Month: October 2011

LIVE EVIL FESTIVAL 2011: Video Highlights

October 31, 2011

A few weeks ago we posted a Live Evil festival preview which was, in all fairness, maybe a little mean-spirited seeing that the vast majority of folks couldn’t cross ocean, continent or geographical border to attend an underground metal festival in London, U.K. Not at such notice, anyways. Live Evil 2011 was the festival’s sophomore…

Warbringer Tour Diary, Part IV

October 31, 2011

I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning to drive to Iowa, all the way from Cleveland. Cant sleep any more so I guess it is time to recap the last week of tour… Ill pick up where I left off last time, in New York. I was kind of antsy about this show, as…

PREMIERE: Vallenfyre “Cathedrals of Dread” Video

October 29, 2011

Earlier this month, we had the desolate delight in premiering Vallenfyre’s–featuring Paradise Lost’s Gregor Mackintosh on vocals/guitar, Paradise Lost drummer Adrian Erlandsson, My Dying Bride’s Hamish Glencross on guitar, and Doom bassist Scoot–new song “Desecrated“. To say it raised a few eyebrows would be an understatement. Who knew six string moper Mackintosh had the balls…

The Lazarus Pit: Hallows Eve’s Death and Insanity

October 28, 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 that you’ve probably never heard of; stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  In honor of the upcoming holiday – because…

Being Devin Townsend: Q&A with Ziltoid’s old man

October 28, 2011

Devin Townsend is on the phone and he’s freaking out because he’s booked four shows in London; over consecutive nights he’ll be playing Ki, Addicted, Deconstruction and Ghost in their entirety, and it’s a big fucking deal. It’s stressful. He’s also headlining Leeds, UK metal-fest Damnation, which he promises to go heavy on with the…

Tragedy – “Tragedy”

October 27, 2011

While society feared the collapse of the wired world, Lorrain, Davis and the Burdettes feared having to play high-velocity, crusty hardcore for the same people in the same venues until Y3K, or until they kicked the collective bucket, whichever came first.

Catching Up With: City of Fire

October 27, 2011

City of Fire is the Vancouver-based atmospheric, psychedelic heavy rock/metal band featuring members of Fear Factory, Strapping Young Lad and Zimmer’s Hole. Due to the relative popularity of the member’s day gigs, there’s a good chance the band’s name may be familiar to some of you. However, as vocalist Burton C. Bell explains, there’s a…

Black Ink, Black Metal – The Art Of Heath Rave

October 27, 2011

It was Heath Rave who asked Decibel during an interview, “When have tattoos and rock music not gone together?” We all know the answer, but we’d be willing to wager that they’ve never gone together this well. You’re probably more familiar with Rave as the bloodfueld drummer from Wolvhammer. You can still download their first…

The Definitive ‘Lulu’ Review

October 26, 2011

I’m not usually someone to post a jokey video in place of a verbose, self-important rant against something inconsequential, but this is different. When some future civilization unearths the only iPod to ever contain the entire 90 minutes of Lulu, they will be as baffled and speechless as we are today. No one, I doubt…

Chris Connelly: Confessions of a Hysterical Music Addict 1975

October 26, 2011

Nowadays, I manage a record store, it’s that simple. I went to the source. Not because, like a junkie moving to Nepal to grow poppies, I was cutting out the middle man, more because there is not much else I can do or have an inexhaustive knowledge of. I know things that are of absolutely…

Ten Albums Whose Anniversary We Won’t Be Celebrating in 2012

October 25, 2011

Metal is getting old. We don’t mean boring and tired (well, occasionally that), we mean that it now has quite a history stretching back to a time when many of its current adherents weren’t even born. That decade known as “the Eighties,” when the NWOBHM happened and modern metal as we know it was pretty…

Death Metal Maniac Becomes “The Thing”

October 25, 2011

Ask Resurrecting Judas bassist/vocalist Dylan Hromadka about the inhuman growl n’ howl he laid down to give the monster in the recent reboot of The Thing a voice, and in return you’ll receive a list to rival the one Benjamin Buford ‘Bubba’ Blue rattled off to Forrest Gump whilst singing the praises of shrimp, the…

NOW STREAM THIS: WOLD Badb

October 24, 2011

With the release of last year’s beyond bizarre Working Together for our Privacy Canadian black metal/noise duo Wold appeared to have misplaced their minds. What really should have been some sort of haunting, spectral noise record was in the cold light of day just one sustained fog of static that was the ultimate challenge for…

My Top 5 Shitty-Awesome Horror Movies, by Justin Smith of Graf Orlock

October 24, 2011

This holiday season, it seems pertinent to assign a rough hierarchy to some of the shittiest/best horror films in the past few decades. And I don’t mean films I don’t like; I mean films that fall between the glorious realms of “I think I love it” or “I refuse to ever think about it again.”…

STREAMING: Riot “Still Your Man”

October 24, 2011

Having formed before most of us — me, included — were born and having the dubious distinction of some of the worst cover art of all time (Narita, thank you very much), New York heavy metallers Riot are preparing to release their first album in five years. Titled Immortal Soul, the group’s new effort obviously…

