the ciggies, but I’m scared of getting really fat.”

Jagger dumped Marianne in 1970, at which time she moved to Paris and began a relationship with Count Jean de Breteuil, the French aristocrat who is said to have been a dealer to Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison and his partner Pamela Courson. Faithfull has been placed in Morrison’s company shortly before his death but she refutes that completely. “I was in Paris at the same time. That’s true. But I never saw him or had anything to do with him. Did Jean have an affair with Pamela? I didn’t know that.

“I was living with Jean at L’Hotel in Paris, and it seems that he was the guy who killed Jim Morrison. That’s what he said, anyway: ‘I’ve killed Jim Morrison’. He provided the gear. I didn’t know Jim was found in the Rock And Roll Circus nightclub or that he was found dead in the toilet. I didn’t know about him being taken back to his apartment in a Mercedes. Did the doctor say he was dead? I was left on my own in the room when he got the call from Pamela. I’d taken Tuinals [barbiturate] and was completely out of it, so I missed that. Then Jean got back and beat me, which I do remember. He was in the most terrible state ever. Even bad by his appalling standards. Years later I can connect it all. He dragged me to his mother’s house in Marrakech in a huge hurry. He wanted to get over this terrible memory. It was obviously such a huge thing – as he said – to have killed Jim Morrison.”

One of Classic Rock’s contacts, Roger Steffens, recalled meeting Jean and Marianne in Morocco, and said the Count had told of a nightmare few days that began with a car crash, included the attempted suicide of a friend, and ended with both of them finding Morrison’s corpse. Faithfull doesn’t dispute a possible meet. “But nothing else,” she says. “Maybe there was a car crash. That sounds familiar. Many people committed suicide or OD’d in Jean’s wake. He was seriously bad news. Even I could see that he was a curse. Once we left Morocco I ditched him. I didn’t want to be another of his casualties. As for anyone involved in Jim Morrison’s death – that was just too much.

“He still tracked me down to my mother’s cottage in Oxfordshire when I was recuperating in 1971 and tried to get me back! There was death hanging over him. Luckily I didn’t take his smack in Paris, just my Tuinals.”

Steffens remembers Jean and Marianne bringing an advance copy of the Stones’ Sticky Fingers album with them to Marrakech. “Yeah,” Marianne says, “because Jean was also Keith and Anita’s dealer in Chelsea and the Stones contact when they went to Nellcôte to record. As far as the Morrison thing goes, it isn’t the first time I’ve been placed as Sister Morphine herself. I am not she. But I had my darkest days after being with Jean. That’s why everybody connected to him died and why he OD’d in a most awful fashion. Pamela, Jim, they died. But I escaped. That heroin existence really fucks people up. They lose the will to live. I never did. I always felt I’m going to get out of this. And I did.”

Indeed, Faithfull’s tale is all about survival, whether it’s from the clutches of addiction on the streets of Soho and the squats of Notting Hill, or more recent battles with breast cancer, stage collapses and nervous exhaustion.

As the interview draws to a close, she orders some food and settles back into the sofa. “Ridiculous isn’t it, darling… My destiny was always was to stand alone, not to be part of any entourage,” she says. “But look at this suite. Isn’t it wonderful? I feel like a Grande Dame. Of course, I couldn’t afford to stay here. They’ve let me have it for free. Perhaps I must be quite famous after all.”

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 155, February 2011

Max Bell worked for the NME during the golden 70s era before running up and down London’s Fleet Street for The Times and all the other hot-metal dailies. A long stint at the Standard and mags like The Face and GQ kept him honest. Later, Record Collector and Classic Rock called.

It feels like it’s been about 600 years, but January 2025 is finally over! While it’s certainly felt like an unending expanse of time, that doesn’t mean the first month of 2025 has passed by without bringing us some excellent new releases, as the new albums from The Halo Effect, Wardruna and Alk Blk Era. 

