In 1986, São Paulo teenager Marcelo R. Batista channeled his love of pure, wild heavy metal into the self-produced fanzine United Forces. Over the next five years, his homemade publication captured the explosion happening before his eyes thanks to riotous Brazilian metal upstarts including Sepultura, Sarcofago, Vulcano, Holocausto, Mystifier, Sextrash, Ratos de Porão, Skullkrusher, Necrobutcher, and hundreds of others. Simultaneously, he exposed readers to future legends from abroad, including Napalm Death, Carcass, Morbid Angel, and Darkthrone.

United Forces presents the story in vivid color, along with Batista’s own headbanger tale—from humble origins collecting scrap metal to buy Motörhead albums to DIY operator funneling his country’s metal passion to receptive listeners in Europe and North America. The changes in Brazil during the 1980s and early 1990s serve as background for a full-bore metal revolution, as Batista’s story brings to life the crucial South-of-the-equator 1980s scene that inspired all the forthcoming underground extremes to come.

• 528 color pages on heavy-duty 130gsm paper

• forewords by Rodrigo Magalhães (Holocausto), Zhema Rodero (Vulcano), Cristiano dos Passos (Necrobutcher), Renato da Costa Souza (Armmagedon, Megathrash, Holocausto), Paulo Gepeto (Ação Direta), Jan Frederickx (Agathocles), Georges Kormikiaris (Low Life Records, Radical Livros), and Borivoj Krgin (Blabbermouth.net)

• Exhaustive “United Forces” Summit w/Max and Iggor Cavalera

• Reprints and translation pages of the entire United Forces zine run

• Ten chapters detailing the rise of Brazilian metal and hardcore throughout the 1980s

• Over 1,000 color images, photographs, and flyers from the archives of Brazil’s raw metal attack