If you wonder about the necessity and purpouse of adding a link to the most well-known Metal-site out there, it is mainly to give credit to the fact that this is - in this day and age - a rare example of a truly independent, garbage-free, d.i.y fan-driven Metal website. We can go on complaining about the occational errors, missing bands and other pitfalls of a user-generated site 'til the goats come home, but it won't change the fact that it's the one* source we all tend to use the most. Don't have an Olde Metal trivia-site of your own to spend your hard-earned free time on? Raid the fanzine archive and start adding more old bands (really, there's tons of them to be found there) - that's what I would do if other responsibilities here weren't so all-consuming...
*=oh, and maybe Discogs
I was both happy and surprised to notice that this olde site is still around. What we get is basically a one-man's Metal Archives, with thousands of band pages, spanning the 70's classics all the way up to modern day Death- and Black Metal scenes. The yearly Top 10 albums lists and the 100 fave Metal songs in particular however shows that Brian has his heart in the right place and a practically flawless taste in music.
Another one man's madness and so magically, perfectly stripped down as a site can be. Thrash Metal bands, thousands of them, with short descriptions and reviews. What more do you need? (Pictures are for posers!)
Our favourite co-conspirator in the world of olde Metal fanzines-preservation is Giuseppe and his Fanzines Del Mundo blog. 500+ zines and mags available for download, the majority of them being Metal-related. if you prefer pdf/jpg-folder downloads to reading on-line, this is the place for you!
For links to more fanzine-archivers, check the special link-list at the bottom of our Fanzines-page.
Something so rare as a (fairly) new site dedicated to the Heavy Metal of Olde, and a great one at that, written by true fans with their Metal Hearts in the right place. Reviews, interviews and my fave part of the site, a bunch of excellent, extensive beginners' guides to the old 80's scenes of USA (Power Metal), Sweden, Japan, Spain, Latin America etc..
There couldn't be a more deserving owner to the truemetalfan.org-domain than Toine "Randy" van Poorten. Toine has been reviewing Metal festivals, albums, made interviews with tons of kült-bands for various mags & zines since the 90's, and has in the last 20 years been presenting them on his d.i.y. Heavy Metal fan-page (He also hosts the old sub-site Holland Heavy Metal - see Western Europe section below...) Hails!
From Rita van Poorten, the wife of TrueMetalFan Toine (see above) comes this "online zine dedicated to women in metal & rock", active since the late 90's and still alive(!). Both old & new bands and artists are covered, though The Corroseum's favourite part is of course the essential and very informative Back To The Past-section.
One of the largest forums dedicated to rare & forgotten Steels, from the makers of the Swedish Hard n' Heavy Encyclopedia (see also below). An invaluable resource for mp3-hoarders!
Accurately describes themselves as the "World's largest community of heavy metal tshirt and battlejacket collectors", this site deserves a special mention here mainly because it shares a common main theme with The Corroseum: The curse of the collector bug! Also some zine- and record-pr0n, but mainly merch...
A really cool d.i.y. collector-resource if you enjoy checking out old gig posters, flyers and other memorabilia. The focus is on Thrash, Doom, Death and HC, with special pages on a number of classic bands, including tour dates. Note that if you scan through the right bands from the right era you'll also find lots of cool gig posters of more obscure acts on the same bill, not tagged on the main page...
Heavy Metal TV.
Let's Talk Metal is most likely what would happen if The Corroseum started its own YouTube channel. It has it all: In-depth reviews, scene/country/era-specific topics, TONS of Metal nerdery - all presented in a cool, no-bs, down-to-earth manner. If you feel you only need to suscribe to one Heavy Metal YouTube channel, this is the one.
(Alan has previously contributed w/ reviews to The Corroseum's rare Metal archive as well as the forum under the Nightsblood alias)
If you ever looked for the digital equivalent of having a friend over for a few beers (actually, sodas in Aaron's case) and rummaging through his record collection, just chatting old, underrated Metal in general, this is the channel for you. Soooo many hours of content = you'll never feel lonely again!
