Admittedly, I’ve never been big on checking out heavy metal’s nerve center for news, Blabbermouth. Once in a while, I'll take a peek at the site and see what’s going on, who’s in the studio, who’s on tour and even indulge in a little bit of gossip, but I personally don’t have the time or feel drawn enough to be keep abreast of every single little slice of information, however ...

Finnish "heavy metallers" Lordi have gone 3-times Platinum (90,000 copies sold) in their native Finland, Gold (30,000 copies sold) in Sweden, Gold in Germany (100,000 copies sold) and have probably earned sales medals throughout Europe. Pretty neat considering Lordi are nothing but a bunch of fakers. Check out this clip from 2006. The horror-masked Finns are rambling through one of their ...

If you say you don’t know who Derek Riggs is, we can probably forgive you. But if you say you don’t know his work, you are clearly looking for a fight. The creator of arguably the most iconic mascot in all of music, Riggs’s art made him at one point practically the 7th member of Iron Maiden and his work has appeared on everything form your cousin’s lower leg to a goddamn 757. Metal ...

There's little more annoying on this planet than the immoral majority telling you how essential, transcendent and (huh-huh) seminal a particular extreme album is, when you know that it's overrated as fuck. Hence, our new Wednesday morning column, "Disposable Heroes," in which one brave soul sails against the current to inform all you clones why you can't spell classic without "ass." For this ...

If you're a Decibel subscriber, issue #82 [Scott Ian cartoon cover] should be arriving via angry postman shortly. In this month's cover, longtime dude's dude Nick Green detailed in fantastic fashion the link between comics and extreme music. With a (spoiler alert!) fold-out cover illustrator by Henry and Glenn inklord Tom Neely, issue #82 boldly went where no publication of our variety has gone ...

You may have seen this on MetalSucks earlier in the week, but it's too rad not to repost. Waterloo Records in Austin, home of Snore by Snorewest, got four dudes from the esteemed Tombs and Kill the Client to play the time-honored game of "What the Fuck Does Your Stupid Band Logo Actually Say?" (MS play it every week under the more tactful guise of "Completely Unreadable Band Logo of the Week.") ...

Were he somehow able to observe the aftermath of his own recent passing from on high amidst the ether, it is easy to imagine Seth Putnam’s glee at the kids clambering atop digital platforms to ostentatiously proclaim righteous ambivalence over his death or the Village Voice’s lengthy tut-tutting. You do not do or say the things Seth Putnam did and said for as long as he did and said them ...

If you’re in Los Angeles this coming Friday and Saturday, make your way down to the Nomad Gallery for the two days of the second New Weird America Festival. If on Friday you’re choosing to not embark upon a sympathetic celebration of the socialist welfare state to the north known as Canada (July 1st is Canada Day, in case you were wondering), check out the festival launch at the “Twin ...

So Hideous, My Love... may not have the best band name, but musically they're the best post-insert-subgenre-here band since Arvo Pärt joined Burzum and the daring duo started covering Godspeed You! Black Emperor B-sides. Seriously though, Pärt hasn't joined Varg in any capacity, but So Hideous, My Love... feels like the next step in whatever black metal-ish infused metal streams out of ...

Photo: Birtha, armed to the teeth with proto-metal chops. To combat the impeding death of print journalism, I still subscribe to plenty of magazines. SPIN happens to be one of them. In between articles about bands that I can stomach as easily as putrid flesh, there are bits I enjoy, one of which is the Essentials column by my friend and former editor Chuck Eddy (he of the irreverent metal tome ...