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Finally, a track premiere from a band whose name I can pronounce! It’s not a name I can say in polite company, but, you know, baby steps. Hard to believe these guys have been slinging their unique brand of shitkicker punk for nearly 20 years, but here they are, on full-length number seven and still…

Not long ago we introduced you to Concordia University professor/extreme music lifer Vivek Venkatesh. Today the man we affectionately call “Professor Death Metal” graciously gives us a sneak peak at “From Pride to Prejudice to Shame: Multiple Facets of the Black Metal Scene within and without Online Environments,” a chapter he co-authored with professor Jeff…

Last time we heard from Monument of Misanthropy, they were charging towards the completion of their IndieGoGo campaign to launch their debut album Anger Mismanagement. And guess what? MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Go high-five a fellow metalhead in celebration. High-fiving your own reflection in a mirror will do in a pinch. So what does the metal community…

Re-Spect! Vogue! 

The last time lead Nocturnal Breed headman Kenneth Svartalv (aka S.A. Destroyer) ushered his forces into war was back in 2007, just as world financial systems were crumbling under their own gluttonous weight. Now, some seven long-ass years later, S.A. Destroyer returns with the Breed in tow and V. Fineideath replacing A. E. Rattlehead on…

Still a little slow around here, if you know what I’m pecking about. But let’s just dive into it, shall we? Culted release Oblique to All Paths on Relapse.  Culted are a file-sharing kind of group that never really all get into the same room. Amazingly, though, they’ve crafted an angry, nasty ambient drone/black metal/sludge…

Carcass, the Black Dahlia Murder, Gorguts and Noisem aren’t nearly enough. Here are the regional openers who’ll kick off select dates of the 2014 Decibel Magazine Tour.   Maruta Tues, March 18 / Orlando, FL @ The Beacham Theater Founded in the swamplands of South Florida in 2005, Maruta have been blurring the lines between…

Ladies and germs, courtesy of the good people of Kaotoxin Records, it is our great honor to host this online premiere of Drawer’s self-tilted sophomore album. Drawers are a five-piece outfit from Toulouse, France, who play sludge or a variant thereof; Drawers is really just big-riffed, amp-worshipping metal. This is sludgish metal. Indeed, calling Drawers…

Do not fear the can. The can is a beer drinker’s friend. Especially when the beer is coming all the way from Maui. It protects and helps keep the product inside cool (metal chills faster than glass) and fresh. The folks at Maui Brewing Co. would be foolish to package their product any other way,…

The email came in from Ol’ Man Mudrian a few days ago and it went, in part, like this: “Have you ever heard Sam Black Church? People from the New England area like to blow them incessantly, but people like me who “never saw them live” just think they accidentally invented nu metal. Either way,…

The latest Clutch album may be the band’s best since 2005’s Robot Hive/Exodus, but the live setting is where these Marylanders have built their name over the years. So it was fitting that the quartet opened up its recent set in Port Chester, NY with “Earth Rocker”, a tune that in many ways sets forth…

For your streaming pleasure today we are premiering the track “Brushfires” from Arizona’s Godhunter, a nasty hybrid of thrash and sludge. Preorder the album City Of Dust here from The Compound. Some details on the track follow the stream. Brushfires is an analogy for the divisiveness that embroils the political nature of mankind. In that…

On Friday, January 10, Brutal Truth bassist Danny Lilker announced via Facebook that he “will be retiring from being a full time recording and touring musician” on his forthcoming 50th birthday, October 18, 2014. The news flash resonated throughout the entire online extreme community, who, in the process, appears to have disregarded Lilker’s commitment to…

I had an interesting conversation with a metal peer over coffee yesterday, and was asked what makes a “traditional” heavy metal album made in 2014 worth spending money on when all I have to do is listen to a Judas Priest album. I had to pause and consider that for a minute. For a writer…

I’m pretty sure “Soreption” is a made up word. I think maybe it’s a phonetic transcription of vocalist Fredrik Söderberg’s shrieks. These dudes play seriously gnarly technical death metal to the level where you might need a physics degree just to headbang to it. You can hear them constructing the framework of the abyss as…

A couple months back I was honored to usher the legendary 1995 Integrity album Systems Overload into the Decibel Hall of Fame and now, on the eve of a hell-freezes-over reunion at the A389 Recordings ten-year anniversary Bash in Baltimore, comes a new track from the Systems era line-up. Enjoy an exclusive stream of “7th…

