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 year, and featured superlative sets from the likes of Pagan ...

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 we were booked in a big, nice venue with our name on the marquee and all, and you want the show to do well especially in those kinds of conditions. ...

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 to front (and ...

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 yes, I am that lame – we have Hallows Eve's Death and Insanity (Metal ...

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 riffs and stuff (when in Rome...), and the success of this year's ...

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 lesser chance, and a very good reason, the ...

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 two EPs for free, which are two chronic examples of raw ...

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 even Metallica or Lou Reed themselves, can wrap their heads around this ...

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 no use to anyone at all. HARVEST RECORDS opened its doors in 1975 a few doors down from the tenement ...

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 much born, must seem ancient to the metal youth of today. Especially since we are ...