VM-UNDERGROUND

Extreme Metal Fanzine est. 2012

Contact

Submitting Music

You would like to have your music reviewed…
Sure, no problem. Still, we are calling the shots on this one as it our content on these pages and only contact if you play Death or Black Metal, (or a hybrid with Doom, Thrash and Speed) preferably the Old School kind.

Don’t bother to contact if you have sludge, brutal/slam, industrial, modern/tech, gothic, groove, avant-garde, experimental, post, core, stoner etc. in your style. We are not the right zine to give attention to your music.

Q: Can I expect an objective and professional review?

A: As we are a fanzine, don’t expect any professional journalism towards your music. Oh well, you probably already read some reviews to get the drift…we review everything as a fan, it’s our own humble opinion. As the staff members pick out the promos they find interesting to write about, the balance towards “positive” is quite there..

Q: Should I send a physical album…

A: First of all, our intention is not for you to send us albums, demos, tapes or vinyl, so we have much free stuff in our collection. Keep it! Sell it! So if you have a digital promotion kit (be it mp3 or WAV), a Haulix / Hearthemusic / other download service account or just have it streaming on YouTube, Bandcamp or any other streaming service…it is fine by us. No statements like “we only review you when you send us the album” here!

Q: When I’ve send some music to you when can I expect the review?

A: We don’t work with deadlines as we are busy like hell with our own private lives and jobs. We do our best to review as much as we can…as fast as we can.

Q: We also would like to be interviewed…and the more passive aggressive approach….we want an interview!

A: Don’t contact us, we contact you!

Q: Not happy with a review?

A: Shit happens, you can’t please everybody. But I bet there are enough other zines who are meeting your standards, we advise you to focus on them and their review of your particular release.


Writing for VM-Underground / Joining the Staff

So you like to write for VM-Underground?

What we ask from of you? Passion for the music. Let’s start with that! If you enjoy discovering new music and like to support (underground) bands and/or labels, we have tons to offer. And as a person…not acting like an asshole or a cunt is another important thing because life is too short for that. We are quite laid-back ourselves. Dedicated, but laid-back.

Q: Do you work with deadlines?

A: No, no deadlines here.

Q: But I also write for other zines, is that a problem?

A: Not a problem at all!

Q: How many reviews do you expect me to write? And what if I only want to do interviews?

A: We are glad with every contribution, be it one review a week, one a month…4 reviews a week..well, you know what we are getting at. And if interviews are your thing, we are happy to welcome you as well.

Q: Do I get paid? Or receive physical material?

A: We receive lots of promos, really lots of them, but they are all digital. So don’t expect any physical material. And there is no money involved, I can guarantee you that as well. You are looking at the wrong zine if you think we can offer a fee or something like that.

Q: So, this reviewing the promos thing…?

A: All promos are gathered on a list that you will receive and you choose what you find interesting to write about. There are also links on the list so you can check out a sample or a song to decide if it is interesting for you or not. After choosing you will receive the digital promo. You will not be “flooded” with all kind of material you don’t like or don’t have time for. This should be a fun thing to do, not a burden.

Q: What kind of material do you receive?

A: Take a look around…but I will mention a couple of labels of which we receive material from: Iron Bonehead Productions, Osmose Productions, Agonia Records, VIC Records, Signal Rex, Century Media, Hells Headbangers Records, Pulverised Records, Chaos Records, Purity Through Fire, Blood Harvest, Memento Mori, Transcending Obscurity Records, F.D.A. Records and many more

Q: Is there a minimum word count for reviews?

A: Word count isn’t an issue. If you can write short reviews but it beholds the information that helps the reader to decide if it is interesting or not…it is always better than some digital diarrhoea of 700 words that will confuse the reader and of which he or she still is puzzled what kind of music to expect.

Q: I’m interested!

A: Alright! Things will work out fine, I promise you…feel free to contact using the Contact form or sending a message on Facebook.


The Story behind VM-Underground

1997-2008

It all started out of the blue in the summer of 1997. A couple of young guys with a huge passion for (extreme) metal started a fanzine… While discussing about bands we were going to interview, the Moonspell album “Wolfheart” was playing in the background. We all liked the song “Vampiria” alot because of the dark atmosphere of that track. Why not using the track title as moniker for our fanzine? And there you go… Vampire Magazine was born!

After two Xeroxed issues we, obviously, began writing articles for our third issue. But we got so many reviews and interviews that made us switch from a Xeroxed fanzine to a webzine. Many, many… many reviews, interviews and all kind of other articles later (like 15.000 to be more precise!), the chief-editor and founder of Vampire Magazine left and it all changed into Archaic Magazine in the summer of 2008. And 2011 was the year Archaic Magazine pulled the plug…

2012

After years of silence, the former Vampire Magazine chief editor, contacted some former crewmembers to resurrect VM again, only with a DIY-attitude. After some discussions, a bunch of them started writing again at the end of 2012 and this time VM-Underground was born!

VM-Underground… Well, we have chosen to adopt the VM thing again, because many people are still positive about the work we did with Vampire Magazine in the past. And we have chosen “Underground” because we think many bands don’t get the attention they deserve because of the many releases by many labels that are being send to zines with all kind of deadlines.

So you are expecting a new webzine? You’re wrong. We are going old school… only with new technology.

Important notice: As said… you’re dealing with a DIY-fanzine. Everything you will read is our humble opinion and we are the only one who decide which bands/albums are going to be featured on our pages. You like it? Great, we appreciate it and hopefully you keep on enjoying our articles. You hate it? Don’t bother to venture your opinion towards us, as we don’t care and don’t have the spare time to care. There are so many other zines who will probably write something you do like or have the same opinion like you, spend your time with them.

