Denial Of God formed in Denmark in 1991. Right in the middle of the Golden Age of Swedish death metal and the nascent stages---Abruptum had just started to kick coffins, for example---what would be come the a worldwide black metal scene. Though few bands had full-lengths out---save for Bathory (now in the Viking phase), Root, Tormentor, Mayhem, and perhaps Tiamat---black metal was vibrant and ...

I discovered Richmond's The Catalyst the old-fashioned way: the dude at their former record company, Perpetual Motion Machine, sent me a vinyl copy of their first EP, Marianas Trench. Then, that same person sent me a CD copy of the expanded version of said record, Marianas Trench+9. At least that was the old-fashioned way for us long-in-the-tooth hacks. People would just send us promo shit and ...

Two weeks ago, we ran the first part of our interview with Shelsmusic's Mehdi Safa in which we discussed, among other things, how he finds bands and his label's history with vinyl (you can read that here). In the concluding half of our interview, find out about Shelsmusic Studios, Safa's views on streaming services like Rdio and Spotify and more. And while you're perusing his answers, listen to ...

Welcome to the opening installment of Inside The Shredder's Studio, where we talk to accomplished players and guitar nerds about the riffs that make them warm and fuzzy. It would be easy to call this another "Women In Metal" bonus feature but I'm not going to do that. You see, chances are Elizabeth Schall can play guitar better than you if you are a male or female. I had the distinct pleasure ...

For the past 16 years, German "power" thrashers Perzonal War have wowed thrashers and heshers in their native land. They were discovered by Rock Hard magazine in what is presumed to be a Battle of the Bands/OK Corral-type competition that pitted the hard-hitting Perzonal War against sad kids in Burzum shirts and female-fronted acts with copious amounts of keyboards and velvet. Of course, Perzonal ...

Lord, do we have a bizarrely amazing contest for you all this morning! To celebrate their upcoming Steve Albini-produced 10-inch release on Anthropic Records, Philadelphia's own self-described "down tuned psychedelic outer space beard metal" outfit Ominous Black has agreed not only to allow Decibel to stream one of these monsters of epic eclecticism, but is also offering up an exclusive tattoo ...

Welcome to The Lazarus Pit, a biweekly look at should-be classic metal records that don’t get nearly enough love; stuff that’s essential listening that you’ve probably never heard of; stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  This week, we go skinny dipping in the fall dark waters of Decoryah's Wisdom Floats (Witchhunt). Finland!  It's a dark ...

It’s nice to have friends introduce us to new music, but in this age of ever flowing information and ubiquitous quick links, we often rely on bands’ personnel connections to lead us to our next aural awakening. Dude in our favorite death metal band also plays on this grind record or in that prog collective, and pretty soon we’re hopping among musical universes like a frog from lily pad to ...

The past week or so has brought lots of Caspian news, which we were thrilled about given that aside from some shows here and there, it's been a while since we'd heard from the instrumental post-rockers. According to their Facebook page, the Massholes spent much of April through June not playing, but rebounded nicely by announcing that they'd signed with Triple Crown Records and would release ...

Last year, Italian mostly-instrumental quartet Orbe created one of those albums that I listened to with half an ear and then didn’t get back to for a while.  Sometimes that’s an indicator of an album without a whole lot of immediacy, and sometimes it simply indicates the laziness of the audience.  In the case of Albedo, the cause falls squarely into the latter category.  Somehow Orbe have ...