Year: 2011

The fifth installment of Scion A/V‘s video series is now upon us and, per usual, the company has not skimped on the heavy, producing this tasteful, high quality short for Immolation, which we at Decibel are very happy to exclusively premiere below: We last profiled these American Death Metal stalwarts last year in issue 67….

It’s a well-established fact that we like to drink beer and listen to metal. But second only to that pursuit is being able to talk brewskis with other like-minded beer geeks. So upon hearing that Tombs bassist Carson Daniel James is an equally devout barley-pop imbiber, we called him to talk (and drink) beer. Decibel…

Surveying the Apocalyptic Necromancy track listing it is pretty clear those with an actual fear of gore might have their gag reflexes tested a bit by the latest fetid offerings from Goreaphobia — see, for example, “Rust Worms and the Noxious Fevers They Bring,” “Shroud of the Hyena,” or “Void of the Larva Queen.” Thus,…

What with Neurot reissuing Neurosis’ Sovereign EP, we thought it was probably no better time to celebrate how great they are. Currently working on the follow-up to 2007’s Given to the Rising, work that we most definitely won’t see ’til 2012, Scott Kelly’s is one of the bona-fide ayatollahs of giganto-riff. Like, him and Steve…

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not every day that the Deciblog introduces you to a whole new genre of extreme music. But today is special. Today, we bring you a new breed of ferocity.

Hammers of Misfortune are one of the most slept-on bands to be offering hauté metal compositions that’d sate vinyl gourmands’ appetite for a more adult alternative to power metal and something a bit more compositionally sophisticated than NWOBHM’s greasy denim bark. Like something that’s got all metal’s histrionic chutzpah but doesn’t require an ad hoc…

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’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…

Until very recently – we’re talking a few minutes ago – I wasn’t even sure if I had previously heard of World Under Blood. Heavy metal and all its many subgenres and permutations has existed for 40 some-odd years now and the use of the words “world” and “blood” in band names, song titles, lyrics and…

Violins. In metal that shit is real hard to justify. But honestly, when it comes to how Chicago prog-doom experts Living Fields are able to have these underappreciated instruments scrape at their strings, there’s enough furious noise that it really does seem okay. It also helps that “Glacial Movements,” off the exceptional Running Out of…

Zymurgy magazine recently revealed the “Best Beers in America,” a list derived from more than 28,000 votes from readers around the world. While Russian River’s Pliny the Elder imperial IPA topped the list for the third year in a row, Stone Brewing, of Escondido, California placed three of their brewtally named beers—Arrogant Bastard, Ruination and…

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…

Known for its cheese, beer, and baseball team the Brewers, Milwaukee is also home (rather was home) to some of America’s finest death metal. Yeah, Tampa had its rightful place on the throne in the late ’80s/early ’90s, but the former French Canadian trading post had Dr. Shrinker, Phantasm, Accidental Suicide, and the mighty Morta…

Good morning, future winners! The eclectic Athens, Georgia label Mylene Sheath — the origin story/name is explained here — has a taste for driving, droning, exploding epic/ethereal metal and they’re wagering a few Decibel readers do, too. In fact, they’ll see your jaded skepticism and raise you a couple exclusive streams from the upcoming Beneath…

After the initial self-reproach for having never heard of Kansas death metal cryptids, Troglodyte, it was kinda OK that their 1990 Florida sound had kept itself a mystery, scrawled somewhere on a Post-It on whoever is covering Fox Mulder’s desk these days. Like, the only people who know about this sort of shit are the…

The boom in metal’s popularity may have irritated some tr00ly tr00 fans, but by and large, I’ve embraced it, if only because it means I have easier access to the music. Listen up, children, there used to be a time where pop-punk was the most extreme music the record store would carry. Maybe, just maybe,…

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. Happy Fourth. Get with it, America rules. The wizards of gore are back. EXHUMED release the comeback record All Guts, No Glory. This thing beaking rips. Mostly, comeback records are kind…

Well-spoken, Morbid Angel’s David Vincent has labeled the group in 2011 as “spearheaders”, which is fine when you look at albums like Hall of Fame album Altars of Madness, Blessed Are the Sick, Covenant, Domination. etc. Morbid Angel were the creme de la creme. However, time marches on and it’s rarely kind. Certainly, Vincent is…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Formed in 1991 in Ipswich, about 82 miles northeast of London, Cradle of Filth started out as, to quote frontman Dani Filth, a “gore-flecked death metal” band.

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

Some say the first wave of black metal started in England. We happen to be of the opinion — a silly one, mind you — that the first wave of black metal started, at least sonically, in America in 1969, with the release of New York-based Cromagnon’s sole album, Orgasm. We’re not the first ones…

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’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…