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Paul Groundwell (Thine) interviewed

June 30, 2014

** UK dark rockers Thine have a new full-length out. The Dead City Blueprint is probably an album not on your radar, unless you’ve followed the group since A Town like This back in the late ’90s. Should it be on your radar? Yes, if dark, melodic, melancholic, honest metal-infused rock is in your wheelhouse….

Danny Cavanagh (Anathema) interviewed

June 27, 2014

** Anathema’s on the cusp of a breakthrough. Actually, the Liverpudlians have been on said cusp for the better part of 15 years. But that’s neither here nor there. Music is always about right place and right time. That place and time have come for Anathema on, Distant Satellites. Like previous album, Weather Systems, the…

Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack (NOISE Edition): Guillermo Pizarro

June 27, 2014

By now, many of you are enjoying Decibel’s August issue, #118.  Perhaps you’re excited because it’s The Godflesh Issue, and the emphatically awesome return of that project is certainly worthy of your enthusiasm.  Maybe you’re psyched about it being The Melvins HOF Issue, a look back on an extraordinary record by an influential band that…

Holy Shit III – Ironsword’s Overlords of Chaos

June 26, 2014

Hello folks, it’s been a while, but I’m back with another installment of ‘Holy Shit.’ If you’re unfamiliar with the concept – and you should be, because until a few days ago, I totally forgot this series existed here and here – basically it boils down to the disciplinary practice of me keeping it in…

Decibrity Playlist: Tombs

June 26, 2014

In case you can’t remember that far back, Tombs‘ last record, Path of Totality, was our top album of 2011. Fast forward three years, and the band’s latest release appears to have garnered near-universal acclaim since it dropped earlier this month. So it’s only fitting that guitarist/vocalist Mike Hill’s playlist focuses on something that, in…

Sucker For Punishment: Taking the High Road

June 25, 2014

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…

STREAMING: Nunslaughter’s “Angelic Dread”

June 24, 2014

None more slaughter, the slaughterest of the slaughter, Nunslaughter have an actual full-length out now after approximately 600 EP’s, singles, and splits. It sounds like Nunslaughter. What more could you ask for? In case you don’t believe me, we have THE ENTIRE ALBUM streaming for you below. Angelic Dread has 31 blasphemous blasts, half of…

Get Yer Witch On: Hekseri Premiere

June 24, 2014

The superb Boston/Norway black metal outfit Hekseri will be conjuring its unique brand of “witching metal” opening for Behexen at Martyrdoom this Sunday and to get you ready we’ve got an exclusive stream of “Der Hexenhammer,” a searing, turbulent track off the band’s new CD single Soul’s Prison is Flesh. “‘Der Hexenhammer’ is about the…

All Hail Beer City: Joe Petagno Skate Deck Giveaway!

June 24, 2014

Here’s the deal: The legendary Joe Petagno — AKA the creator of the Motorhead “Snaggletooth” mascot, amongst other iconic images — has drawn three custom exclusive skateboard graphics for Beer City Skateboards and Records. Beer City has been around for over twenty-one years making the highest quality skateboard decks as well as putting out all…

Vampires, Vicars and Hot Fuzz: The Deciblog Interview With Dani Filth

June 23, 2014

No matter how many people think black metal has gone mainstream or become hip because a few dozen bands from Brooklyn have small label deals the reality is that the vast majority of the population doesn’t know a thing about it. They’re listening to .38 Special or Lana Del Rey. If there is a black…

Decibel’s Top 5 Thrash Metal Logos

June 23, 2014

5. Sabbat Brit thrashers Sabbat were among a select few to come from the island to have made a genuine impact. To this very day, Dreamweaver remains singular. The group’s logo also has similar import. Like most thrash metal logos, it’s readable at a distance yet it has an edge to it. Each letter in…

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

June 20, 2014

Sometimes it’s really hard to do this column here, you know? There’s just nothing I want to crap on, or it’s generic, or it’s a well-known band that everyone knows will be good. Looks like it’s a noise rock kind of week. GODFLESH release Decline and Fall on Avalanche, and I gotta say, I beaking…

Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: Whore of Bethlehem

June 20, 2014

Because every day another band records another song.  Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck.  Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm.  Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…

STREAMING: Corrupt Moral Altar “Line Check”

June 20, 2014

“It’s been an accomplishment for us to complete the recording of our debut album and work with people that we never thought we’d have the opportunity to create music with, and it’s an honour to sign with Season of Mist and to be part of such an eclectic label and team,” says UK grind/sludge hybrid…

Damn Kids!: Godstopper Interview and EP Stream

June 19, 2014

Godstopper has been a fixture on Toronto’s sludgy/doomy/stoner scene for some time now. Recently, they’ve taken small steps to branch out beyond the city limits. A betting man would wager they’re making that move because they’ve just about had it with Rob Ford’s tarring and feathering of the city’s reputation, the perpetual gridlocked traffic and…

Decibrity Playlist: Sadgiqacea

June 19, 2014

For Fred Grabosky and Evan Void, the dudes behind Philadelphia-based Sadgiqacea, music is only one, albeit rather large, part of their lives. Each is also into art as Grabosky is a freelance illustrator (drawing and inking) while Void, when not also playing in Hivelords and Ominous Black, tattoos at Living Out Loud Tattoo in Lindenwold,…

