With zines like NECROMANIAC or CHAOS there is a subgenre of "fanzines" that has achieved a level of visual quality and overall professionalism that can rather be compared to the glossy, mainstream magazines than your typical xeroxed underground publication. Whereas the selection of bands in NECROMANIAC is still pure underground Death Metal, Grindcore and a dose of bestial Black / War Metal, CHAOS concentrates mostly on traditional, yet not too underground Death Metal with a strong emphasis on the Swedish dödsmetal legions. In their 13th issue you can discover interviews with AMON AMARTH, CARCASS, DARK TRANQUILLITY, DECEIVER / MAZE OF TORMENT, DISMEMBER, EVOCATION (godz!!!!), GRAVE, INCAPACITY, OBITUARY, ONE MAN ARMY AND THE UNDEAD QUARTET, PAGANIZER / RIBSPREADER, SANCTIFICATION / IN BATTLE, TORCHBEARER, UNEARTH, UNLEASHED and VOMITORY plus numerous reviews, the Göteborg Death Mix feature with guys from NIGHTRAGE, DARK TRANQUILLITY, ARCH ENEMY and THE HAUNTED. The interviews are detailed, substantial and totally professional, the writing style is entertaining, informative and the entire structure of the zine is diversified and does not get boring. Now, my points of criticism, the various ads shows where the money to do such a professional looking zine comes from and I think featuring (and praising) so many bands of Century Media, Metal Blade do give the zine the wrong direction content-wise. I miss the underground acts, the bands where I feel like "hey, I have to check this out"! CHAOS tends to serve a mainstream extreme Metal taste too much and thus doesn’t meet my personal taste, but however, it is extremely well done, looks totally killer and reads nicely. If you do not have such an underground-fetish-syndrome like I apparently have, get this zine! As a bonus it also features an MDD Records compilation and a NEVERMORE / ARCH ENEMY teaser CD. As German people you’ll get "total CHAOS" for 5€ including postage (all other countries: 6€ / 7$) from this address: CHAOS MAGAZINE, c/o Frank Schenk, Wormser Str. 40, 72760 Reutlingen, Germany, email: frank.schenk@schwaben.de