Month: April 2011

Hull Tour Diary + 2011 SXSW Wrap-Up

April 29, 2011

Friday, March 11, 2011: Philadelphia, PA (Kung Fu Necktie)After hastily packaging our new Viking Funeral LPs, meeting up with our most excellent roadie and merch extraordinaire, Jeffrey Hollis, bidding farewell to our friends at The Acheron and The Anchored Inn (best new bar in town! 59 Waterbury Street 11206), and packing all our gear into…

The Lazarus Pit: Mysticum’s In the Streams of Inferno

April 29, 2011

Welcome to The Lazarus Pit, a biweekly look at should-be classic metal records that don’t get nearly enough love, stuff that’s essential listening for students of extreme metal that you may not have ever heard of.  Stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  This…

Hot Graves Wickedly Covers Pentagram’s “Madman”

April 28, 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CvNR_TlaaI The legendary Pentagram is back in a big fucking way (if you haven’t noticed) so it’s the perfect time to crank out a dedication. D-beat lovers Hot Graves have actually slowed themselves down to pull off a faithful and killer cover of “Madman” from Pentagram’s Day of Reckoning. And they’ve gone further by releasing…

STREAMING: Haemorrhage “Amputation Protocol”

April 28, 2011

There’s nothing like regurgitated giblets in the morning. Using tools of the trade (i.e., fork and knife), we consume the gross, the unsightly, and the wrong to get us ready for traffic, silly ridiculous Excel spreadsheets, and reading press releases about odd bands signing to mainstream indie labels (uh, Jungle Rot signed to Victory). It’s…

Plop Culture Dump O the Day: This is Nicolas Cage’s Son

April 27, 2011

Here’s some useless hump-day crap: Nicolas Cage has a 20-year-old son named Weston (the chick on the right) who is in a metal band called Eyes of Noctum. Weston got married to the chick on the left. I read about this on a probably not-at-all-reputable site called Hot Momma Gossip. A little googling uncovered the…

Justify Your Shitty Taste: Mayhem’s “Grand Declaration of War”

April 27, 2011

Tracklist:1. “A Grand Declaration of War”
2. “In the Lies Where Upon You Lay”
3. “A Time to Die”
4. “View from Nihil (Part I of II)”
5. “View from Nihil (Part II of II)”
6. “A Bloodsword and a Colder Sun (Part I of II)”
7. “A Bloodsword and a Colder Sun (Part II of II)”
8. “Crystalized Pain in Deconstruction”
9. “Completion in Science of Agony (Part I of II)”
10. “To Daimonion (Part I of III)”
11. “To Daimonion (Part II of III)”
12. “To Daimonion (Part III of III)”
13. “Completion in Science of Agony (Part II of II)”

James Kelly (Altar of Plagues) interviewed

April 26, 2011

At what point to you feel a song has been completed? I typically ask this question of bands who write long songs to see if there’s a threshold and if there is when to they feel it’s been reached.James Kelly: For us, it is when it has climaxed in terms of the energy we intend…

Hail James Parker!

April 26, 2011

Leave Zakk Wylde alone. He’s getting exposure for metal and that’s a good thing. Such was the gist of a surprising number of reader responses to my post last week poking fun at the Black Label Society guitarist for appearing with that metallic theater arts goofball on American Idol. (Alas, these missives remained but a…

Buzrum – “Filosofem”

April 25, 2011

In 1993, Burzum mastermind and sole member Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes both embodied Norwegian black metal’s violent strain of pagan nihilism and sought to defy the genre’s increasingly stultifying conventions.

COVER ART: The Making of Horseback’s “The Gorgon Tongue”

April 25, 2011

“Γοργόνειον III”, the front cover painting commissioned by Relapse Records for Horseback’s double album “The Gorgon Tongue” has quite a bit of history behind it.

Exclusive- Olde Growth: “The Grand Illusion”

April 25, 2011

I’m not a big proponent of hyping a band based upon how few members they have. What I mean is I don’t love descriptors like “power trio” because so what if three guys can make as much noise as four or five. That doesn’t make a song inherently better. But with all of that said,…

Heavy Classically: One And The Same

April 22, 2011

The disconnect between classical music (all types) and heavy metal (all types) is probably less to do with musical form (although blues-based heavy metal is obviously divergent) than class. See, people into classical music are largely of a different economic, educational, and social background from dudes who headbang and play air guitar to “Fucked with…

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

April 22, 2011

Every other Friday, Waldo the African Grey Parrot, frontbird of thrash-grind immortals Hatebeak, will get you caught up on the week’s latest “extreme” releases. Waldo here, and while there’s PLENTY of new metal releases to hate on coming up in the next few weeks, your old feathered friend is going to turn DOWN the hate…

Bye-Bye K.K.

