Top 5 Records of 2017 That Tied For #41

The biggest problem with our Top 40 Albums of 2017 is that it’s hard to fit 45 albums onto that list. Let’s expand our horizons with Black Anvil, Vallenfyre, Forgotten Tomb, Grave Pleasures and Suffering Hour.

King Woman

Created in the Image of Suffering
Long live the king
dB rating: 8/10

Anaal Nathrakh

The Whole of the Law
Total fucking destruction
dB rating: 8/10

Demon Lung

A Dracula
The prequel to I, Frankenstein and Eee, Wolfman!
dB Rating: 8/10

High on Fire

Luminiferous
Blinded by the Light
dB Rating: 9/10

Greatest Extreme Vocalists: Addendum

If you’ve picked up the most recent issue of Decibel, we hope you’ve flipped through the “Greatest Extreme Vocalists of All Time” cover article.  The list of incredible voices was proposed, discussed, voted on, scrapped, argued about, re-voted on, lost, re-re-voted on, torched, shat upon, and finally selected and sent to print by some intern…

Sucker For Punishment: Blackest of Times

The year is starting to wind down, but a smattering of noteworthy new metal releases are still trickling in over the next month, including a couple this week. Read on! Apostle of Solitude, Of Woe and Wounds (Cruz del Sur): More people should be getting excited for the first new Apostle of Solitude album since…

Decibrity Playlist: Obituary

When Obituary returned in 2005 with Frozen In Time–at that point, its first album in eight years–Decibel was still in its infancy. Fast forward to today, and we’re about to throw two tenth anniversary shows on Saturday night while the death metal legends are about to drop their ninth studio effort, the long-time coming Inked…

Sucker For Punishment: Fight Like It’s 1985

After parting ways with vocalist Steve “Zetro” Souza in 2004, Exodus took a huge risk in hiring the unknown Rob Dukes as the band’s new frontman, but it was a risk that paid off well. The confrontational, provocative Dukes injected the band with a level of manic energy not seen since the classic Paul Baloff…

Sucker For Punishment: Taking the High Road

As a metal writer you often meet young bands that are so desperately hungry to get out on tour and live the road dog life in their van, going from city to city, crashing wherever they can. Just to live the live of a touring metal band and do what they love to do most…

Sucker For Punishment: What is and What Should Always Be

If you’re a metal fan, you have to know your history, know where the music you like comes from. It’s funny, though, when you find yourself digging through the lesser-knowns of “proto-metal” if you will, the Sir Lord Baltimores, the Buffaloes, the Pentagrams, you can lose sight of the forest for all those darn trees….

Sucker For Punishment: Sweven Ways to Win

Three new albums stand out above the rest this week, and what makes it particularly fun is just how completely different from each other they all are. From happy Germans, to grim Swedes, to avant-garde Brooklynites, this week’s Sucker For Punishment has got you covered. Power metal is the one metal subgenre that’s the most…

Sucker For Punishment: Children on Flame (With Rock ‘n’ Roll)

It’s another fairly light week this week – I doubt many Decibel readers will be salivating over the reissue of Def Leppard’s sorry 1996 album Slang – but most interestingly, there’s a good amount of music I actually like. Is it because I’m still a good six weeks away from my annual spring burnout? The…

Sucker For Punishment: Return of the Behweemoth

It’s strange how the pieces have finally fallen into place for Behemoth. A decade after putting themselves on the extreme metal map with the revelatory Demigod, the Poles are poised for a different kind of breakthrough altogether, via extraordinary circumstances no one could possibly have written. Behemoth’s star has always been on the rise, but…

Sucker For Punishment: Thanks For Give Us Such Emotions

I’m not going to apologize for liking Nightwish. I might be only a small handful of Decibel writers willing to endorse the garish symphonic strains of the Finnish band (hi, Jeff Treppel), but I remain steadfast. Besides, for all the emphasis on extreme metal, isn’t Nightwish’s use of operatic melodies extreme? I’d even say that…

Decibrity Playlist: Anciients

The dudes in Anciients will release their debut album, Heart Of Oak, on Tuesday. Just in case Jeff Treppel’s lead review in our April issue or Kevin Stewart-Panko’s profile the following month weren’t enough to convince you of the Vancouver quartet’s awesomeness, guitarist/vocalists Chris Dyck and Kenny Cook passed along some of the records they’ll…

15 Strings Attached

Decibel‘s NYC bureau had a tough decision to make last Thursday. Should we head on up to the west side for a classy evening amongst Lincoln Center elite to catch a special performance by This Will Destroy You? Or leave Manhattan (perish the thought!) for a night of PBRs amongst our metal brethren to get…

How Far Would You Go?

I’ve done a lot for metal over the years. In an attempt to sport the longhair uniform, despite genetics handing my follicles a bum deal, I walked around looking like a frizzed out crackhead throughout most of the 80s. Rooms in my house are filled with records, CDs, magazines and not much else to varying…

Justify Your Shitty Taste: Megadeth’s “Risk”

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, every Wednesday morning, 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…

Behind the Moonless Curtain

Selected missives from Decibel writers on December 8th, 2010 discussing an upcoming column where we defend our shitty taste in music. J. Bennett – I’d be happy to handle “Body Language” myself when the opportunity arises. Adam Tepedelen- Is that Kylie’s “roundly maligned” album in her “otherwise decent catalog”? Which ones are the decent ones? …