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Few people have a professional circle that includes Chris Barnes and Alex Webster, sexy pop starlet Terri Nunn and global film star Jim Carrey. One of them is Decibel Hall Of Fame inductee Paul Masvidal (enshrined with his Cynic bandmates for Focus). When Cynic fell apart in the mid-90s, Masvidal relocated to Los Angeles, where…

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…

The last time death metal legends Massacre released an album, France was testing its last atomic bomb. Pretty amazing, to think of it. Fast forward a few years, and Rick Rozz (ex-Death), Terry Butler (ex-Death), Mike Mazzonetto (Pain Principle) and Edwin Webb (ex-Diabolic) emerge from the limestone graves of central Florida to release Back from…

I swear that I’m not deliberately scheduling streams this year of bands with names that are either difficult to pronounce or something you wouldn’t want to say out loud, but here we are in February and here I am with a track from a band called Omotai. If you don’t think Kylesa are shouty enough…

In the liner notes to 2010’s Below & Beyond collection, Floor co-founder Anthony Vialon recalled that while his band had played together off and on for 12 years before seemingly dissolving for keeps in 2003, he and his cohorts hadn’t even managed to play a hundred shows.

Omnizide. What a name. Kinda makes you think of a market-leading bug spray. But their sound makes you think of, ooh, kinda old-school Darkthrone, and falls somewhere between the nexus of death metal and physically imposing Swedish black metal, bands such as Naglfar and Watain . . . And Craft. Definitely there’s some Craft. There’s…

Symphonic death has enjoyed a fair bit of popularity over the years—largely in Europe—but Fleshgod Apocalypse might be one of the best bands of the style. Formed in 2007, the Italians have spent the last seven years refining bombast, adding bombast, and making bombast more, well, bombastic. The group’s latest long-player, Labyrinth, featured Fleshgod Apocalypse…

I am not nearly the wordsmith that John Darnielle is, so I will borrow a quote from a post he wrote about the band in question a few years back on his sadly defunct Last Plane to Jakarta blog: INTERLOCUTOR: My grandmother has asked for an excellent new death metal album for her birthday. I…

Due to an equipment failure at our flexi disc printer, we were unable to include a flexi in the March issue of Decibel. Since we never leave our loyal subscribers in the lurch, you’ll be chuffed to find not one, but two flexis in the April issue! Fire up those turntables, as Decibel Magazine Tour…

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)…

Anyone who’s sampled more than a few craft beers can attest to the fact that it’s not always clear from the label what’s going to be inside the bottle. Oh sure, it might say something like “Brettanomyces-fermented Belgian quad aged on oak with cherries and bottle conditioned,” but figuring out what that’s going to taste…

The fucking hassle and amount of fucking time I wasted just to put this stupid stream up wasn’t worth it. San Francisco’s Monuments Collapse and Seattle’s Breag Naofa have had a split release available since last month. It originally came out around the Christmas rush and was probably forgotten/ignored for that reason. Here, we present…

After dropping the best album of its career earlier this month with From All Purity, the dudes in Indian are in the midst of (hopefully) enjoying some time off before hitting the road at the end of March. Given that guitarist/vocalist Will Lindsay is also probably not all that enthused about stepping out into the…

Here’s some fresh new grind to get you through midweek. Below, stream the new track “Nemico A Terra” from certified legends and lifers Cripple Bastards. It’s off the new album Nero In Metastasi, due in North America on February 18th and available for preorder from Relapse. Frontman Giulio The Bastard says: ‘Nemico A Terra’ translates…

On paper it looks like a fairly slow week for new releases, but actually the quality versus quantity ratio is better than average, with no fewer than three albums I heartily recommend. Enjoy and savor, because these kind of weeks don’t come along very often. Astrophobos, Remnants of Forgotten Horrors (Triumvirate): Well, if this isn’t…

On Monday, Swedish death metal legends—that’s right, fucking legends—At the Gates announced that they signed to Century Media and planed to record and release their first new studio album since 1995’s landmark Slaughter of the Soul later this year. No biggie, right? Well, Decibel thought it was worth looking into a little further, so frontman…

Continuing the trend of posting streams from bands whose names I can’t pronounce, this week we have a full album stream from Fluisteraars. Apparently it means “the whisperers” in whatever language they speak in the Netherlands. Not a hell of a lot of whispering going on to these ears, but there are definitely some nuances….

