Raise Your Swords and Shields and Join the Battle:
Hailing from Switzerland, the mighty Megaton Sword began their quest together in 2018. That quest was to bring True Metal to the masses in a fury of thunderous anthems and valiant tales of honor, victory, and defeat. Blood Hails Steel – Steel Hails Fire is their debut opus, and drummer Dan Thundersteel and vocalist Uzzy Unchained are here to tell you all about it.
Metal Express Radio: If I knew absolutely nothing about Megaton Sword, how would you describe the band’s music to me?
Thundersteel: Teutonic US-Metal made in Niralet garnished with over the top high fantasy lyrics.
MER: Megaton Sword’s debut album Blood Hails Steel – Steel Hails Fire was released on November 13, 2020 through Dying Victim’s Productions. Can you talk about the stories behind these grand hymns…
Unchained: Well, I don’t want to spoil too much, but I will try to give you some short accounts of the stories.
“Blood Hails Steel – Steel Hails Fire” – This is the chronologically first tale about Onn Hann’ar (until now). It tells the story of how he betrayed his adoptive family, killed his ‘brother, his love and her co-conspirators, and how he finally collapses during his flight through the cursed mountains and dales of Ferakhia.
“Verene” – The protagonist of this song is a young fighter who meets Verene, the goddess of war and love, during his first battle. After his epiphany he leaves home in search for eternal war and his beloved goddess.
“In the Black of Night” – Here we have the song that has inspired the album cover. The main topic is the uprisal of the Vynn under Zadro Koren’s lead. Dan mentions some more details in his answer below.
“General Bloodlust” – This hymn recounts Onn Hann’ar’s tough years as a slave and later as a dreaded bandit ruler in the Elinaatian Desert. Towards the end of the song, he is forced to submit himself to Naelle and is transformed into a Tool (Naelle’s brainwashed elite troops). Thus, General Bloodlust is born.
“Wastrels” – After almost a year of restless travel, young Twun, who is the main character in ‘Verene’, swears his loyalty to the Wastrels. They are a fatalistic group of mercenaries who have dedicated their lives to Verene.
“Crimson River” – takes place after the Neekog League has been usurped by Naelle and Maal’etesh, her right hand. Zadro finds Naelle locked in a brazen sarcophagus deep in the bowels of Illnudemantar. He has opposed Maal’etesh, who seems to have betrayed his empress. In the ensuing battle, Zadro was wounded and could not prevent Maal’etesh’s escape. Now he lies bleeding at the sarcophagus of his love with nothing but vengeance on his mind.
“Songs of Victory” – is chronologically situated long before ‘Crimson River’. It takes place during the Vynn offensive in the domain of Belts. It’s written from the perspective of a shoalist (a common soldier) who begs his breaker (colonel) Prane Koren (Zadro’s sister) for a hymn of war.
“The Giver’s Embrace” – After years of bloody and indiscriminate vengeance and the failure to locate Maal’etesh, Zadro Koren gets acquainted with the traditional lore of the Neekog and rediscovers the Ritual of Intoxication. During this ritual, Zadro consumes habeli to conceive the Two-Faced Brewer’s wisdom. After a heavy trip, he finally regurgitates a beer-born Neekog child onto the banks of the Giver.
MER: Why not include the songs from your 2019 EP Niralet and make this a fuller album?
Thundersteel: After the recording of Niralet, Simon dived into the songwriting process full speed ahead and came up with six new songs pretty quick. “Crimson River” and “In the Black of Night” already existed at the time, so soon after the release of Niralet we had eight new songs and about 40 minutes of material ready to be recorded, which is the perfect length for a full length album we think. We never had the intention of re-recording the EP songs for the album. The magic we captured during Niralet’s recording sessions could not have been reproduced and we also think the recordings of those songs still hold up pretty well compared to Blood Hails Steel…
MER: Will Megaton Sword be able to present this album upon the majestic pedestals around your homeland and beyond?
Thundersteel: This is absolutely the plan! We can’t wait to conquer the whole world and spread Niralet’s lore all over the globe, maybe even in other galaxies. Alas, if the Covid crisis wouldn’t rage the world, we would’ve already started our conquests. But in any case; count on us! We’ll be back on stage soon hopefully.
MER: How and when was the band forged?
Thundersteel: The initial forging of the band took place during a boozy, hot and sweaty night in August 2017. Obituary graced us with a performance in Niralet, at which me and Simon the Sorcerer, Uzzy’s mate he brought along, met for the first time. Uzzy was there too but we knew each other for a long time already. Uzzy introduced us and while slowly rotting in the pit, gulping grand amounts of beer, we started nerding out about classic Heavy Metal and after about the 6th refreshment from the bar, we had the magnificent idea to form a band in the veil of our olden heroes, where we’d just jam some Manowar covers while being able to have a few drinks.
Oh how wrong we were… The first time we met to jam, Simon brought along his friend Chris, whom he’d been playing in a band with before, just so we’d have a guitarist for a few practices. We somehow managed to persuade him to join the band and he’s become an integral part of our sound ever since. The last one to join the realms of Megaton Sword is guitarist Seth Angel, who’ll give his recording debut for the band on our next opus.
MER: Who came up with the band name and what inspired it?
Thundersteel: Uzzy came up with the name. Interestingly, he came up with the name at a show at the same venue we initially formed our bonds. We hung out in the staircase of the venue with a few beers right after a Naglfar show and started babbling about some True Metal nonsense and what the most epic name for a band would be. Uzzy spewed out the name Megaton Sword out of nothing. We looked at each other and just knew that this is it…this is the epitome of trueness.
MER: Is there a trick to getting a megaton sword off the ground?
Thundersteel: Well, the Megaton Sword is a several hundred million ton weighing mountain ridge towering majestically over the lands of Niralet. I really doubt anyone can wield such a gigantuous thing, except maybe some of the olden Niraletian gods who roamed the lands a long long time ago.
MER: Blood Hails Steel – Steel Hails Fire is being released through Dying Victim’s Productions. How did this forging of tribes come about?
Thundersteel: With naivety. Once we were done recording Niralet, we were pretty hyped about the material and really thought we have something here. It wouldn’t really have done justice to the material releasing it by ourselves with very limited promo. So I started sending it to some labels we already really liked and Flo of Dying Victims was the first to get back to us and show interest. Working with him has proven to be a fantastic endeavor and we couldn’t think of a better partner at the moment. He’s putting a huge amount of effort and love into his releases which can be heard and seen in the lavish editions of his physical releases.
MER: The cover art for the new album is spectacular. Who designed it? Is there a story behind it?
Thundersteel: It was once again Adam Burke that created this epic, splendorous work of art. After his grand portrayal of Niralet for the EP, it was clear that we ought to continue working with him and we plan on doing so in the future. The artwork for the new album shows a scene from the song “In the Black of Night.” The city Kerszh was set ablaze by the followers of Zadro Koren, who’s pictured on the back. He forged a vicious alliance with Naelle, aka Vulva of the Nightfall (her moniker in Neekog propaganda). Obviously, Mr. Unchained came up with the concept and drew a, this time a bit less amateurish, outline, which Adam implemented stunningly.
MER: If blood hails steel and steel hails fire, what does fire hail?
Thundersteel: Fire hails fury.
Megaton Sword is:
Uzzy Unchained – Vocals
Chris the Axe – Guitars
Simon the Sorcerer – Bass
Dan Thundersteel – Drums
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