Year: 2011

Obake’s self-titled debut is a worthy soundtrack to finishing off a nightcap on such evenings when you’re expecting some gnarly spectral giant to visit mid-dream and inform you in disembodied tones of some uncomfortable truths, or deliver a prophecy on your soon-to-be-doomed future. Sure, when the opening riff to “Human Genome Project” kicks in, Obake…

Can you feel it in the air? For two months starting October 1st, it’s Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and my birthday all rolled into one once again! Throughout my years as an unashamed and drooling Melt-Banana fanboy, whenever the Tokyo’s masters of the musical kitchen sink return to tour North America, I get all giddy in-and-outside…

Dubai-based band Nervecell “The best rock is a religious experience,” says Mark Levine, author of Heavy Metal Islam. Yes, sure, but as history has shown, since man first grew hair on his ass, if you happen to belong to the wrong religion, it’s reason enough for you to die in a hail of bullets. And…

If you don’t know what Tom Neely is all about, that drawing up above should be a pretty damn good indication. Band artist, Decibel artist and the proud papa of Henry and Glenn, the man can de-virginize with pen or brush. And now he’s on tour. To promote his “painted novel” The Wolf, he is…

Nothing’s more annoying 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 OCCASIONAL 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…

There’s a quaint perception that grindcore is, in fact, two-dimensional. One (maybe two if you’re lucky) emotion — aggression — and the music follows accordingly. Of course, there are outliers to everything, but Ottawa, Canada-based Fuck The Facts proves that grindcore in 2011 doesn’t have to be like grindcore of 1986, 1987, or 1997. It…

OK, vinyl nerds, pay attention. What you’re about to witness is a little teaser from the fellas in Skeletonwitch and their label Prosthetic Records. In case you haven’t heard, Skeletonwitch will be releasing their fourth long-player, Forever Abomination, via Prosthetic on October 11 in North America. It’ll be available in three different formats but the…

Yep, no denying it: Danava loves Sabbath. To its immense credit, however, the band chooses to kick it on the Vol. 4 tip rather than open another franchise in the cottage industry of Master of Reality riff reheating. Hemisphere of Shadows, the follow-up to Danava’s much-acclaimed 2008 effort UnonoU, also throws a wonderfully off-kilter early…

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, it’s a bit early to start thinking about the album of the year. It’s only mid-September. But such are publishing and album release schedules that we Decibel footsoldiers are mentally ensconced in winter, like, this year is so over. But the thing is, compiling a top 10 ten or…

There are certain Satanic rites you must preserve before previewing Glorior Belli’s latest offering, The Great Southern Darkness, in its entirety, here on the Deciblog. First shave yourself entirely, except for the hair on your head, which must be grown to maximum length. Then take two lumps of coal and rub them vigorously all over…

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…

The Deciblog took to sober prayer and genuine concern when Cannabis Corpse brought their marijuana death metal party through Europe. The big worry was in the logistics: just how were four weed-obsessed death metal dudes from Richmond, VA going to negotiate over ten border controls, navigate themselves across the continent without some Midnight Express fucking…

Fuck the Facts is a name grind fans and people interested in the mortified reactions of mainstream society have probably heard bandied about for years. Originally a solo project of guitarist Topon Das, FtF has existed in some form since 1998 with countless releases under its sweaty belt. Inarguably, the line-up currently comprising the “fucking”…

Finally! The moment of coagulated anticipation has arrived! The Deciblog is ready to unveil the top five Satanic souls who conquered our Ancient VVisdom Contest, presenting their Satanic treatises unedited and unabridged. Each scored themselves a fresh, hands-on copy of A Godlike Inferno! Jealllooouuusss. 5. Through a simple twist of fate, Paulee was converted from…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6sHd7JRHCM Let’s not kid ourselves or spend too much time building up to what we’re discussing here. Hevisaurus (read that name out loud) is a Finnish power metal band for children with members dressed like dinosaurs. As they stare out into the elementary-aged audience with their cold, dead, prehistoric eyes, my once cherished vision of…

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, once in a while, 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 Shit. Let’s keep the death spiral going with Jeff Wagner “circle”-jerking Pestilence’s Spheres. 

