By Valient Himself (Valient Thorr) Alahoyus. This will be the final transmission of the VALIENT THORR FALL- INTO MADNESS TOURR. Or the VALIENT THORR AUTUMN OF 1000 CHARACTERS TOURR. Or whatever. I like to change the name nightly. We have definitely met some interesting cats out there this go round. When we last left off, I think we were in San Fran? Who knows, I know that Red Fang had ...

Those of you who dragged your asses to the previously formatted Deciblog on a regular basis might be familiar with my 8-year-old son, Sam. At the time, he won a trio of bad-ass Immortal skatedecks, courtesy of Vans and Nuclear Blast, for dropping 75 words about how bad-ass he thought Immortal is. Truth is, he does think Immortal is bad-ass, along with a whole host of other metal and punk bands ...

It's contest time, motherfuckers (no offense). Lesbian, the Seattle psych-metal maelstrom who write the kind of music Satan himself smokes weed to, have released their newest record, Stratospheria Cubensis (Important). It is an incredible leap from their Power Hor debut, both sonically technically, while still pushing their singular sound. Just look what our own Leah Sottile had to say ...

Former Arkansas governor, presidential candidate, and current Huckabee talk show host Mike Huckabee is Fox News Channel's first (and possibly last) "Doom Metal Expert". No shit! Decibel doesn't even have a resident "Doom Metal Expert" -- well, Scott Koerber and EIC Mr. Mudrian have the right credentials, but have never self-proclaimed "I am a Doom Metal Expert" even if they are "Doom Metal ...

Nine years ago this month, author Steven Blush released the hardcore book-of-books, American Hardcore: A Tribal History. Because he's a glutton for punishment, he updated the book to include a load of new material: The author has updated all of the chapters, added a new one titled "Destroy Babylon," which explores the mutant forms of spirituality that came from the movement, and interviewed ...

What is black metal? Carnifex: Nefarium's (Myspace link) primary thought concerns the communicative aspect, with the idea that a black metal listener could understand a message of hate and anger towards those elements that can be [considered] personal. In an apathetic and driven world, powered by hypocrisy, we seek personal illumination to give the most adequate voice to their ideals, there, ...

Ed Note: I don’t have the time (and perhaps not even the physical ability) to grow a Brian Wilson beard, as per my NLCS bet with Matt Harvey (plus, like you’re really gonna even remember this bet in the five weeks it would take to grow it), so just enjoy my concession speech. “In your face, Mudrian!” read the textual transmission from Matthew Harvey just moments after some ...

For those of us who prefer our Halloween more Samhain than All Saints’ Day it isn’t always easy to wade through the morass of dark culture in search of the elusive story/record/film that is both sinister and smart. Disappointments abound. So when Decibel caught wind of a discerning metalhead launching his own upscale horror publication, interest was piqued, hopes were raised—and, by ...

If you've been following us here on the Deciblog for the last few months, you know that exactly every two weeks we post a flyer for something called Heavy Tuesday. We're still not really sure what it is, but J. Bennett keeps insisting that it's occasionally awesome. As far as we can tell, it's this heavy metal DJ night that he and Scott Carlson from Repulsion do at this bar called Footsies in ...

By Nate Hall (U.S. Christmas) I can’t say this is a “Top 5” list, because I couldn’t possibly rank Appalachian people on any kind of scale. Some of these are people I have known, others I never met. All of them are distinctly Appalachian. Popcorn Sutton — Maggie Valley, NC. The late great moonshiner Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton was one of the most vivid and interesting ...