Click image for more reviews of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath...

This month it's been all about reviews of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. So far Q, Kerrang, Metal Hammer, Music Mart, Guitarist and the Classic Rock Newswire have all run glowing reviews (click image at left to see them). Lots more reviews to come from worldwide press and also, I'm told, from our own soaraway Sun!

Visit the excellent Hard Radio site for their regular podcasts: the next one (number 6) has an interview with me in it.

Five book deals coming up, one on film, two on extreme metal bands and two on classic rock artists. Three of these are the official story, which should be exciting. Details posted here as the contracts are signed...

The nights draw in but the McIver workload remains simultaneously heavy and enjoyable. All the stuff you read about below is being published as we speak. New interviews on their way: The Haunted and Mastodon for Bass Guitar, The Berzerker for Rhythm (drummer David Gray, also of arch Satanists Akercocke, is a gentleman and a scholar), reviews of Japanese action movies in DVD Review, a funny interview with Eurovision-winning monsters Lordi in Total Guitar, reviews of the new Sisters Of Mercy and Cradle Of Filth albums in Record Collector... and loads of other stuff that I've forgotten about. I've also just written a cover endorsement for an excellent American book called Metallica & Philosophy (Blackwell).

Three more book deals in the offing, details posted here as soon as possible. World domination is surely but a step away.

The nice people at Classic Rock, Metal Hammer, Music Mart, Record Collector, Acoustic, Bass Guitar, Rhythm, Drummer, The Crack, Big Cheese, Guitar Techniques, Total Guitar, Powerplay and (maybe) Kerrang are going to run reviews of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Reviews posted here when I see them. Then again, they might all think it's rubbish...

I'm now accessible via webcam, Skype user name joel.mciver (UK office hours).

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is out! Get it here. Alternatively, the first person to email me the answer to this question gets a free signed copy: What's Ozzy's wife's name?

Elsewhere, I'm a talking head on this Metallica DVD along with a bunch of other journos and musicians; the next Metal Hammer includes a feature I wrote on Converge, and the one after that will have an interview with the mighty Anaal Nathrakh (possibly the heaviest band in the world).

Film and TV-wise, the new DVD Review mag has a ton of reviews in it -- Japanese horror, vintage Brit TV and the usual eclectic stuff.

Here's another chat with Steve Asheim of Deicide, this time for Rhythm.

McIver-penned stuff this month: Stewart Copeland and the brothers Carmine and Vinny Appice in Rhythm; the new Metal Hammer includes big ol' features on Emperor, To-Mera and Thine Eyes Bleed; Record Collector's review of the new Slayer album (3 stars out of 5, if you're interested); DVD Review mag is about to run an interview with The Matrix and Kill Bill fight choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping (conducted via the most useless translator ever); the aforementioned chat with Jean-Jacques Burnel is in Bass Player.

I've just interviewed Billy Gould (ex-Faith No More -- the best band there ever was) for Bass Guitar and Barney Greenway of Napalm Death for Hammer as well. Music Mart have commissioned a Trivium piece too. I'm also speaking to Steve Asheim of Deicide next week for a piece in Modern Drummer, should be a lot of fun.

Stepping away from all the grind and blastbeats, Metal Hammer's third Satanic special contains a piece by me on Elvis Presley and the evils of 1950s America. Thangyouverymuch, ma'am.

I recently compiled and sleevenoted this 3-CD collection by progressive rock legends Yes.

There's an interview with me in the new issue of the Mike Oldfield fanzine Dark Star, because I compiled EMI's recent 2-CD Oldfield best-of (buy it here) and interviewed the man himself for it.

There will be excerpts from my Metallica and Black Sabbath books in a cover-mounted book on a forthcoming issue of Classic Rock soon.

RIP Jesse Pintado of Terrorizer, who I interviewed on 27 July, exactly a month before his untimely death. Another good man down, dammit.

Tons of stuff in Metal Hammer -- the magazine and the specials on Satanism -- plus reviews in DVD Review and Record Collector. Just about to do a major feature on Stewart Copeland of The Police for Rhythm. If you're in the US keep an eye out for an interview in Bass Player with Jean-Jacques Burnel of the Stranglers -- there's a feature I did for them on Guy Pratt of Pink Floyd here.

Found this cool PIL site: www.fodderstompf.com.

Still haven't completed the HTML on the Links page but will get round to it soon, honest...

A quiet month (the McIver family has expanded, with corresponding lack of sleep) but look out for features in Metal Hammer on Carpathian Forest and Moonspell as well as the aforementioned Carmine and Vinny Appice summit in Rhythm. There's also the usual crop of reviews in DVD Review and an interview with Ice-T in Record Collector.

Here's an interview I did with Kerry King of Slayer.

Zzzzz...

Sex Pistols: The Making Of The Great Rock'N'Roll Swindle is out shortly and can be ordered here.