Lifelover guitarist Jonas Bergqvist (aka ‘B’ and ‘Nattdal’) passed away on September 9th, 2011. Although Bergqvist’s death was unforeseen and unfortunate—rumors suggest he had a bad ticker—the members of Lifelover, who have now officially disbanded as a result and in honor of Bergqvist, vow to keep the band’s various Internet websites alive. Lifelover issued a…

It’s big news in the metal world when an album (or EP, or whatever) arrives with John Arch’s vocals on it. His Bruce Dickinson-like tenor was a beacon in the mid-’80s U.S. metal scene when he fronted Fates Warning on their now-classic first three albums. After he left the band, however, he basically put music…

In the current issue of Decibel Nick Green deftly bores his way down to the heart and soul of the self-titled debut from MonstrO, the band featuring ex-Torche shredder Juan Montoya alongside former members of Bloodsimple and Danzig: “an unironic synthesis of 1970s-era blues and psych-inflected guitar rock that is so unabashadly retro it vaults…

Singapore grind trio Wormrot’s sophomore UK tour Evisorax was the sort of faceripper that had the usual confederacy of punk and metal extremists out in force, complete with dogs on strings, and the usual anarcho-patched collective. The Deciblog could only witness first-hand the fireworks-indoors intensity of tour finale in London, but enlisted band manager Azean…

Cuidado, homies. Fans at the September 8 Morbid Angel concert in Santiago, Chile, were not taking any shit from walkie-talkie-wielding security guards in windbreakers, Blabbermouth reports. Hell no. They broke right through whatever flimsy human barricade was in place like a pack of wild dogs. While some guards attempted to do their jobs, the security…

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. Your old pal Waldo here, and I’m going to give you a sneak beak into the upcoming releases in the next few weeks that are definitely fit to line your cage…

When Bastard Priest dropped the five-track Merciless Insane Death demo through Zombie Ritual Tapes in 2008, the duo left an almighty crater for all crusty death-heads to fall into and over each other. Genre veterans spent days nursing the shell-shock associated when detonating explosive underground death metal finds. It was a bitch, for a week…

Some of you are familiar with my now-eight-year-old son, Sam via the occasional Study Hall of Fame series here, here and here (the title of which is pretty ironic, because if you asked him what a study hall was, he’d have no clue as Sam is homeschooled). Those of you who follow Canada’s Hellbound.ca may…

If you haven’t listened to Death’s Procession yet, then let this be your wake-up call: you’re fucking up, buddy. Without further bullshit, I think this video makes my point. And this tour is outrageously heavy. I will talk about the time I saw Saviours with Weedeater for years, unless I black it out.  Since I…

Rye Wolves: “Tearing at the Shapes” by Decibel Magazine Eugene, OR is known mostly as the homebase of Yob, but amongst its sleepy streets and vegan breakfast nooks, another vicious trio has been around for years, creating small slabs of apocalypse. A combination of noise, drone, blackened doom and space rock, Rye Wolves have finished…

Almost every band has that album: the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise radical back catalog. Formerly, every other Wednesday morning (more or less), a Decibel staffer or special guest would 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 Shit. Let’s get started with Frank Lemke’s vigorously deranged defense of Rebel Meets Rebel’s self-titled bow. 

I think a lot of people assumed Denial Fiend was the work of Kam Lee. Now that Blaine Cook is fronting that assumption is no longer. What was the transition like between Kam and Blaine?Terry Butler: Kam likes to lead people on that Denial Fiend was his band. Truth is Denial Fiend is Sam’s baby….

Take a listen to our premiere of the new song, “Altar of Lies,” from The Fucking Wrath’s new album, Valley of the Serpent’s Soul. The Fucking Wrath “Altar of Lies” by Decibel Magazine Heavy, huh? Well, this aural onslaught is nothing compared to the brutality one occasionally suffers at the hands of one’s offspring. The…

Via Revelation Records comes this priceless video of Porcell of Youth of Today/Shelter/Judge fame being called a psychotic by Pat Sajack back in ’89.