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

October 21, 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. Wow, Happy Halloween everyone. Since I’m on a bi-weekly cycle here, Halloween will have come and gone, and we all know that it’s my favorite holiday. It seems the labels don’t…

NOW STREAMING: GNAW THEIR TONGUES Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras Veneramus

October 21, 2011

While it’s unhealthy to try drill into a rich seam of depression and self-loathing, mine it and milk it then wallow in it, sometimes those sort of dark moods are just unavoidable. For nigh-on six years, Gnaw Their Tongues, a solo project of Dutch polymath Mories, has deconstructed black metal, adding avant-industrial elements and haunting…

Exhumed! On Tour! Fuck Yeah!

October 20, 2011

‘Round about this time next week, gore metal legends, Exhumed will be embarking on their first eastern North American tour since the last time there was no more room in hell and the dead previously walked the Earth. The festering quartet already draped the western half of the continent in their gooey claret this past…

Warbringer Tour Diary, Part III

October 20, 2011

Hello out there. Kevill here again, coming to you from some bar in Manhattan where I have found a place to actually sit down and write.

TBDM Contest Winner Presents – Cerekloth

October 20, 2011

Remember our Black Dahlia Murder Contest? Yeah, us either, but that won’t stop us from announcing the winner! His name is Keifer, and that’s good enough. Winner. The contest was to find us the most disgusting, grueling, blasting death we’ve never heard of. Keifer won by bringing our attention to Cerekloth. Here is some dirty,…

Mournful Congregation Set to Pillage West Coast

October 19, 2011

This is still some weeks away, but now is the time to book your flight to the west coast or Texas to see one of the premier doom bands in the world sweep across the plains and possibly rattle California into the ocean. Australia’s Mournful Congregation is coming to America at the end of November…

Tom S. Englund (Evergrey) interviewed

October 19, 2011

What makes Tom tick? You’ve been doing Evergrey for more than 15 years now.Tom S. Englund: I don’t know, man. Must be as simple as the love for creating music and music in general. That and, of course, travelling the world numerous times as a result of the chords I play and write of course…

Behold One of the Strongest Beers in the World

October 18, 2011

Do we have your attention now? Good. First, we need to address a few things about this photo, which we must admit, we find quite hilarious. #1) No live animals were harmed. These taxidermied critters—a stoat and a squirrel—had previously met their demise before they had bottles of what was, at the time (July 2010),…

Woe Redux: Less Quiet, More Drama

October 18, 2011

As an unabashed booster of the original version of Quietly, Undramatically, I have to admit I was a bit skeptical when I heard Woe mastermind Chris Grigg was embarking upon a full remix of the record. The end result, however, definitely won me over, bringing a new level of epic-ness and clarity out of the…

KVELERTAK/SKELETONWITCH: Tour Preview/Reminder/Warning for Livers

October 17, 2011

OK, so this is is effectively grabbing a pile of kindling and tossing it onto the hype inferno, but fuck it, we should probably remind/advise you that his forthcoming Kvelertak/Skeletonwitch tour is the most exciting thing that’s happening Stateside in the immediate future. Consider this a public service announcement, or something to that effect. Shit,…

STREAMING: Encoffination “Rites of Ceremonial Embalm’ment”

October 17, 2011

When death and his plague exhaling horse come knocking on your front door, the last sound you’ll hear won’t be “…Baby One More Time”. It’ll be the dirge of doom expulsed by Texas/Georgia duo Encoffination. Not unlike the members’ grime-encrusted outfit Father Befouled, Encoffination’s brand of death is unpolished, guts hanging out, but ultimately dangerous….

The Lazarus Pit: Glenn Branca’s Symphony No. 6 (Devil Choirs at the Gates of Heaven)

October 14, 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 that you’ve probably never heard of; stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  This week, we rush the pearly barricades armed…

Beware of the dog! My Dying Bride’s new EP, the Barghest O’ Whitby, is a leg-humper and a biter

October 14, 2011

My Dying Bride have done something truly remarkable: they’ve piqued my attention, big-style. Maybe it was years of clandestine market research or a visit to some cobwebbed shaman, experimentation with psychedelics or an acupuncture/hypnosis combo, but deciding to record a 27-minute histrionic doom track about a supernatural dog is on the face of it an…

HOLY SHIT!

October 13, 2011

Truth be told, I spend way too much money on music. Truth be told, and considering my monthly take home, I spend waaaay too much money on music. A couple years ago, as a means of avoiding homelessness, I came up with a plan to curtail my record shopping insanity. Basically, if I’m browsing at…

True Till Def – Hardcore & Hip-Hop – 10/22 – NYC

October 13, 2011

Motha fuckin’ True Till Def. It’s a free event at Santos Party House, merging two genres that go together like bread and pudding: hardcore and hip-hop. I absolutely fucking loved it when Anthrax did that song with Run DMC. Oh, and did I mention that it’s free? (You have to RSVP, it’s like a wedding.)…