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Ablazine is a French language fanzine from Belgium. I thought the printed version had ceased to exist in favor of a web site a couple of years ago, but recently found otherwise. The fanzine caters mostly to Black and Death metal with an occasional foray into thrash metal - in other words, this is not where you'll find reviews or interviews with your favourite power metal band.

Knowledge is the key word here. The interview questions are usually well thought out and show that the interviewer has done his research - you get a couple of standard questions in each interview but most are very specific to the band's history. I found that even the interviews with some bands I've never been into were interesting to read. This has 84 pages (including the front and back covers) so there's a lot of ground covered here: 1349, Amon Amarth, Arcturus, Arkhon Infaustus, Aura Noir, Behemoth, Black Dementia, Catamenia, Dissection, Emancer, Enslaved, Garwall, Gehenna, Grave, Hades Almighty, Kampfar, Kreator, Nattefrost, Red Harvest, Seth, The Soundbyte, Vreid and Zyklon are interviewed. Add to that about 10 pages of reviews and a review of the Inferno Festival, with pictures. The reviews are usually descriptive enough, and more importantly short and to the point. Lots of bands are covered in that section, a hell of a lot I had never heard of before and frankly I've been building myself a sizeable shopping list just from those pages.

Two CDs are included with the first 200 copies: Thrashin' Machine by From Beyond and No Colours Compilation III. The pages are very well laid out and usually easy to read, save for a couple of pages where the characters are more difficult to read because of the background image.

This issue and some back issues are available on their web site at www.ablazine.com. Highly recommended (if you read French, of course. ;)