Month: March 2012

Dr. Vivek Venkatesh’s office at Concordia University in Montreal is almost certainly unique in the world of academia. There probably aren’t many professors out there, for instance, who mix and match All Pigs Must Die prints and Latin salsa posters or keep vinyl collections as close at hand as research materials. And if any Decibel…

Those of you who instinctively sniff the wind for the freshest über-brutal death metal should be familiar with Hour of Penance by now. Maybe you’ve been feeling a weird kinda tingle through your core mosh-muscle groups in anticipation of the imminent release of the Italians’ fifth album, Sedition. Hour of Penance have got themselves a…

If you’ve read Cry Now, Cry Later or one of J. Bennett’s many (read: nearly all of them) cover stories for Decibel, you’re probably familiar with the dude. He writes like he’s on some sort of drug, but actually it’s just the rarefied air he breathes. Unlike the rest of us hobbits (i.e., 6′ and…

We’ve had Jeff Loomis’ Midwestern back ever since he first debuted with Nevermore on the group’s self-titled debut LP. Over the years, he has transformed into a wonder axeman (or Guitar Hero, if you want to use contemporary video game parlance), lining up with such greats as Marty Friedman, George Lynch, and Alexi Laiho. Now…

Stay warm and display your love of Satan with the limited edition Decibel Magazine Tour hoodie! And when we say limited, we mean limited, so head on over to Indie Merch and pre-order this two-sided, full-color official homage to the most goat-worshiping-friendly event of 2012. You’ll thank us when yours arrives in time for the…

We are well aware that it’s Friday but press pause on the celebratory Van Halen for like 10 minutes or something (some unfortunates have to work the weekend, y’know) because we’ve got some crucial FYI for fans of the noir melancholia of doom, death rock. Atriarch and Alaric have a split out in April 17th…

Who ever would have thought that the instrumental music scene, as it pertains to Decibel’s readership, would be as saturated and crowded as it has become since Pelican ended up on the cover of issue #33 way back in 2007? It’s gotten so much so that bands whose savant-like members who are ineffectual basket cases…

In terms of being recognized as a major force in the world of extreme music, Finland can often be overshadowed by its Scandanavian neighbors Norway and Sweden. Although the Land of a Thousand Lakes has its fair share of metal stalwarts both past and present—Sentenced, Children of Bodom and Finntroll, to name a few—it’s fair…

Portland’s a sweet city. It’s got a well-titted public transportation system, a record store for every sub-sub genre (except for Mozambique deathfolk, which is unfortunate.), a zoo, and Powell’s City of Books. Of course, it has other things, too. Like guys with 18th century moustaches in little girl pants, but so too does every city…

I haven’t kept up recently on where urban black metal sits in the kvlt spectrum, but these two tracks by Brooklynites Mutilation Rites sound like they were recorded in a sewer and mixed in a crematorium. This is Side B of Devoid, the 12″ EP from Forcefield Records, and shows the band throwing jagged chunks…

Eleven full-lengths spanning two decades in the silly and oft-lethal record business requires a bit of fortitude and self-reinvention. Well, Unleashed — long known for pre-dating Super Wario Amon Amarth with their tales of Viking plunder and intrepidity — has fortitude in spades. Blonde-haired and Viking-large Johnny Hedlund’s been at the death metal game longer…

Formed in the Virginia/DC area in the mid-’80s, a region then more known for its hardcore punk than metal, Deceased slowly built a loyal local fan base as that decade came to an end, kids attracted to the band’s unique take on the nascent death metal sound.

All it took was one six-minute video by comedian Dave Hill to reveal what we’ve all suspected: Black metal fans lack the “humor” gene. When presented with anything— a Youtube video of someone getting hit in the nuts with a ball, for instance—that requires their grim face to contort into something ungrim, and simultaneously makes…

“When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you,” Nietzsche promised in Beyond Good and Evil, but Mr. Philosophize with a Hammer never did recommend any appropriate mood music for making goo-goo eyes at the infernal regions. Which is why it is such a great thing for we lovers of darkness…

Strange Matter Venue Richmond, VA What kind of a venue could possibly serve as home base for the Monster Manual-toting, frost giant-destroying, death/thrash purveyors Battlemaster? Some sort of Gollum cave or elven hideaway? Wrong you are – the nerd rage brought on by this Richmond wrecking crew fits snugly into local watering hole Strange Matter,…

It’s pretty hard to to determine Cannibal Corpse’s most endearing personality trait. Oh, what’s that: they’re all real nice guys? Oh come on, surely it can’t be that surprising that guys who have made a 24-year career out of writing death metal songs about extreme (and fairly esoteric) murder scenarios could be normal dudes/responsible dads….

The last time we at the dB HQ heard Seattle’s Samothrace was, well, last week, but the last time the quartet made scene-like waves was way back in 2008, on the Life’s Trade LP. What has Samothrace been up to in the years between? Probably writing an epic of Grecian proportions. Actually, that’s exactly how…

Prog nerds rejoice! It’s the new OSI track “Cold Call”. Formed by Jim Matheos (Fates Warning, Arch/Matheos) and Kevin Moore (Chroma Key, ex-Dream Theater) and augmented by Porcupine Tree mind-blower Gavin Harrison, OSI, in its current iteration, is stripped down and ready global domination on the group’s fourth (first non-license for Metal Blade) full-length. OSI,…

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 go back to the New…

OK, so there is a cynical body of thought that might consider black metal as a live performance artform and argue that the genre is best served by careful cellaring. Like it’s a take-home experience, one to be kept in the studio/bedroom, only ever to be enjoyed on record. Of course when we say “enjoyed”…

Featuring former Landmine Marathon axe-slinger, Eric Saylor, Seas Will Rise is a relatively new entry into the world of thunderously grimy, caustic and brutal hardcore that falls on the punky end of the Swe-death spectrum with touches of crust and enough peace punk influence to have the local pigs salivating at the chance to dust…

To celebrate Tuesday’s release of Utilitarian (the fourteenth (!) Napalm Death full-length), we asked longtime bassist Shane Embury to a pick a non-ND record that related in some way to each of the fourteen full-length ND records (including a covers album) that he’s played on over the last 24+ years. Last week, Shane’s entries took…