Metal Forces is a British publication founded in 1983 which promotes the music genresheavy metal and hard rock. Metal Forces was well known for its coverage of unsigned bands through its Demolition feature and championed the likes of Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, HellsBelles, Overkill, Death and Poison long before they had secured record deals. They are credited as contributing in this fashion to the success of the bandAnacrusis. Dave Reynolds, a former writer for Metal Forces, has claimed that the magazine was the first to coin the terms thrash metal and death metal. A Metal Forces compiled vinyl album, Demolition - Scream Your Brains Out!, based on the magazine's popular Demolition column, was released in 1988 through Chain Reaction Records featuring Anacrusis, Atrophy, Hobbs' Angel of Death, Aftermath and the Chris Barnes fronted Leviathan. In addition to metal acts, the magazine also featured interviews with alternative rock acts such as Nirvana. In August 1991 Metal Forces created the offshoot publication Thrash 'n Burn, a monthly title dedicated to extreme metal.
Background
Metal Forces was created in 1983 by Bernard Doe, with the first issue released in August 1983. Articles covered and promoted mainly bands that were relatively unknown at the time. Metal Forces aided greatly in promoting unknown bands and heavy metal and hard rock during the 1980s and early 1990s, becoming one of UK's top music magazines during that period. During the early 1990s, Metal Forces changed from their policy of balancing their articles between established and unknown bands, to a style which covered more mainstream and famed rock and heavy metal bands. The changes implemented were not profitable and the magazine lost readers and advertisers. In this period and for a brief time, Metal Forces launched the appreciated spin-off Thrash 'n Burn. Metal Forces released seventy-two issues before rebranding under the abbreviated title of MF. The latter ceased publication in February 1993. As of 2012, Metal Forces launched its official website online, which has information from its magazine issues and new information and coverage of bands. In an interview, rock columnist Dave Reynolds indicated that the magazine was created in response to difficulties working with rival publication Kerrang! According to Reynolds, the magazine gained national distribution in the late 1980s and, with its success, inspired Kerrang! to produce a spin-off publication of its own, Mega Metal Kerrang! The magazine disseminated information about the metal music scene; in 2007, the senior VP of Roadrunner Records indicated that Metal Forces, along with similar publication Kick Ass, "was my Bible... the way I discovered new bands and fed my insatiable appetite for all things emerging in the underground".
Controversy
In 1984, Metal Forces printed a review of black metal bandHellhammer so negative that the band's guitarist, Tom Warrior, indicated the band would never play in England because of it; after forming a new band, Celtic Frost, the guitarist continued to refuse requests for an interview with the magazine for some time, notwithstanding that Metal Forces was, in the guitarist's own words, "the second biggest magazine in heavy metal". In 2007, the Metal Forces editor and reviewer wrote the band history for Century Media Records remastered CD editions of Hellhammer albums. In 1986, Dave Mustaine, early guitarist of Metallica and founder of Megadeth, complained that replacement guitarist Kirk Hammett was unfairly named "number 1" in the reader poll of Metal Forces on the basis of Mustaine's guitar playing; Hammett indicated that the guitar playing was his own, re-rerecorded from the demo release.