In that spirit, we’re also back with another hefty round-up of the finest metal cuts you compiled of singles that’ve appeared over the last week. That in mind, here are the results of last week’s vote! We’d got an impressively stacked roster last week with  big names like Papa Roach, Killswitch Engage, Dream Theater, Destruction and more dropping fresh cuts. Doom metal merchants Conan took a very admirable third place with their latest single Frozen Edges Of The Wound, getting narrowly edged out of second by the returning Killswitch Engage. But the overall winners were extreme metal veterans Cradle Of Filth, whose new album was announced with the brilliantly fiendish To Live Deliciously. 

We’re not slowing down on the heavyweight acts this week, either. You’d do well to check out the new cuts from the likes of Jinjer, Hanabie and Deviloof, but there’s also fresh offerings from Saxon, Epica, Bloodywood and more in the running, so don’t forget to cast your vote in the poll below – and have an excellent weekend!

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Epica – Cross The Divide

It’s been almost 12 months since Epica revealed they were working on their ninth studio album and this week they shared that Aspiral will be with us on April 11. Lead single Cross The Divide is a hale affirmation of their status as beloved symphonic metal veterans, a massive track which fully utilises orchestral instrumentation alongside thundering low-end to create a fusion of rampaging ferocity and grandiose melody. 

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Bloodywood – Tadka

Bloodywood are on a tear. Second album Nu Delhi is still a few weeks away from its March 21 release date, but the band’s first single this side of 2025 – following from the epic Babymetal collaboration Bekhauf last month – is yet more proof that the Indian metallers have one of metal’s most refreshing and unique sounds, their fusion of thumping nu metal and Indian folk on full display in the thrashing Tadka that’ll have your mouth watering in more ways than one. 

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Hanabie – Tasty Survivor

Speaking of distinctive sounds, Hanabie are back with their own hyperactive blast of metalcore-laced “Harajuku-core” in Tasty Survivor.  A standalone single that serves as the opening theme for anime Momentary Lily, Tasty Survivor captures some of the multifaceted elements of Hanabie’s sound, swinging from propulsive, snarling bursts of metal to hyperactive, anthemic choruses and skittering electronica in a fusion that falls just shy of total sensory overload but is undeniably brilliant. 

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Jinjer – Duel

There’s only a week to go until Jinjer’s new album Duel arrives, so the band have given us one last glimpse of what to expect in the angular, aggro title track. There’s something almost Slipknot-ish to the skittering drums that kick off the track, but the second the track kicks off its pure Jinjer brilliance through-and-through, a heady mix of proggy time signatures, ultra technical instrumentation and sonically acrobatic vocals from Tatiana Shmayluk. 

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Saxon – 1066

If you’re aching for something more in the vein of traditional heavy metal, it doesn’t come more classic than Saxon. Biff Byford and co.’s tribute to the year that effectively ended the era of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, 1066 rumbles along on a warfooting, a steady march of triumphant riffs and hale vocal deliveries that have made Saxon one of the OG champions of pure heavy metal. 

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Forlorn – Funeral Pyre

It’s been four years since UK newcomers Forlorn put out the ultra-atmospheric Emptiness and Emotionless singles, showcasing their fusion of post-metal abjection and howling metalcore. With Funeral Pyre, the band officially announce their debut album Aether, due for release on March 28. If you heard those early singles, you’ll recognise that Forlorn’s sound still inhabits much the same realms, a gorgeously layered sound that contrasts guttural snarls and howls with haunting melodies to great effect. And if you didn’t hear those singles, you’re long overdue. Welcome to the party. 

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Kuunatic – Disembodied Ternion

Japanese psych/doom with a folk twist. That’s a lot of adjectives to basically say, Kuunatic are something very different that you need to hear right now. There’s an element of drone to the softly undulating riffs that form the bedrock of the band’s sound, but with three vocalists merging to create a spiritual, almost religious effect on their sound, it’s hard not to feel like this is some dark mantra issued into the void to bring forth some eldritch beast. The group’s new album Wheels Of Ömon is coming on April 11 and will be followed by a short UK tour that kicks off in London on the all-too-perfect date of April 20. 

