By now, Norway progressive/black-ish/folk-ish metallers Borknagar should be a familiar entity to most 'bangers. They've managed nine quality albums -- including new long-player Urd -- across a 17-year timeline and had the balls to recall and then host former frontman ICS Vortex alongside screamer/crooner Vintersorg, which is something most bands don't do unless they're on a reunion tour/album and ...

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.  You people can't bitch that I picked the wrong album from this week's artist, because they only HAD one album.  SUCK ...

A sharp blast of powerviolence and sludge, with intricate lyrics and a pitch-perfect cover of Napalm Death’s “You Suffer,” Maine trio Robocop’s 2011 full-length Robocop II is easily one of the best releases on Grindcore Karaoke to date. Maybe we’re a little biased, because Robocop guitarist Ryan Page is consistently one of the most droll and on-point posters on the Decibel forum. ...

The name of Scourge Schematic's debut is not exactly cryptic. Life Savings is what the four-piece cashed in to record this EP, hoping somebody out there would give a damn. Money well spent, dudes. Clearly influenced by the death and grind giants of the 90s, the band has soldered elements of thrash and punk rock onto these tracks with a quad-vocal salvo that hits from all sides. ...

To honor national prog day -- yes, it really is 2.1.12 here in the United States, where we don't mess up the date by transposing the month and day -- Decibel was originally going to get Rush to perform Opeth covers in our offices, but logistics proved the event's undoing. They were all up for it, believe us! We mean, can you imagine Rush doing "Forest of October" or "Devil's Orchard"? We can. ...

The band's name may not be familiar to the majority of you and their moniker isn’t going to help them stand out from the crowd, but Toronto’s Nephelium is bound to garner interest solely based on the fact that they originally called Dubai home. And not the “new” Dubai where everything seems like it prolapsed out of reality television’s most audacious and extravagant butthole. When ...

We've never been over to visit and the tourist information website was fucking useless, but we'd like to think that New London, Connecticut is just the sort of place where parents just vacate their family homes en masse for months at a time, and leave their surly offspring to mulch around in unwashed jeans and dirty Vans. In their parents' absence offspring will grow their hair, conduct ...

Talk about a kick-ass way to start the week. Not only did we put the Big Easy's finest purveyors of blackened thrash, Goatwhore, on the cover of our current issue, we managed to wrangle a new tune off their upcoming Metal Blade album, Blood For the Master. "When Steel and Bone Meet" is everything we love about Goatwhore. It sounds like classic Motorhead revved up with a hefty dose of demonic ...

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.  I wasn't sure if this week's entrant was obscure enough, but judging by the pitiful turnout at their Los Angeles warm-up ...

All of you long-haired wastoids presently staring at the fridge, beer bong ready, weed order placed, Cheetos-in-bowl, etc... impatiently waiting for the new Municipal Waste record to drop, you might want to wrap your headbang around the new demo from Iron Reagan. Featuring Waste singer/party enabler Tony Foresta and bassist Phil "LandPhil" Hall, the line-up is rounded out by Paul Burnette and ...