Just as there are many roads that lead to metal (adolescent anger, an ear for complex music, etc.), there are multiple avenues by which a curious mind might encounter Noam Chomsky, one of our era’s great-thinking heavy hitters.  Students of linguistic theory will certainly encounter his work, which in the middle of the last century…

We weren’t surprised to find out that one of the people involved with efforts to place a gigantic Baphomet statue on the Oklahoma Capitol grounds is connected with extreme metal. I guess we’re just happy that they are pursuing their goals through civil discourse rather than pulling a Burzum. Brian Werner is a High Priest…

Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister is a living legend. An untouchable icon. But Lemmy and his Motörheads didn’t always have ace albums. In fact, across Motörhead’s storied–we’re talking almost four decades–career, the monoliths of metal have had some real stinkers. While we implore you to check out Lemmy in our February 2014 issue (click HERE) we’re also…

Since our Brewtal Truth column first appeared in Decibel nearly five years ago, it was inevitable that this day would one day come. All we needed was to find the perfect partner, and when we learned about Denver’s TRVE Brewing Co. in 2012, we knew that they were it. So, after many bestial sacrifices, summonings,…

The Unguided’s previous album, Hell Frost, was the product of ex-Sonic Syndicate members Richard and Roger Sjunnesson venturing away from the sway of record companies and their malignant henchmen. Meeting favorable reviews–largely in Europe–The Unguided took off, pulling the sounds of Soilwork, Killswitch Engage, and Scar Symmetry and making them distinct and memorable. Some three…

In the interest of spangling your frost-still hibernation cave with the bloodiest of icicles this winter, we bring your attention to yet another bleak polar vortex that should scratch your hate-itch just fine. Starting in 1996, Swedish spike-sporters Necroplasma vomited forth a steady stream of demos, splits and a pair of full-length records, all of…

In our latest Brewtal Truth column in the February issue of Decibel, we queried Magrudergrind guitarist RJ Ober about his job working as a sales manager for Victory Brewing. One of the things he mentioned, which was left out due to space constraints, is the fact that he had the honor of naming the brewery’s…

Ontario’s Biipiigwan is a quizzical beast of a band. From their moniker and line-up’s open-door policy to their sound and members being spread out across this humongous province of ours, questions pertaining to how, why, where and who usually abound when the band is the topic of conversation. The driving force behind this are-they-metal?-are-they-hardcore?-are-they-noise-rock?-are-they-sludge-doom?-just-what-the-hell-are-they? is…

The day Christians have long feared, the day that would part the Heavens and kick-start the apocalypse, is upon us. In the unsuspecting locale of Oklahoma City, a group of enterprising Satanists is working (not via hex or spell, mind you, but the legitimate channels of public policy) to place a gigantic statue of Baphomet…

The last time I saw Alcest live was March 2012. Neige and company headlined a show at Brooklyn’s Public Assembly (a more fitting setting for them than opening for Enslaved at the Gramercy Theater) and brought along Deafheaven and Vaura. Given the creative leaps both of those openers have made since then with their respective…

Readers might already have a heads up on the new Cannabis Corpse album From Wisdom To Baked, due this spring (if not check out the studio short in our February issue). The band also has a “joint” project with Ghoul that’s out now on Tankcrimes. Stream the entire Splatterhash split below and order it here….

(photo by Alex Hardie) Year-end lists are done with, folders of digital promos are archived (or in some particularly terrible albums, deleted), and now it’s time to focus on a fresh year of new music. Here’s hoping the expected big albums deliver, and that even more great new releases await discovery. I try to be…

Apparently Waldgeflüster means “Whispering Forest” in German, which isn’t actually an inaccurate description – well, until the black metal part kicks in, and then I guess it’s more of a shrieking forest. The solo project of the dude who calls himself Winterherz, Waldgeflüster weaves together black metal and pastoral neo-folk in an unexpectedly organic way….

Following up a Kamikaze Mission is a no small challenge, but M.I.A., the decade-in-the-making barn burner of a comeback record from reconfigured/reborn Backstabbers Inc, proves a gloriously triumphant gut-check collection of anthemic dark hardcore — not to mention a helluva way to kick off the new year! Decibel is proud to present an exclusive stream…