Month: September 2014

STREAMING: Bludded Head’s “Reign in Bludd”

September 30, 2014

So there’s a lot of depressing music out there, much of which we cover in this magazine, but very little of it was made by someone who had stage IV melanoma. Nevada Hill did, and along with Ryan Williams, John Teague, and David Saylor, created some pretty fucked up Harvey Milk-style noise rock inspired by…

Die in Hell!: Author Lewis Dimmick Uncovers Hardcore Hero Tom Capone’s Mutilated Metal Roots

September 30, 2014

Last year we excerpted a couple selections from Lewis Dimmick’s excellent book This Music over at the Metalnomicon. He came back not long ago to take us behind the scenes of hardcore megaliths Sheer Terror. Today he returns with another great guest essay on Beyond/Quicksand guitarist Tom Capone’s metal roots and his uber-brutal Mutilator fanzine……

Full Album Stream: Stench – Venture

September 29, 2014

It might not be “pungent” stench but plain Stench will do just fine, too. Decibel backed the initial offering from this Swedish death metal trio and we’re streaming their second album Venture, available October 7 in the United States. Venture is the follow up to the debut In Putrescence, but it’s been about four years…

Fight Amp Studio Report, Part I

September 29, 2014

By Mike McGinnis Harsh riffs make for harsh vibes in the studio. Embrace the angst and capture it on 2″ tape. That’s the plan. It’s been around two and a half years since Fight Amp recorded an album. Halfway through the writing of 2012’s Birth Control, we made another drummer switch and immediately hit the…

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

September 26, 2014

WOW, there’s FINALLY some releases trickling in. I’m going to start off with a much maligned genre. Get your slam on! INTERNAL BLEEDING release Imperium, and I gotta say, I’m pecking digging it.  This IS slam metal, something they’ve been known for for years, but there’s more to it than just  pure slamz. I mean, don’t…

New Encoffination Song Stream!

September 26, 2014

Cemetery picnickers Encoffination rise again next month with their third full-length album, called III – Hear Me, O’ Death (Sing Thou Wretched Choirs).  Says vocalist/string-scather Ghoat of the forthcoming set of grueling, buzzing doom:  “The concept of this record is the glorification of death: an offering to the embodiment of death’s creation, and to sing the…

Exclusive Album Stream: Introducing Laika’s Somnia

September 25, 2014

So, I was in Winnipeg a couple weeks ago and boy-howdy was it already cold as shit! When I was there in early November last year, there was already a disconcerting and disheartening layer of frost covering the city the morning I rolled into town and I recall snow pelting me one day when I…

Encrotchment With Eddie Gobbo From Jar’d Loose: Week 3

September 25, 2014

Did you guys enjoy the heavily NFL-promoted premiere of Madam Secretary, starring Tea Leoni, as much as I did? Beng Your Pan Last winter, I played a gig in Columbus, OH, at Carabar and struck up a football conversation with the club’s owner, Ron. He’s a HUGE Pittsburgh Steelers fan. I guess a Steelers fan…

STREAMING: Pharaoh “The Slasher”

September 25, 2014

“This album is a schizophrenic array of heaviness,” says the Pharaoh dudes from their hometown of Somerville, New Jersey. “Musically and lyrically it gathers from a lot of our separate influences as a band yet each song is its own. We have definitely showcased growth and way more of what we can do as a…

Decibrity Playlist: Winterfylleth (Part 1)

September 25, 2014

Instead of rambling on about how great the new Winterfylleth album is and coming up with some clever way to introduce what Chris Naughton decided to cover in his playlist (spoiler alert: it’s one of my favorites), we’ll just let the guitarist/vocalist handle the intro himself: “Considering topics that would make for an interesting playlist…

Full Album Stream: Phobocosm’s Deprived

September 24, 2014

Dark, depressing death metal in the vein of Immolation, Incantation and Deathspell Omega? Yes, please. Montreal-based Phobocosm have been around since 2008 but a full-length album has been elusive, even if they’ve played with Ross Dolan and co. at festivals before. They finally made it to the studio and the resulting music is beyond heavy;…

Sucker For Punishment: Is That All There Is?

September 24, 2014

There were around 60 new metal releases last week, but this week we’re scraping the barrel. This silly industry is weird that way. In my digging I realized that the new Divider album is terrific, well worth investigating, but aside from that, it’s as bleak as it gets. Next week though; hoo, boy. Aside from…

STREAMING: Castle Freak’s “Still Rotting”

September 23, 2014

When a band names itself after a straight to video 1995 Stuart Gordon fright flick, you can rightfully expect some lo-fi death metal goodness, most likely with samples from horror movies. Castle Freak don’t disappoint. Menacing, evil, and poorly recorded, this is some seriously quality old-school death. Their latest EP, Still Rotting, is even coming…

Cough, Grind, Cough, Grind: Exclusive Die Choking Stream!