April 21, 2011

Anyone want to add a circle and line over my man K.K. Downing because he has left Judas Priest before their fake farewell tour. One of the band’s founding members has decided to hang up his flying V after 40 goddamn years, citing internal problems with “elements of the band” and management. I’m not sure…

STREAMING: Hate Eternal “Lake Ablaze”

April 21, 2011

Discovery Channel has Shark Week. Decibel Magazine has Stream Week. We’ve ‘streamiered’ (copyright, please) Septicflesh’s “A Great Mass of Death” (Season of Mist), In Solitude’s “Serpents Are Rising” (Metal Blade), and now we’re saving the best — Decibel Editor-in-Chief Albert Mudrian has officially screamed the following platitude while standing on his desk both hands outstretched…

Rock to Bach

April 20, 2011

You ever heard “Piano Metal”? No? Well it fucking sucks.

Justify Your Shitty Taste – Motörhead’s “Another Perfect Day”

April 20, 2011

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…

STREAMING: Septicflesh “A Great Mass of Death”

April 19, 2011

You know, it wasn’t just me that went apeshit over Septicflesh’s previous album, Communion. Yes, I thought Sumerian Demons sucked, so going from suck-a-puck (it’s hockey playoff time) to rule-the-school (it’s exam time) is quite an accomplishment for the longstanding Greeks. Decibel contributor, The Mountain Goats mainman, and Stephen Colbert-approved John Darnielle also felt the…

Big Four? Try Big FIVE…

April 19, 2011

There are probably more than a few Decibel readers who, like me, have never seen an episode of American Idol. Just never got around to it, and it’s a good thing, too, because it saved us the trouble & heartbreak of boycotting the show when Steven Tyler, like, totally sold out, man and, perhaps tempted…

STREAMING: In Solitude “Serpents Are Rising”

April 18, 2011

The retro metal thing hasn’t played itself out quite yet. Sweden’s In Solitude (interviewed in the upcoming dB #80) are, perhaps like countrymen Ghost and Enforcer, on the forefront of the throwback-yet-modern sound emanating from the greatest metal country on planet Earth (my determination; feel free to dispute). Sure, the name In Solitude sounds like…

Hit Balls With Ross the Boss (Dictators/Manowar)

April 18, 2011

Photo: Andrew Savulich You’re probably already aware of the Decibel staff’s somewhat unnaturally obsessive love of baseball. On one side, you have Albert and the Phillies; on the other side, you have Andrew and the Mets. When these teams square off, run for cover. And don’t come out until the following day, when the victor…

Unvested In Vests

April 15, 2011

OK, I’ve never owned a vest. Not sure why. When I was young, I remember older kids around the neighborhood (we’re talking Flint, Michigan here) would sport denim vests proudly over the top of name-a-‘80s-metal-band-or-cola-here t-shirt. It was their uniform. Even in mid-August, they’d walk around in their denim vests (hair picks in the back…

The Lazarus Pit: Wrathchild America’s 3-D

April 15, 2011

Welcome to The Lazarus Pit, a biweekly look at should-be classic metal records that don’t get nearly enough love, stuff that’s essential listening for students of extreme metal that you may not have ever heard of.  Stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  This…

Decibel’s Internet Round-Up

April 14, 2011

1. You like that Incantation ad? Plenty more old school ephemera at Metal Archaeologist. 2. Another death metal murder, with a kiwi twist. 3. When Metallica was the best band in the world. 4. NPR interviewing Witch Mountain after a 10-year absence. 5. Some dumb shit about metal, Zakk Wylde and American Idol. 6. Gentlemen,…

The Ax Man Cometh

April 14, 2011

Recently retired closer Trevor Hoffman has a clear shot at the Baseball Hall of Fame, courtesy of his gaudy career saves total. He also had one of the greatest intro songs ever as a member of the San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers bullpens—AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells.” As Andrew Bonazelli’s Q&A with former Minnesota Twins/current Padres…

Pictures Worth a Thousand Growls

April 13, 2011

Remember when you saw the cover of our issue with Watain and thought, “Holy shit that photo rules.”

Justify Your Shitty Taste – Dissection’s “Reinkaos”

April 13, 2011

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…

Morbid Angel’s Oh So Morbid Cover Art

April 12, 2011

No secret to anyone familiar with Decibel, its fearless editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian, or the magazine’s highly-trained metal taskforce that “seminal” (their words not ours) Florida outfit Morbid Angel are crucial the existence of proficiently extreme, Lovecraft-informed death metal. Countless—as a quick test of our quantitative use of “countless”, ask your fav band if Morbid Angel…

Exclusive: Stream the New Capsule Album

April 12, 2011

Photo: Mike Ruiz-Unger To loosely quote Ice Cube, today is a good day. The Deciblog is proud to be the only site on the Internut streaming the new album from Miami, FL, hardcore melody makers Capsule. No Ghost is a deliciously dizzying slice of adrenalized pogo-ready jams. It gives you the illusion that your brain…

Ramming Speed Premieres “Last Drop/Dogmatic Horde”

April 12, 2011

Ramming Speed’s 12″ split with Texas skate shredders A.N.S. is out today, and it finds the Boston DIY thrashers pushing further into the darker, more intriguing sonic territory hinted at a couple years back on the band’s memorable Candlelight debut Brainwreck — this vinyl slab is a true smorgasbord of raging riffs, driving beats, and…