Discordant Noise Vs Cancer

June 19, 2014

Daniel Suffering of Philadelphia heavy electronics act WHORID and the ANNIHILVS label recently received some terrible news: After twenty years in remission, his mother’s cancer has returned…just a few months after she lost her job and on the eve of an attempt to start her own business. To help pay for her necessary treatment and…

STREAMING: Entrails — “Voices”

June 18, 2014

For your streaming pleasure today we have a new/old track from Swedish death metal legends Entrails. “Voices” is from the upcoming Resurrected From The Grave demo collection, an 18-track compilation featuring Reborn and Human Decay. The material was never released and is finally coming out many years later. The album is due next week; preorder…

Sucker For Punishment: Kill Everyone Now, Metaphorically

June 18, 2014

Way out here in Western Canada KEN Mode is an institution, always good for a pair of shown in your city annually, having built up a loyal following over the past decade. It’s been rewarding to see the Matthewson brothers turn this little noise/metal hybrid into something Decibel readers have become fans of, indie scenesters…

Blood/Fire/Death: Watain douses Brooklyn

June 18, 2014

Brooklyn Night Bazaar – June 15th, 2014 Photography by Rodrigo Fredes of PhotoTerco It was Father’s Day, so I arrived early and called my pops outside the venue. I informed him I was seeing a Swedish metal band named Watain shortly, who would likely spit animal blood at the audience. “Well have fun, enjoy your…

Life to False Metal: Perturbator’s Dangerous Days

June 17, 2014

Okay, Perturbator’s Dangerous Days is obviously a retro 80s electro album, but it’s got a giant fuckoff pentagram on the cover and robots and a woman in a sexually compromised position, and that if that isn’t metal, what is? Besides, and this is the important thing, the vibe is metal. It may be synthesizer-based with…

Look What HE Did: Get Ripped the Barry Donegan Way

June 17, 2014

Those who enjoy the antics of kaleidoscopic everything-and-the-kitchen-sink chaos metallers Look What I Did may or may not be aware of two things: 1) Zanzibar III: Analog Prison, the band’s long-gestating, much-anticipated rock opera follow-up to the straight-out awesome Atlas Drugged is “perilously close to having a release date” and 2) frontman Barry Donegan is…

DVD Review and Exclusive Excerpt: Fool ‘Em All

June 16, 2014

When they released the DVD Majesty five years ago The Black Dahlia Murder proved that not only did they understand their fans, they understood how to make a watchable documentary. On their second DVD Fool ‘Em All our tour co-headliners take it another step. Not only do they make you laugh, they make you care…

Markus Siegenhort (Lantlôs) interviewed

June 16, 2014

** When I cornered Lantlôs braintrust Markus Siegenhort (aka Herbst), I didn’t expect him to be so un-German. Whatever that means. Like the meaning behind the word “lantlôs” Siegenhort is more like a global guy, his music unmoored from the traps of what has been and will continue to be German black metal. Not that…

STREAMING: Finntroll “Ursvamp (Live)”

June 13, 2014

Natten Med De Levande Finntroll, Finntroll’s new album, translates to “Night With The Living Finntroll”. It spans a massive 19 tracks across the group’s discography. Captured in 2008 at Amsterdam’s Melkweg Concert Hall, the Natten Med De Levande Finntroll show went down as one of the group’s best. It’s fitting then that Finntroll’s original three–Trollhorn,…

Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: Boston’s Barren Oak

June 13, 2014

Because every day another band records another song.  Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck.  Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm.  Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…

Expain – Vancouver Band Acts Like Wise Acres, Premiere’s New Song and Eviscerates Classic Tune

June 12, 2014

So, this band from Vancouver called Expain (formerly known as The Almighty Excruciating Pain), who are as indebted to thrash as they are to quick-change jazz, Weired Al Yankovic’s discography and dusty recordings of the old Doctor Demento radio show, has a new album coming out. It’s self-released (well, sort of, as it was aided…

Decibrity Playlist: The Atlas Moth

June 12, 2014

The Atlas Moth‘s new record is one of my favorites so far this year. But, as you’ve probably heard by now, the artwork and packaging–two things that some bands still care about–is something to admire in and of itself. So vocalist/guitarist Stavros Giannopoulos was kind enough to tell us about some other albums whose covers…

Full Album Stream: Wo Fat’s The Conjuring

June 11, 2014

The summer doldrums are setting in. Fear not: the longest day of the year is coming soon (June 21) and we can quickly begin the reset to short days and plenty of darkness. And, we have a fuzzy, riff packed full album stream for your listening below. Wo Fat’s The Conjuring will be released on…

Sucker For Punishment: Our Cup Runneth Over

June 11, 2014

Review enough metal albums, and the process can be pretty simple, especially when it comes to those bands that stick to the specific characteristics of one particular subgenre. Each style has its own specific requirements and criteria, and as a critic, you’re basically asking yourself a) if it captures the essence of what this subgenre…