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Deviloof – Inshu

Sticking to the realms of Japan for a while, we unearthed something gruesome in deathcore mob Deviloof. The group’s latest single 因習 [Inshu] features Shogun and Thor actor Tadanobu Asano in a gorgeously cinematic video accompanied by frenzied, shrieking extremity that takes a delightful dive into the pig-squealing, bree-filled years of deathcore with a fresh take and some hugely atmospheric passages that hint to greater ambitions by the band. God, we hope there’s more of this to come. 

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Inhuman Nature – Possessed To Die

Pigsqueals are all well and good, but what about riffs? There’s no danger of those running out in Inhuman Nature’s latest single Possessed To Die, a characteristically stomping blast of crossover thrash that’ll have you headbanging like its 1986. It might’ve been six years since their self-titled debut, but the London riffers aren’t in danger of suddenly reinventing themselves as djentcore boppers, Possessed… signalling that new album Greater Than Death will be more old school brilliance when it arrives April 25. 

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Harbringer – No Vermin

Harbringer are swinging fro the fences on latest single No Vermin. The technical death metal base that has long served as their bread and butter is still right up front, but there are also passages of anthemic melodic quality that bring to mind 21st Century metal acts like Trivium. Harbringer showed they had anthemic potential all the way back in 2019 with Compelled To Suffer, but these cleans add an extra element to their sound that suggests they’ll be pushing the boat out on their next record. 

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Raging Speedhorn – Every Night’s Alright For Fighting

We’re surprised nobody’s thought of combining Raging Speedhorn’s muscular brand of sludgecore with wrestling before, to be honest. While they’re still not quite popping up on the soundtrack for NXT just yet – a missed opportunity, if you ask us – the video for new single Every Night’s Alright For Fighting is a loving tribute to the colourful, larger-than-life characters that helped popularise wrestling in the 80s and 90s. What’s more, the single announces the impending arrival of new album Night Wolf, due for release on March 6. 

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Within Destruction – Cybergirl

Living up to its name, Within Destruction’s Cybergirl is an electro-enhanced mash-up of metalcore and alt-metal that has some serious bite. The lead single from the Slovenian band’s new album Animetal, due for release April 11, the track offers up some decidedly sci-fi sonics before giving way to choruses that could pass for heavy pop under the right light. That’s not to say they don’t offer some heft, though; the track clangs and wails with a massive breakdown and grandstanding guitar solo that shows the group aren’t afraid to take big swings.

Staff writer for Metal Hammer, Rich has never met a feature he didn’t fancy, which is just as well when it comes to covering everything rock, punk and metal for both print and online, be it legendary events like Rock In Rio or Clash Of The Titans or seeking out exciting new bands like Nine Treasures, Jinjer and Sleep Token. 

So stacked was the line-up for FireAid, the five-hour benefit concert staged last night (January 30) to raise funds for those affected by the horrifying wildfires which swept Los Angeles earlier this month, that the bill was split between two venues, the Kia Forum and Intuit Dome. The evening saw performances from music industry legends (Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Stevie Wonder, Rod Stewart) rock giants (Nirvana, Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers) and pop superstars (Lady Gaga, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Gracie Abrams), plus a handful of artists – Alanis Morisette, Pink, No Doubt – who could arguably straddle all three classifications.

Performing at the KIA Forum, Pink proved her versatility by following a performance of her 2017 hit single What About Us (co-written by Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid) with covers of two AM radio classics, Me and Bobby McGee, written by Kris Kristofferson and recorded by Janis Joplin, and Led Zeppelin‘s timeless Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, from the English quartet’s self-titled 1969 debut album.

With guitarist Justin Derrico playing the Jimmy Page to her Robert Plant, Pink introduced the Zeppelin classic saying, “Tonight is so special, I’m so inspired by the love that is happening… this is one of our favourites”, then asking “We got any Led Zeppelin fans out there?” When fans roared their approval, the singer smiled and said, “Alright, thank God!” before beginning her spine-tingling version of the song, originally composed by US folk singer Anne Bredon and popularised by Joan Baez.

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This was not the only Led Zeppelin cover aired on the night, as The Black Crowes and Slash joined forces to perform Going To California.

LA’s own Red Hot Chili Peppers played a four-song set at the Forum, making their first appearance onstage together since their performance at the closing ceremony of the Olympic games last August.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.