Following their "Rise" EP in 2015 and 2018's "Black Knight" 7" single, North Rhine-Westphalia's Luzifer, a side project of German thrashers Vulture, are ready to unleash their first full-length album unto the world. Luzifer were originally formed in the city of Hamm in 2009 by Leo Steeler (bass) and Gen-zider (vocals, guitar, drums). For "Iron Shackles", the band has been joined by an additional band member on drums. Stefan Castevet explains: "Luzifer are now a threesome. When Gereon Deceiver joined Vulture, it just happened. He is playing drums for Luzifer as well, handles background vocals and has also contributed to the songwriting. He has injected a lot of energy into the project during its final phase. He is a true blessing for Luzifer as I haven't been sitting behind the drums for ages (laughs)." However, according to Stefan, Luzifer will strictly remain a studio project without any live appearance planned, due to shortage of time: "Playing in Vulture, it's just not possible for us to invest much time in Luzifer. On the one hand, that's quite sad, but on the other hand, we feel no pressure at all, it's not do or die. For us that's a nice change, as in real life and with our main band there are so many obligations." Up until now, Luzifer have kept a pretty low profile, explains Stefan: "There was not a lot of press reaction, to be honest. We did not press too many copies of the two singles after all, and consequently promo work was pretty much limited. I am pretty curious about the reactions to the album though. The feedback I already got was very positive, and I cherished that a lot." Releasing an album was not on the cards for the band either: "No, this was never really planned. We had written four new songs and then got this spontaneous idea for the cover tune ("Der goldene Reiter" by Joachim Witt). All of a sudden we had seven finished songs, and we just called it an album. Originally our aim was to release a new 7" single every other year." "Iron Shackles" was recorded in the band's rehearsal room and at home, with producer Marco of Hellforge Studio at the helm. The record sounds pretty original, and it's quite hard to pin down specific influences. "We do not strive to be the most original band in the world," laughs Stefan Castevet. "Our style has developed over the years and is a direct result of what we have done with Vulture. Within the band we never talked about influences as such. Sound wise 'Satan's Serenade' by Quartz made a big impression on us, combined with this kinda summer feel of Rocker's 'Mighty Thor'. However, I am not really sure though, if "Iron Shackles" sounds in any way like a mixture of both. Everything sort of evolved during the recording and mixing process. There was no single most important influence whatsoever. I can hear a lot of 70s stuff in our music, and of course classical Heavy metal acts like Heavy Load"." "Hexer (In Drei Teufels Namen)" might as well be the most unusual song on the album, not least because it's sung in German, as Stefan explains: "Our first release also had a number sung in German. We think that this has a special charm, and not a lot of traditional metal bands do that. Back then we were listening to a lot of bands from the German Democratic Republic, this time around we were just very keen to have a German number on the record. By the way, the lyrics have been written by our friend Ela from Iron Kobra. He is much better at this than we are!" As mentioned earlier, there is a second German-language number on the record, namely a metal version of 'Der goldene Reiter' by Joachim Witt, a huge hit during the era of the Neue Deutsche Welle in the early 1980s. "We don't take ourselves too seriously," remarks Stefan Castevet, "but then again this is more than just a joke. The song itself is just so great! We were stunned to recognize that it did not take a lot of work to turn it into a heavy metal number, including twin guitars and the whole lot. We did not have to do a lot of re-arranging at all."
