Chris Chantler

Chris Chantler

Chris has been writing about heavy metal since 2000, specialising in true/cult/epic/power/trad/NWOBHM and doom metal at now-defunct extreme music magazine Terrorizer. Since joining the Metal Hammer famileh in 2010 he developed a parallel career in kids' TV, winning a Writer's Guild of Great Britain Award for BBC1 series Little Howard's Big Question as well as writing episodes of Danger Mouse, Horrible Histories, Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed and The Furchester Hotel. His hobbies include drumming (slowly), exploring ancient woodland and watching ancient sitcoms.

Articles by: Chris Chantler

doom

10 obscure doom bands that should be huge

By Chris Chantler published

A deep dive on 30 years of doom history to winkle out the hidden gems

Moonspell - Hermitage

Moonspell’s Hermitage: where goth metal meets Pink Floyd

By Chris Chantler published

Gothic metal standard bearers Moonspell turn up the progressive dial on new album Hermitage

Nile’s Black Seeds Of Vengeance: the death metal classic that fought off nu metal – and won

By Chris Chantler last updated

How Nile married Ancient Egypt and modern death metal to create the first great death metal album of the 21st century with Black Seeds Of Vengeance

Bad News

Spinal Who?! How Bad News became the original spoof metal band

By Chris Chantler published

Stand aside Spinal Tap and tell Steel Panther to put a sock in it – ‘Vampire Spunk Merchants From Hell’ Bad News were the original spoof metal band

Opium Warlords: Nembutal album review

Opium Warlords’ Nembutal: mind-bending transmissions from an alternative doom universe

By Chris Chantler published

One-man doom metal maverick Opium Warlords journeys further beyond the looking glass on new album Nembutal

Wytch Hazel - Pentecost III

If you only listen to one Christian trad metal album this week, make it Wytch Hazel’s III: Pentecost

By Chris Chantler published

Wytch Hazel serve up songs of faith and devotion on instant-classic new album III: Pentecost

Queen Freddie Mercury and Brian May

The 10 heaviest Queen songs ever

By Chris Chantler last updated

Forget Bohemian Rhapsody - these are the 10 heaviest Queen songs ever

A brief history of pyromaniacs in rock

By Chris Chantler last updated

From Arthur Brown to Rammstein, rock and incendiary devices have always gone hand in hand

Iron Maiden’s Book Of Souls reviewed

By Chris Chantler last updated

Iron Maiden return from the brink of tragey with their biggest and boldest album ever

The Story Behind The Song: Judas Priest’s Painkiller

By Chris Chantler published

Heavy metal doesn’t come any more perfect that Judas Priest’s career saving anthem Painkiller

US Christian Rock band Stryper in their yellow and black uniforms

Has there ever been a good Christian metal band?

By Chris Chantler last updated

Metal and Christianity aren’t mutually exclusive – but the two do have a poor track record together

Brimstone Coven’s The Woes Of A Mortal Earth: doom rock the way they used to make it

By Chris Chantler published

US doomsters Brimstone Coven party like it’s 1973 on new album The Woes Of A Mortal Earth

Emperor’s In The Nightside Eclipse: the album that transformed metal’s evilest genre

By Chris Chantler last updated

Black metal’s controversies threatened to overshadow Emperor’s debut album. But it rose above them to become the album that busted the scene wide open

Diamanda Galas live on stage in 1988

13 genuinely terrifying bands who definitely aren’t faking it

By Chris Chantler last updated

Forget heavy metal’s pantomime dames – these horrormongers make you fear for your life

Bell Witch And Aerial Ruin’s Stygian Bough Volume 1: where funereal doom and gothic folk collide

By Chris Chantler published

Funereal Seattleites Bell Witch renew a fertile partnership with old friend Aerial Ruins on new album Stygian Bough: Volume 1

The 10 essential sludge metal albums

By Chris Chantler last updated

Dark, brutal and magnificently ugly, these are the sludge albums you need in your life

And on the eighth day Manowar created… power metal

By Chris Chantler published

Majestic to some, ludicrous to others, no one embodied 80s metal like Manowar. And their third album Hail To England was the jewel in their crown

Carach Angren’s Franckensteina Strataemontanus: Frankenstein in corpse paint

By Chris Chantler published

Cult Dutch black metallers Carach Angren reimagine Frankenstein with added serial killers on new album Franckensteina Strataemontanus

Grave Digger’s Fields Of Blood: German metal warhorses go the full Braveheart

By Chris Chantler published

Metal veterans Grave Digger focus on Scottish history on new album Fields Of Blood

The Top 10 metal bands from Denmark

By Chris Chantler published

Ten bands who prove there’s more to Denmark than pastries and Hamlet

Horisont party like it’s 1975 on joyous new album Sudden Death

By Chris Chantler published

Retro-rock linchpins Horisont channel 70s soft rock and classic prog on glorious new album Sudden Death

The demonic birth of Morbid Angel: “We performed rituals to conjure the Gods”

By Chris Chantler published

In the swamps of Florida in the early 80s, something evil was stirring. Its name was Morbid Angel

10 essential goth metal albums

By Chris Chantler published

The masterpieces of miserablism that defined the shadowy genre that is goth metal

Motley Crue: "We'd play to 20 people in a sandwich shop and set Nikki on fire"

By Chris Chantler last updated

The original Hollywood bad boys Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx look back at Crue's Year Zero: 1981 - building their own stage sets, stealing girls clothes and living on hot dogs

The Story Behind The Song: The Toxic Waltz by Exodus

By Chris Chantler published

What started life as a thrash novelty song became one of the greatest moshpit anthems ever written