This month marks a historic milestone in Metal Hammer history as we unveil our 400th issue!

This month marks a historic milestone in Metal Hammer history as we unveil our 400th issue! The cover stars? Masked metal phenomena Sleep Token, with two separate covers to collect – one representing House Veridian, and one House Feathered Host. Which will you choose?

As Sleep Token prepare to drop their brand new album, *Even In Arcadia*, we uncover their secret origin story, via those who were there. From their first producer, to publicists and promoters, we discover what Vessel was really like, and how his vision developed.

“The starting point was removing this idea of the music you listen to being related to the person making it,” says George Lever, Sleep Token’s producer from 2016 to 2021. “By being anonymous, the listener is forced to relate to what they’re actually hearing.”

At first, people didn’t know what to make of this mysterious masked band, who defied categorisation.

“In its simplest terms, we described it as ‘Sam Smith meets Meshuggah’,” says Nathan Barley Philips, co-founder of Basick Records, which released Sleep Token’s first songs. “Those were the layman’s terms we used to describe it to people who might not get it. Believe me, there were people in those early days who didn’t!”

To celebrate Metal Hammer’s 400th issue, we also revisit the first appearances of 10 of our biggest and best bands in the mag, uncovering what they were like then, and how they’ve changed.

Elsewhere in the magazine, Machine Head mastermind Robb Flynn takes us on an insider tour of his hometown, Oakland; symphonic pioneers Within Temptation talk us through their dramatic history; Coheed And Cambria reveal how they wrote *The Suffering*; and Knocked Loose announce their mission to make pig squeals mainstream.

The Used’s Bert McCracken dishes out his life lessons on Shakespeare and spiders, Deftones-core frontrunners Thornhill explain why they’re bringing back 90s cool, and Beast In Black unveil their dream team-up with the Diablo videogame franchise and manga Berserk.

We also sit down with Sharon Osbourne to find out how she helped kickstart Ozzy’s career after his dismissal from Black Sabbath, and reshaped modern metal via Ozzfest and more.

All this, along with Svalbard, Marko Hietala, Neckbreakker, Death SS, Bury Tomorrow, Tetrarch, Wardruna, Limp Bizkit and much, much more.

Only in the new issue of Metal Hammer, on sale now. Order it online and have it delivered straight to your door!