A grrreat and very productive channel that's been going on since the mid 10's. Current Death, Black, Thrash and Power Metal is a common theme but Marty's love for the olde classics is ever present. The real treat here is the Heavy Metallurgy Presents-playlist with hundreds of lengthy yet informative and entertaining discussions on Metal from all decades with various guests, some being highly regarded and handsome icons of HM Trüeness with absolutely no receeding hairline at all.
My fellow countryman Jim Ruuth has been contributing to the underground Metal scene in the form of various trivia websites for decades, and has been running a rather popular YT channel since 2021. It has all the essentials: top-lists, worst-lists, rank-lists, how-to's, genre-intros... Hours & hours of fun! Also blog.
Sporting a Corroseum T-shirt on YT = win obsküre Metal. It is also an excellent channel, with great rants from Glen on various olde Metal scenes, genres and phenomenons. Looking forward to see more material!
Another neat channel w/ the main focus being the collecting of ye olde Metal vinyl. Will be a treat to see this grow!
The Sound of Heavy Metal.
I'm sure there's no competitors to the title of oldest, still-running Metal-site of the internet than Steven Cannon's "Vibrations Of Doom" website. Mostly known for it's Classic Albums-section, hosting audio of over 1600 old Heavy Metal albums, it also features hundreds upon hundreds of album reviews and interviews spread over the 50+ issues of the VoD webzine. All wrapped in a beautifully low-tech and garbage-free design = bonus-swords aplenty!
One of the largest mp3-blogs out there - sadly(?) a dying breed it seems. The activity has been dwindling in the past couple of years and the last updates were made in the beginning of 2019, but it's a popular enough resource for plenty of download links to have survied so far.
Inspired by Vibration Of Doom's "Classic Albums"-section, Metaloren's blog provides streaming audio from hundreds of olde 80's Heavy Metal albums.
Heavy Metal Rules The World
Western Europe
An AMAZING site for anyone into the old French Metal scene. This site has it all - an extensive encyclopedia on loads of classic as well as obscure 80's bands including bios & discogs, a huge video-library of the same, a fanzine/mag-library with complete scans of tons of old French Metal rags, old posters, tickets, even a buch of custom wallpapers for the truly obsessed! English-by-Google.
The Corroseum *heart* Isten, and not only because of this excellent guide to the Steel of a thousand lakes, spanning the years 197?-1999. An exemplary country-specific site! If only there were a site like this for every country in the world...
A very impressive piece of work, documenting the Portugese Metal scene from the 80's and early 90's. Including band bios, discog's & audio/video samples as well as an extensive fanzine section with background info and front page pics.
A very deep and extensive encyclopedia aiming to document practically every recording made by a Swedish rock band even vaguely touching the periferies of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal - which is practical because it gives heaploads of examples of what to stay away from. I like the genre-sorting alternatives + the lists.
Still stuck on the letter "S" after all these years, at least it's still online and seemingly the only proper website completely dedicated to documenting the NWOBHM-scene. Someone give 'em a hand!
OLD & kült site dedicated to the 80's Dutch Metal scene, including interviews, reviews and several dozen specials on forgotten bands from The Netherlands. While it doesn't seem to update too often these days, there's still a lot of unique info to be found here.
A very underrated Metal country! Loads of bands you never heard of before (both demo- & vinyl acts) and looong bios on most of them. Made aeons ago by Eddy Vermeiren ov thee olde Den Of Iniquity-zine.
An absolutely Ancient article on the early Greek Metal scene, and still the best summary thereof I'd say. From the makers of the Steel Conjuring and Singing Swords fanzines.
...is exactly that, and essential of you're looking to check up on the current Irish Metal scene. For the Olde Steel nuggets, go to the Artists-tab and browse via the Year Formed-dropdown menu for bios, pics and discogs.
Eastern Europe
THE portal to all things Russian Metal, with the "Groups"- and "Music"-sections being the most interesting. The former is an extensive encyclopedia over practically every HR/HM-band from the Russian- and former Soviet area imaginable, and the latter a simply amazing mp3-archive of said scene, including hundreds of olde Soviet-era reel-tape demos(!) English-by-Google.
An old Polish site about old Polish Metal - how ironic! Extensive bio's and discogs of every olde Polish Metal band you could think of + specials on Polish Metal history, demo bands, the Metalmania and other festivals, compilations etc.. English-by-Google.