September 23, 2014

We’re big fans of Philly grind-punkers/Decibel tour vets Die Choking around these parts

All Murder, All Guts: Samhain Live

September 22, 2014

Glenn Danzig’s fame has never waned. But in today’s constantly connected world he’s stayed famous for the wrong reasons: getting very publicly knocked out after a backstage argument in 2004; suing his former bandmates and buying cat litter at the wrong place. It’s easy to forget why people cared in the first place: Danzig wrote…

STREAMING: Nightbringer “Ego Dominus Tuus” + Naas Alcameth (Nightbringer) interviewed

September 22, 2014

** U.S. black metallers Nightbringer are an entity unto themselves. The Colorado-based trio make music unlike any other. The group’s new album, Ego Dominus Tuus, is a haunting reality check of the darkness that is around us and the darkness that consumes us. Claustrophobic, uncompromisingly intense, and yet very musical (think Classical), Ego Dominus Tuus…

Mysticum (all members) interviewed

September 19, 2014

** Mysticum have mystified black metal purists for decades. The Norwegians’ debut album, In the Streams of Inferno, split black metal into tiny shards, its fans wondering what the fuck in its wake. Originally slated to be released on Euronymous’ Deathlike Silence Productions, the ground-breaking, genre-defying release found a home on American black metal label,…

Let Abazagorath Rekindle Your Spirit of Hate For Mankind

September 19, 2014

New Jersey-based brazen black metallers Abazagorath have sprinkled the last six or seven years with splits and an EP, but October 7th of this year will see the release of their first album in ten years.  What does the band have in store for you on their nearly-dawned The Satanic Verses?  How do you feel about…

Witch Mountain: An Outgoing Debrief with Uta Plotkin

September 18, 2014

While the news has had time to sink in with the passing of time, it was a big ol’ shocker when Witch Mountain vocalist Uta Plotkin announced she was stepping away from her post after five years of fronting the Portland doom heroes. According to drummer Nathan Carson, he and the other members [guitarist Rob…

Decibrity Playlist: Hark

September 18, 2014

Our Managing Editor and I share a fondness for many bands, but if I’m remembering correctly, he was responsible for introducing me to one in particular via his review of The Ruin of Nová Roma way back in the day: Taint. While the trio broke up in 2010, guitarist/vocalist Jimbob Isaac has resurfaced in Hark….

Encrotchment With Eddie Gobbo From Jar’d Loose: Week 2

September 18, 2014

You ever go to your parents’ house, watch football all Sunday, and forget to feed their dog? Week 2 in the books. Let’s do this. Skinhand I met Ryan Wolfe, drummer of Richmond doom band Windhand, back in 2012, when I booked his band the first time they came through Chicago. After load-in, he asked me if…

EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: Anaal Nathrakh’s “Monstrum in Animo”

September 17, 2014

Anaal Nathrakh doesn’t — or at least shouldn’t — require much of an introduction — the ridiculously consistent Birmingham black metallers are simply one of the most utterly fearsome and inventive outfits currently operating in the modern extreme metal scene. Elite level mind-fuckers. Aural devastators. Masters of what the band’s new Metal Blade bio calls…

STREAMING: White Empress — “A Prisoner Unleashed”

September 17, 2014

Peaceville: the venerable label is home to some of Decibel‘s all time favorites: Darkthrone, Autopsy and My Dying Bride. Lest you think the label is resting on their laurels they continue to push bands out into the extreme universe. Today we’re streaming some Peaceville-approved symphonic metal: “A Prisoner Unleashed” from the forthcoming White Empress album…

Sucker For Punishment: Fire Up the Chain Saw!

September 17, 2014

When a veteran band finds its second wind working with a certain producer, it’s totally understandable if they decide to stick to that same collaboration for an extended period. Cannibal Corpse went through it in the wake of the stunning success of 2006’s return-to-form Kill; realizing they had found a perfect partner in producer Erik…

TRACK PREMIERE: Noctem’s “The Adamantine Doors (Orchestral Version)”

September 16, 2014

The Spanish answer to Behemoth, Noctem have been slamming out blackened death metal since 2001. Their third full-length, Exilium, drops today, and it sounds pretty damn evil. Of course, like many bands in the style, Noctem are big fans of symphonic bombast. In fact, one of the bonus tracks for the album is an orchestral…

Help Katherine Ludwig Annihilate Her Cancer

September 16, 2014

If there’s a select group of people responsible for Decibel becoming the magazine it is today, one of those people is undoubtedly Katherine Ludwig. Why? Because as the founding editor of Metal Maniacs magazine, she helped spearhead extreme-music journalism. Unlike the more popular Metal Edge, a sort of US Weekly of hair metal bands, Metal…

Won’t Get Fooled Again: Exclusive Society Sucker Stream!

September 16, 2014

Hope you’re ready to get dirty this morning, people — the super-pissed self-titled EP from Wilmington, North Carolina hardcore upstarts Society Sucker streaming below is rife with gloriously grimy grooves, rancid earworm riffage, and nasty, nasty straight-from-the-gutter breakdowns. Officially out on September 16th, preorders for Society Sucker are on seafoam green, gold/yellow clear or black…

STREAMING: Num Skull “Ritually Abused”

September 15, 2014

Medusa Records is a label most metalheads won’t recognize. Based in Culver City, California, the label had a decent stint from 1986 to 1990, releasing a cadre of thrashers from Wrath and Wasted Youth to Christian metal acts Barren Cross and Vengeance Rising (remember their inexplicable inclusion in Hard ‘N Heavy’s Grindcore Special Issue VHS?)….

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

September 12, 2014

Isn’t this supposed to be a good time of year for releases?  Hmmm… well, there are SOME things. Welcome, oh ye Wizards of Gore. CANNIBAL CORPSE are back at it with A Skeletal Domain.  And what’s to be said about the 12th release by a forerunner in the genre of death metal? Well, if you’re not familiar…

All Your Heroes Dead? Grind to the UK’s Oblivionized and Razoreater

September 12, 2014

We at Decibel Magazine wish to apologize for not doing enough to support the development and dissemination of grind.  By including occasional articles about other forms of heavy music, some of which include discernible tempos and recognizably human vocals, we have polluted the “scene” (which died 15 years ago, though our anger about it keeps…