Keep an eye out for a Zyklon interview in the new Metal Hammer, reviews in the current Record Collector and DVD Review magazines, and interviews with Kenney Jones (Small Faces), Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge) and Vinny Appice (Black Sabbath) in Rhythm.

Metal Hammer are doing a series of one-shot specials on Satanism in rock, titled The Devil's Music. There's a bunch of features by Joel in there including a think-piece on the nature of evil and a rundown of the Nietzsche-related thinking that inspires a lot of black metal musicians.

There's a fair bit of writing around by Joel at the moment. Keep an eye out for an Ice-T feature in DVD Review magazine and a Cannibal Corpse interview in Metal Hammer. The next Hammer has a Satyricon interview in it, too.

Got a nice email from Therapy? bassist Michael McKeegan, who said of the Metallica biography: "Brilliant all round mate, as a Met fan from day one (first read about em in a K! Sylvie Simmons LA round-up!) it was glorious to re-live the early days and be re-reminded of their 'forgotten' history pre-Black album. In fact i even went and dug out Kill and Ride, listening to them in a completely new light... Put simply, your book refined and crystallised the thoughts of many old-school fans and presented them in an entertaining, comprehensive and mucho enjoyable way. Bestseller? Bloody right!" What a nice chap.

The Making Of The Sex Pistols' Great Rock'N'Roll Swindle is available for order at HMV.com here -- make my day, punks! If you can't wait that long, visit www.sex-pistols.net for the ultimate online resource.

The BBC 6 Music radio show Mint (on which Joel appears every Sunday night at 10.45) is crazy at the moment -- loads of (good-humoured) insults flying around. Go here to sample the madness...

RIP Jack Kane, Joel's predecessor on Mint, who died on 19 May last year. He has been a tough act to follow.

Record Collector's new issue says of Joel's Justice For All: The Truth About Metallica paperback that it is "an impressively comprehensive biography of not only Metallica, but the thrash metal movement as a whole". They also liked Joel's new Red Hot Chili Peppers book. What nice people.

Zero magazine also liked the Metallica biography, concluding that it is "a very well measured, objective look at one of the biggest metal bands in the world with eye-witness accounts of how they got to be so successful." Buy the book here.

The cover feature in the new issue of Bass Guitar is Joel's recent interview with Bill Wyman, in which he waxes lyrical about fretless basses, not getting credited for writing 'Jumping Jack Flash' and other cool stuff.

Joel's Sex Pistols movie book is published soon (details when it's out) and there are a ton of articles about to descend on the public -- Satyricon and Cannibal Corpse interviews for Metal Hammer, Guy Pratt for Bass Player, a funk-metal special and a Les Claypool feature (both for Classic Rock) among them.

Joel contributes this month to:
Record Collector: Suzi Quatro interview
Metal Hammer: Decapitated interview
DVD Review: a bunch of cool reviews
Acoustic: interviews with veteran folkie Andy Roberts

Joel's next book, The Making Of The Great Rock'N'Roll Swindle (MQ Publications) is on its way, featuring unpublished interviews with Jayne County, TV Smith, Dave Parsons of Sham 69 and a load of punk types.

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (Omnibus Press) is nearing completion and will be out in September. With four hundred pages and a ton of photos, as well as interviews with dozens of Sabbath-related personnel, it's causing something of a stir in pre-orders over at Amazon.

There's a feature in the Finnish metal mag Miasma on Joel and his new Metallica paperback. But you'll need to be able to read Finnish to understand it...

You can read features by Joel this month in:
Total Guitar: Extreme metal roundup with Akercocke, Deicide, Darkthrone, Kult Ov Azazel, Biomechanical and others; short feature on Metallica's 'Black Album'
Record Collector: Venom interview
Metal Hammer: Gorgoroth interview
DVD Review: Japanese anime vs. British animation
Bass Guitar: Interviews with Stereophonics, Suzi Quatro, Glenn Hughes, Roger Glover
Bass Player: Interview with The Darkness.

Joel recently received a letter from Varg Vikernes of Burzum, who is currently serving time in prison for murder in Norway, declining an interview for Metal Hammer. See a scan of the letter here.

Joel McIver's bestselling Metallica biography is now available in paperback, updated from the original 2004 hardback with new interviews with Dave Mustaine, Lars Ulrich, Joe Berlinger and others. The new book takes the band's story up to the release of Some Kind Of Monster and beyond.
Metal Hammer says of the new version: "It's all here, everything from each member's embryonic beginning, to that of the band and beyond... McIver has interviewed everyone from fired-lawyers to the neighbours' dogs, and clocking in at nearly 400 pages, the book is exhaustive... it's as much as you're ever likely to find out about the band."
Classic Rock writes: "McIver offers a deeper look into the biggest metal band in the world... exhaustive in its explanation of Metallica's much maligned Napster case, the making of the documentary film, Some Kind Of Monster, and the band's ever-shifting line-up... it certainly goes further to explain things no one has bothered to before."
Order the book here.