2018

After releasing 4 issues, we received a lot of compliments (thank you all for that!) we also got messages like “oh, you’re still active?” and “didn’t know VM-Underground still exists”. You can imagine we have to change some things around. So we came back on the “webzine” thought and wanted to create a non-flashy online fanzine besides the PDF fanzine. Nothing huge or fancy, just reviews and interviews on the website and all kind of historical articles and old interviews with old school layout will be published in the fanzine. This way you will see VM-Underground is alive and kickin’ and the demo bands we are interviewing don’t have to wait for months to see their interview published. It’s also a stimulation for the ones I can’t do without this…the contributors. They deserve exposure for their work as well. Basically, it’s adding all the numbers to conclude to split the content.

2022

The 2.0 version of the website as we added more info to the articles and pages. Oh, and we can add news now!


What can you expect from VM-Underground?

I can’t say this enough…we are a fanzine. So we are as subjective as hell! Bring on Dismember clone no. 7291! No seriously, it is just our opinion…nothing more, nothing less. Are you offended by one of our articles? Come on! Really? Offended?

VM-Underground support the aesthetics within Extreme Metal of the 80s and 90s, which means we are not interested how scenes have evolved in all kind of sub scenes or changed the last couple of years. If there is a scene who plays Black Metal-like music but the songs are about cauliflower or how happy and positive the artist is, don’t expect it here.

“So what is your political stance, cause that is sooo important for me before I read your articles or sending material…or just in general because I divide human beings by it”.
Fuck you! There you have it. Fuck you, you cunt! We are non-political in any way on these pages and we don’t care about your political views nor moral compass either. Be it communism, anarchism, authoritarianism, fascism and nazism, democracy and so on…history shows it will always beholds too much power by the wrong people having wrong ideas and money in the wrong pockets.  Lets agree humanity in general is a failure. And there will always be someone with a more superior moral compass than you and will judge you by it. We are not going to jump on the hypocritical online bandwagon where one individual should be punished in your eyes for something that happened many years ago because you don’t sympathise with the individual, while you reaction with another individual on an similar action is “let it go, it has been so many years ago. Grow up, he already explained it” just because you like the music or sympathise with the individual. Does this mean we aren’t hypocrites? Oh yes we are, just not your kind of hypocrites.

VM-Underground will be about music only as we separate the art from the artist and we don’t glorify any political thoughts of them. Therefore, it could be quite possible we review or interview a band that the almighty stupendous social media community frown upon or a part of them have on their “no-no”-list.  Don’t bitch about, just don’t check it out, don’t read it, don’t listen to it…

So don’t bother to contact us if we review the new Nokturnal Mortum or a demo of a band which has a member of the Blazebirth Hall scene 20 years ago, or a band with a member of which you think has a “guilty by association”-history. Nor if a band member is a leftie tree-hugging with dreadlocks vegan and thinks that “all meat-lovers should die” because it’s “murder” in their eyes. Use your brain for once….

Maestro! Music please! What you say? Something of Napalm Death’s “From Enslavement to Obliteration” or Burzum’s “Dunkelheit? Why not both!


Staff

Chief-Editor/Owner: Ricardo
Logo / illustrations: Stijn Artwork

Active Contributors

Antonio Fredde Dzor
Black Mary Ben Schultz Justin Joseph
DanielP Armo Rocky
D.F. Colin McNamara VincentP
DPF Old Man Stares Zvetan
Tara NWB

Non-Active or occasional Contributors

Rai, Sven, Marcel, Sir Isaak, Doc H., Martin, Frank, Master Butcher, Showmik, Marcin, Gabriel, D.L. Beaven, Lennart, Houtekiet, Marko, RMM, Marc,  Svart, Raybeez, Stijn, TomAsssault, Jön, Uriel, JvH, MarkP, Kostas Paganizer, DMuerte, Orpheus, William, Zoheb, Cris Pervertor,  Filth Bearer, Jelmer, Kaje, Hayduke X, JonG, Peter ‘Trendcrusher’ K., Kenneth Necroholocausto Asker, Casilda, MikeH, MarioR, RuudN, VUK, Lana, LCF, Sarah McKellar, Tormentor, Azathoth, JantoVH, Sulphur, Gangrene Pus, TravisN, JohnM, MarioR, Charles Klemm, The Creator, Ksenia, Leo, Manuel Sanchez, MKD, Mordiggian, Chris Topher MC, Danilo, DaveW, Terrorgasm, EthanM, Fabio Brayner, GeorgeVD, Lod666, Noisehearse, John Giakoumakis, Ted Gloom, Nezu, Justin Johnson, Kellen, KelleyS, Bornonthecemetary, Pazuzu, LucaR, Raven Brown, Uncle Les, Crimson Death, MartijnK, MattD, Maxine, Mischael S, Akib, NoahC, Peter Schulz, Godless, Azag Galla, Hari, PhilippF, Woodlum666, DanielF, Nyogotha, Thorulf. International Acrobat, Evil Mike, TorBor, Ivan “Concreteweb” Tibos. Osmani, HaCeBo, The Great Mack, Skye_Dogg, Tori Belle, Fetid Priest Of Pestilence, Azag Galla, Conner G. FelixS, Franki_boj, Marksson, Mazchna, Mr. Nielsen, Para Bellum

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