Metal Hammer: What You Need to Know

If you've ever picked up a magazine with a full-page band photo on the cover and a strapline promising to "defend the faith," chances are it was Metal Hammer. It's one of the UK's longest-running specialist music titles, and it's outlasted more than one near-death experience along the way. Here's what the magazine actually is, where it came from, and why it still matters to anyone following heavy music.

What Metal Hammer Actually Covers

It is a British heavy metal magazine and digital media brand, built around the genre in all its forms — traditional metal, hard rock, thrash, death metal, black metal, doom, metalcore, progressive metal, industrial metal and the newer hybrid styles that keep the scene moving. A typical issue mixes major artist interviews, album and live reviews, festival and tour coverage, gear features and a fair amount of scene history and archive material. It's aimed at readers who already know their thrash from their doom, not a general audience dipping a toe in.

A Brief History

The project's roots trace back to the early 1980s, though the UK print edition's launch is generally dated to 6 June 1986, with early development associated with Wilfried F. Rimensberger and Jürgen Wigginghaus. Since then, ownership has changed hands more than once: Dennis Publishing bought the title in 1994, Future acquired it in 2000, and in 2013 it moved under TeamRock, which also published Classic Rock and Prog. TeamRock collapsed into administration in December 2016, and Future stepped back in a month later, buying the magazine along with its digital assets for a reported £800,000. It was, in effect, the magazine returning to a publisher it had already worked with once before.

The Magazine Today: Print, Digital and Louder Sound

Under Future, it operates as both a monthly print magazine and a major digital presence, closely tied to Louder Sound, Future's online home for the title alongside Classic Rock and Prog. A 2018 relaunch brought a refreshed print identity, a redesigned reviews section and the collectible covers and cover gifts that specialist music titles have leaned on for years to keep newsstand sales moving. The magazine's masthead has changed over the decades, as any long-running title's does, so it's worth checking the current issue directly if you need to know exactly who's editing it this month.

The Bands and Scenes It Follows

Its editorial reach spans generations of the genre. Its coverage regularly includes:

• Long-established names such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and Metallica
• Extreme metal acts like Behemoth, Mayhem and Opeth
• Metalcore and modern heavy bands such as Architects, Bring Me The Horizon and Parkway Drive
• Progressive and alternative-metal artists
• Independent and underground bands working outside the mainstream festival circuit

That spread is deliberate. A magazine covering only stadium-filling legends would miss most of what actually keeps metal alive, and a magazine covering only underground extremity would lose the audience that grew up on the genre's biggest names.

Why "Defending the Faith" Matters

The magazine's long-running strapline, "Defending the Faith," says a lot about its editorial identity. It launched at a time when mainstream music media often treated metal as a passing youth trend rather than a serious, developing musical culture, and the phrase has stuck as a statement of intent: this is a title written by people who take the genre seriously, for readers who already do too.

International Editions

It's worth knowing that the brand isn't one single global operation. International editions, including in Germany and Greece, have had separate publishing histories, owners and editorial schedules over the years. The UK title under Future is the one most relevant to English-language readers, but a similarly branded magazine elsewhere isn't necessarily produced by the same team or company.

The Bottom Line

Metal Hammer has survived a genre once dismissed by the mainstream, a magazine industry that's shrunk around it, and the collapse of at least one previous owner, and it's still putting out a monthly issue and running a major digital presence through Louder Sound. For a scene that prizes loyalty and staying power, that track record is arguably as on-brand as the strapline itself.

Frequently Asked Questions