...a.k.a. www.ostmetal.de specializes in East-German Metal trivia and is chock-full of info on just about every band that ever recorded anything from the 80's and forward (demos, radio-sessions, records etc) as well as articles on the history of East German rock and much more. They also run a label - German Democratic Recordings - rereleasing old Ostmetal curiosities on CD. English-by-Google.
A Bulgarian rock encyclopedia documenting all forms of rock music from the early 60's 'til today. A multitude of sorting-alternatives (Metal) makes for an easy and interesting browsing experience and you're bound to find plenty of bands you'll never heard about before. English-by-Google.
The Americas
It's rather unique that a site that stopped updating all the way back in 2006 is 1. still on-line and 2. still relevant, useful and the #1 go-to place when you need to check up on its subject matter: the 1980ish-2006 Metal scene of Latin America. So Rainer never got around to cover the whole continent, but to this day there is no better place to go if you want to research the old scenes of Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Chile.
Reposting what what I wrote in the "External Archivers"-section of The Heavy Metal Wayback-Machine, TMU Records have had the excellent idea of preserving their old Texas Metal history-site. Loads of very informative interviews as well as picture galleries of rare T-shirts, vinyl, band pics etc..
An ambitious attempt to cover all Canadian recording artists and their releases. Only browsing their "featured artists"-section will render little of interest to us Metal-afficionados, but once you've figured out their tagging-system you can access their Metal-section, where you'll find tons of info and streaming audio (!) on even the most obscure artists and ultra-rare releases.
Deliverers of the Heavy Metal.
One of the most renowned and reputed dealers of Heavy Metal vinyl, my old countryman-in-exile Jan Svanhill runs his business out of San Rafael, California. Offers a HUGE selection of Metal/Hard Rock/aor/psych/prog vinyl rarities and is said to be the last man on earth who still makes paper catalogues(!). Highly recommended.
Roman Greindl is another well-respected name in the world of rare Metal-peddling, with a massive selection of Steels available on his website. (Don't miss the archived version of his old webzine also available at the same domain!)
Labels
No introduction necessary. Sizewise they're nowdays a bit like comparing Roadrunner to all other 80's labels, and the days when the major focus was on NWOBHM re-issues are long gone, but the actual quality of the releases remains has improved.
The ONLY label where I'd make an exception of not listing links to private networks. That petty detail aside, Buried By Time And Dust Records is possibly the most solid vinyl re-issue label around - not a single not-cool release in their 50+ catalogue, including faves like FUTURE TENSE, MAX PLANCK, PAGAN ALTAR, BROCAS HELM, THE LAMP OF THOTH etc..
Also in the absolute top of classic labels we find Shadow Kingdom, with a strong rooster of contemporary old-school acts as well as plenty of impressive reissue projects like IRON MAN, THE HAND OF DOOM, TYRANT(us), DEATH SS etc...
While being a CD-only label, Iordan is easily forgiven as he has provided the world with some absolutely stellar releases through the years, including reissues of some truly obscure and under-appreciated demo-only gods like JONAH QUIZZ, ISCARIOT, BATTLECRY(bel) and ELDRITCH RITE.
Probably the fastest growing Olde Heavy Metal reissue-label atm, w/ tons of kült names under their belt (HEAVY LOAD, MASQUE, EMERALD(us), HEATHENS RAGE, RANDY to name but a very few...)
Another classic Greek cult label going on 20 years now, reacquainting the world with such gods as LEGEND(us), GLACIER, DETEST, ION BRITTON, WHETSTONE, KILLEN etc...
A very solid, new'ish German (ex-Aussie) label that deserves your attention not only for producing the massive XANDRIL 2-LP/2-7" demo reissue, but also for goodies like NOTHING SACRED, SPECTRAL BIRTH and GLORY ANTHEM.
An Italian label conveniently dedicated to Italian Steel, old and new. Familiar names in their catalogue includes ADRAMELCH, BLACK HOLE, SABOTAGE, CROSSBONES and even a CD-reissue of the excellent Heavy Metal Eruption compilation(!)