Month: December 2010

We Got Fucking Snubbed…

December 30, 2010

The new and improved Deciblog is still somewhat in its infancy, so maybe we shouldn’t expect to be properly recognized by a bunch of bespectacled, quipping, big city socialists like NPR, but it’s still hard to conceal our hurt for not being included on their list of 2010’s best metal writing. Now, since there are…

New Sodom Track “God Bless You” Streaming + Vinyl Contest

December 30, 2010

For the last five weeks, we’ve slowly peeled Sodom’s In War and Pieces apart by presenting you, our faithful reader and hopeful subscriber (shameful plug), an advanced audial view of what the German legends have in store for 2011. We used war metaphors (terrible ones, really) and tried our best to come up with sensible…

Justify Your Shitty Taste: Judas Priest’s “Turbo”

December 29, 2010

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, every Wednesday morning, a Decibel staffer or special guest will take to the Deciblog to bitch and moan at length as to why everybody’s full of shit and said dud is, in fact, The…

Fuck Tha (Armenian) Police

December 28, 2010

A sequel to Lords of Chaos this surely ain’t: According to a recent AFP article (which reads more like one of John Darnielle’s “South Pole Dispatch” satires than a legit news story), Armenian police have began cracking down on “emo” rock fans: Officers have visited schools, searched pupils whose distinctive clothing marks them out as…

For Those About to Squawk: Waldo’s Pecks of the Week V

December 28, 2010

Every Friday, Waldo the African Grey Parrot, frontbird of thrash-grind immortals Hatebeak, will get you caught up on the week’s latest “extreme” releases. It’s REALLY slim peckings this week—nothing exciting at all. As Father Time makes way for the Baby New Year, here’s what’s going on. U.K. sensations Asking Alexandria bring the metalcore noise with…

Seriously? Severed Crotch Signs With Amputated Vein Records

December 27, 2010

Not a joke. The Icelandic death metal band inked a deal with a Japanese label that has a similar appreciation for lopping off body parts. In other news, Watain signed with Deplorable Man-Stank Records; Metallica signed with Save Our Dignity Records; GWAR signed with Please Don’t Point That Thing At Me Records; and Dimmu Borgir…

Greeting Cards From the Edge

December 23, 2010

Even the grimmest of us enjoy an occasional birthday wish. That’s where Dark & Somber Greetings come in. As you can see above, various Trve cards have been created to cheer up your corpse-painted brethren or tell them to go back to hell where they once rose from into the darkest forests of Norway. Or…

Dimmu Borgir’s “Dimmu Borgir” Gets It Wrong

December 23, 2010

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0mTkZyNwuY Typically Dimmu Borgir get it right (OK, not right if you’re an BM elitist who mailorders and uses Money Orders instead of credit or Paypal to pay for the latest ‘diehard’ re-re-press of Asgardsrei) when they pick a video ‘single’. “Progenies Of The Great Apocalypse“? Yes. “The Serpentine Offering“? Yes. “The Chosen Legacy? Yes….

Stereogum is Also Agalloch’s Girlfriend…

December 22, 2010

One of our favorite music sites (and not just because they point us straight to naked people music videos) is Stereogum and our most favorite nook is Brandon Stosuy’s column Haunting The Chapel. And now Mr. Stosuy has unveiled his top 50 records of 2010, crowning the best album as, drum ro… Oh, he picked…

New Sodom Track “Soul Contraband” Streaming + Vinyl Contest

December 21, 2010

Four weeks ago, dB premiered two tracks, “In War and Pieces” & “Hellfire”, from Sodom’s upcoming full-length In War and Pieces. Streamed by millions (well, not that many, but it was significant), thrashers got to hear legends in what appears to be their prime. Yeah, we said it. Then, “Through Toxic Veins” & “Nothing Counts…

Get Averse

December 21, 2010

Like most pioneers of form or style, Andrew W., founder and sole proprietor of Aversionline, has never really quite received his due as one of the hands-down finest, most incisive writers on hardcore, metal, and its sundry cross-pollinations. Yet on the eve of its eleventh anniversary, his webzine-cum-mp3 blog nevertheless remains one of the primary electronic watering holes…

Justify Your Shitty Taste: My Dying Bride’s “34.788%… Complete”

December 21, 2010

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, every Wednesday morning, a Decibel staffer or special guest will take to the Deciblog to bitch and moan at length as to why everybody’s full of shit and said dud is, in fact, The…

Herbst (Lantlôs) Interviewed

December 20, 2010

.neon has been ready for more than a year now. What took so long?Herbst: There were some problems between Prophecy and my old label. But fortunately all turned out to be cool in the end. You know, it’s very frustrating, when you work so hard on something and you simply won’t get anything back. I…

Random Number of Random Things We Gave a Random Shit About in 2010

December 20, 2010

Every other media outlet is posting year-end lists, and so are we. Why? Because 99 percent of those chucklefucks have god-awful and/or banal taste in everything, and approximately zero dB staffers power-jizzed our collective denim diaper over the Kanye West album.