Last month Canadian epic/progressive metallers Scythia made a viral digital splash with the absurdist Pogues-meets-Dream-Theater-meets-drunken-hobbits video for the rousing anthem “Bear Claw Tavern” off the upcoming album …Of Conquest, and now the band reveals another exclusive jam here this morning. “This track is a ‘one-of-a-kind track’ on the record,” guitarist/vocalist Dave Khan tells Decibel. “‘Reflections’…

Iron Hand are a crusty d-beat/hardcore band from New Haven, CT, and, courtesy of Safety Meeting Records you can stream their awesome debut 12-inch, Injected Fear right here, right now. Injected Fear is a rugged and lean 18 minutes of the sort of unpolished fury that’s probably best experienced live as it rattles around an…

** We interviewed Alcest frontman Neige for the March 2014 issue of Decibel [HERE]. The magazine interview focuses on Neige’s childhood influences, working with Slowdive’s Neil Halstead, and how the sea became central to the Frenchman’s inner and outer calm. The remains of that interview are below. You’re kind of seen as the ex-black metaller….

The weather may be brutally cold when Amon Amarth, Enslaved and Skeletonwitch roll into Minneapolis on Saturday, February 8, but there will be a special strong beer, brewed specifically for this event by Surly Brewing, waiting for them. Surly is sponsoring the show at Mill City Nights and head brewer Todd Haug decided to provide…

Extreme metal fans complaining about the “lack of darkness” on an album with more than its share of shade have a severely skewed opinion of what constitutes “dark” music.  But that’s completely understandable. After all, when you subsist on a diet of nothing but barbecue and someone hands you a salad, you’re going to wonder…

Courtesy of FDA Rekotz, the Deciblog is proud to bring you a wee afternoon poke in the eye by way of “Cryostasis”, taken from Morfin’s debut LP, Inoculation. The album drops on Feb 21st. You can pre-order it here. Morfin will be mother’s milk to all those old-school death metal connoisseurs who get their necks…

What’s the connection between craft beer and metal? We hear this question a lot. Well, specifically, we are asked this question a lot since our craft beer book, The Brewtal Truth Guide to Extreme Beers, was published last November. For people who aren’t necessarily into both things, it’s hard to see the commonalities. On the…

As a general rule, we would suggest you not listen to instrumental “post” metal.  It certainly has its occasional charms and does an admirable job drawing the aurally cautious into the integrity-crushing arms of extreme metal.  Beyond the realm of intellectual curiosity and compositional hedonism, however, this gravity well of musical talent too often grows…

Those of you who pay rapt attention to the Throw Me a Frickin’ Bone column might already have taken note of Vaporizer and the kind words I’ve bestowed upon their intense irascibility and how I gave their EP a nod as one of the top self-releases of last year. If you haven’t already checked them…

I don’t usually premiere tracks on here, but when I do, there are few bands I’d rather talk about than Junius. After spoiling us with excellent full-lengths in 2009 and 2011, these Massholes are finally returning with a collection of new recordings next month after a nearly two-and-a-half year break. Given that a few weeks…

T.S.O.L. vocalist, author and provocateur Jack Grisham has visited the land of the extremely extreme several times in the past year or so. He wrote a moving tribute to Jeff Hanneman in our memorial issue last July. In August, he joined the Deciblog for a career-spanning interview where he talked about the classic Dance With…

What does the word “Hark” mean? It means to “pay attention to”. Who said Decibel never educates? Truth be told, whenever I hear the word “Hark” I immediately think of the song, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing“. But there might be some deep-seated issues with church choir with that one. For the band Hark, the…

Deciblog faithful, for your streaming pleasure we have the new Deadkill album No, Never! available starting today from our friends at Good To Die Records. Give it a listen and then read a track-by-track breakdown from the band. Orpheus Bryan Krieger: Brutal opera about descending into the depths of hell for one you love: love…