This months featured band is Fields of the Nephilim and we have some rare and exciting Nephilim prizes to give away

"The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them: the same were the mighty men which were of old, the men of renown."

The Nephilim were a race of biblical pariahs spawned from the union of angels and human women. They appear but briefly in the bible as evil abominations; the possible cause of the cleansing floods, but were featured strongly in heretical texts such as the Book of Enoch. It is fitting that a band like Fields of the Nephilim with their enduring interests in biblical apocalypse and the occult should choose these fallen angels as their namesakes.The themes of Thelemic Magick, armageddon, Lovecraft's mythos and other arcane topics flow strongly through Fields of the Nephilim's work. Their rich textural sound is created by the synthesis of 2 guitarists (Paul Wright and Peter Yates), bassist (Tony Petit), drummer (Nod Wright) and the gruff vocals of Carl McCoy. It is McCoy's ideas and vision which created the weird occultism that the Nephilim are now famous for.

Often passed over by more fashion conscious goths for not looking like Peter Murphy, the Nephilim created their own style drawing on "The Gothic" in the apocalyptic atmosphere of the great spaghetti western appearing on stage in leather post-apocalyptic cowboy gear and covered in dust and/or flour. The album "Dawnrazor" exemplified their great western sound producing the seminal "Preacherman" single, the accompanying video casting Carl McCoy as the preacher of the title who is sacrificed by his radiation-mutated brethren. They utilised Ennio Moriconne's "Harmonica Man" as a tension building intro and samples from horror classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" to create a claustrophobic sense of nastiness in the creepy title track.

The Nephs progressed out of the post apocalyptic western vision of "Dawnrazor" into the occultly atmospheric sound of "The Nephilim" album. Taking samples from the film adaptation of Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" and really beginning to expand on Carl's fascination with Lovecraft and Biblical Apocrypha. This album yielded the famous "Moonchild" single (taken from Aleister Crowley's novel of the same name about an occult battle to produce a magickal child), the single was accompanied by a really quite beautiful video (especially considering the lack of budget) shot in a watery cave system. This album contains some of the all time goth favourites including "Last Exit for the Lost" and "Celebrate".

After "The Nephilim" came the magickal explosion that was the "Psychonaut" single. At over 9 minutes in length it was hardly suitable for radio airplay so a 3 minute version and video were also released. This is arguably their best video depicting a re-creation of the Native American indian sun ritual where participants are hoisted into the air through hooks in the chest.

Elizium was an altogether different kettle of fish. A spiralling epic of progressive rock, Elizium has some of the most hauntingly beautiful moments the Nephilim have produced. unfortunately Elizium saw the demise of the Nephs as Carl McCoy and the rest of the band split to form "The Nefilim" and "Rubicon" respectively. There was a fantastic live album "Earth inferno" before the split which is testament to their blistering live sets - particularly a bulldozeringly powerful "Dawnrazor".

"Rubicon" retained some of the sound but not the passion of "Fields of the Nephilim" whereas "The Nefilim" continued in a similar thematic vein while developing a metal-influenced sound.

The Nephilim reformed in 1999 and released an ep of 2 older tracks that had been reworked - a grunty version of 'Trees come Down' and an almost Trip-hop 'Darkcell'. Recently the controversial 'Fallen' album has been released by Jungle Records. Carl McCoy claims no permission for this release saying that it is a collection of demos that were never intended to be an album. Flawed though it may be, 'Fallen' still gives a taste of what could be to come...