The Crossroads of Voivod and Mandy Moore

December 17, 2010

I went into this piece only knowing three things about Ryan Adams: 1. He’s a 36-year old baby asshole. 2. He did the worst cover of Alice in Chains’ “Down in a Hole” that’s ever been recorded. 3. He’s married to Mandy Moore for some reason. Now while I like some Whiskeytown songs (oh yeah,…

A New Level of… Something

December 17, 2010

Let’s get it out of the way: Headbangers Ball is never going to be what we want it to be. I mean, come on, Decibel is never fully going to be what you want it to be, and we fucking rule. (Help is available for that.) As for this show, MTV’s had 23 years to…

For Those About to Squawk: Waldo’s Pecks of the Week IV

December 17, 2010

Every Friday, Waldo the African Grey Parrot, frontbird of thrash-grind immortals Hatebeak, will get you caught up on the week’s latest “extreme” releases. What’s up peeps (get it)? Waldo here. This week’s upcoming releases contain at least two that have me a bit excited; so excited I may shit out an egg, and I’m a…

Slaying the Prophets

December 16, 2010

In a strange bit of serendipity, I happened to finally get around to watching Behemoth’s excellent Evangelia Heretika DVD on the same day the New York Times ran a story headlined, “Poland, Bastion of Religion, Sees Rise in Secularism.” Thus, after being flabbergasted by a tour documentary wherein Catholic politicians collude with the police in…

Minimal Progression: Strike A Chord

December 16, 2010

Until 2009’s What We All Come to Need, Decibel has had a long honeymoon with Chicago instru-metallists Pelican.

Bitter End Tour Diary I

December 16, 2010

San Antonio’s burliest NYHC-influenced face-stompers Bitter End will be on tour pretty much the entire winter. The boys will intermittently grace the Deciblog with sordid stories about the hawd koa kids today, workin’ out and opening/playing for living legends. December 9, 2010 Miami, FL Transcribed by Jacob Henderson About three winters ago, Bitter End slid…

Metal: The Illustration of Mark Rudolph

December 15, 2010

Hello fellow Deci-punters. Typically, we don’t toot our own Viking horns—well, we’ve done it before when Decibel Managing Editor Andrew Bonazelli released his acclaimed A Regular book and when Decibel Editor-in-Chief Albert Mudrian clashed swords with Da Capo Press to bring the Precious Metal book to life—but on this occasion, which is near Christmas, originally…

Justify Your Shitty Taste: Metallica’s “St. Anger”

December 15, 2010

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, every Wednesday morning, a Decibel staffer or special guest will take to the Deciblog to bitch and moan at length as to why everybody’s full of shit and said dud is, in fact, The…

Alice Cooper Finally Inducted to the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame

December 15, 2010

We can already hear you bitching about how blasphemous the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame is and how it doesn’t mean anything, etc. Stop the billion dollar baby butt-hurt rant for two seconds, and throw some horns for Alice Cooper finally getting honored by the goddamn museum. Recognition is important, even if it comes…

New Sodom Track “Feigned Death Throes” Streaming + Vinyl Contest

December 14, 2010

Over the last three weeks we’ve been fortunate enough to open three cans of Sodom agent orange on your sorry fiveheads. Week 1 we premiered an uncompromisingly intense set of tracks in “In War and Pieces” & “Hellfire”. For Week 2, another two cans (“Through Toxic Veins” & “Nothing Counts More Than Blood”) of Sodom…

Fun With the Spin 2010 Readers Poll

December 14, 2010

Don’t you wish we did one of these? Cheat Sheet ARTIST OF THE YEAR: (write-in) Bruce Willis BEST NEW ARTIST: (write-in) GWAR BEST LIVE ARTIST: (write-in) Bruce Willis MOST WELCOME RETURN: (write-in) Bruce Willis BEST RAP/R&B ARTIST: (write-in) “Rap isn’t music” SEX GODDESS OF THE YEAR: (write-in) Hit Girl from Kick-Ass SEX GOD OF THE…

King Diamond Gets a Present for Christmas…

December 14, 2010

…and it’s a shiny, newly refurbished heart. Diamond’s wife Livia breaks news of the several heart attacks which culminated in the diabolical falsetto’s recent triple bypass open heart surgery in a fairly harrowing post on Coven Worldwide. Here’s an excerpt: “If you are interested in the details of how this surgery is performed, please look…

Justin Lowe & Trent Hafdahl’s (After the Burial) Top 5 Greatest Riffs Of All Time

December 13, 2010

5. Black Sabbath “Paranoid” intro riff Tony Iommi is the fuckin’ man. The way his guitar sounded back in the ’70s was just evil compared to everyone else. Whether it had something to do with the way he layered distorted guitars on the recordings, or whether it was due to his playing style or missing…

Henry & Glenn Forever Cartoon Xmas Special (& J. Bennett in a Bathrobe)

December 13, 2010

We have the biggest, frostiest, gluiest boner for the remarkably deranged dudes of Igloo Tornado, the hivemind that brought you the homotastic hardcore comic Henry & Glenn Forever. Just when we thought we couldn’t possibly love them any harder or faster, Igloo Tornado’s Tom Neely wrote, directed, and animated a goddamn CHRISTMAS CARTOON starring Henry…

Top 5 Weird-ass Great Guitar Tones by Nate Hall (U.S. Christmas)

December 10, 2010

By Nate Hall (U.S. Christmas) #5. Dixie Collins – Weedeater It takes a special kind of person to create a sonic mirror, a tone that reflects the individual hitting the strings. When Dixie straps on his cheap Squier P-Bass, slugs back some of Kentucky’s worst and switches on his amps, the ungodly wails that erupt…

For Those About to Squawk: Waldo’s Pecks of the Week III

December 10, 2010

Every Friday, Waldo the African Grey Parrot, frontbird of thrash-grind immortals Hatebeak, will get you caught up on the week’s latest “extreme” releases. As the end of the year swiftly approaches, record labels tend to slow down the releases. The rest of this year looks blanker than my body after a good molt. Good time…