Welcome to Tales From the Metalnomicon, a twice-monthly column delving into the surprisingly vast world of heavy metal-tinged/inspired literature and metalhead authors... Douglas Wynne understands we're living in a post-Clive Davis/Oh God! You Devil world. He knows you can't just go out to the crossroads howling your rendition of "Me and the Devil Blues" and expect to knock all of us jaded ...

Do you love Decibel's most favoritest non-metal-but-kinda-pretty-metal band?  Live near Charleston, South Carolina?  Or just happen to be passing through the area this coming Monday, May 27th?  If so, make sure you roll on over to Monster Music & Movies for a special in-store performance and signing session with Baroness, scheduled for 4:00 pm on Memorial Day 2013!  The Charleston City ...

With a spat of excellent releases from the likes Light Bearer, Amber, Momentum, Northless, Multiple Truths and Protestant, Halo of Flies Records has recently and consistently been knockin' 'em out of the park. Another stellar forthcoming release is Certain Death, the new 7" from Pittsburgh grinding powerviolence-ers, Heartless. To celebrate the occasion - and to no doubt score a little promo ...

Sometimes our love for quasi-musical extremes has a flattening effect on the diversity of material we hear.  Dynamics traverse the vast range from loudest to loudest-er, wanton mayhem and terror begin to appear tame enough for family breakfast conversation.  It can be refreshing to hear an album like Slidhr’s Deluge try to save black metal from itself.  I don’t mean some kind of Altar of ...

Adam McGrath plays by his own rules, nobody else's, not even his own. So when he sent over a list that simply included five "sweet" songs, who were we to argue? Not only does his time in Zozobra (guitarist/vocalist) and Cave In (guitarist) give him more than enough cred, judging by his selections (the first happens to be my favorite song so far this year), he also has great taste. Be sure to ...

Things always come full circle. And when they do it’s either super-rad or pretty depressing. For Repulsion’s first visit to Stockholm, Sweden, it’s super-rad. Why? Let’s just say, the extremely extremes of Sweden’s early metal scene influenced Flint, Michigan’s grindcore/death metal revolutionaries Repulsion and, in turn, the dudes from the city whose motto is “Strong, Proud” ...

As quickly as Maryland Deathfest architects Evan Harting and Ryan Taylor brought the rage to outdoor stages, photos capturing the scene on Saratoga Street emerged, taken from the multi-story parking garage atop the venue. One thing very noticeable in said pictures are glowing cell phone screens being held aloft as folks attempt to capture the likes of Godflesh, Electric Wizard, Neurosis and ...

Shredding in metal dates directly back to Tony Iommi, who is inexplicably still writing riffs and will be a big part of the new Black Sabbath album due next month. So, we figured it was a good time to invite a new generation of doom shredder into the studio this week. Mark Thomas Baker of San Francisco's Orchid shared some of his formative riffs with Decibel. As you might expect, it's heavy ...

How would you describe Aosoth to a newcomer? BST: We’re a French black metal band. The project has been created in 2002, but started really being an active band when MKM (vocals) asked me to join as a guitarist and song writer. That led us to record our first EPs and our first album. What originally was meant as a very raw and old-school evolved to something a little more ambient and with ...

***As chronicled by Alia O'Brien, singer/flutist/organist for Canada's finest occult rockers, from their current tour with Kylesa, White Hills, and Lazer/Wulf. Remaining tour dates listed below; preorder their phenomenal new LP, The Eldritch Dark, here Two days and ten degrees (Celsius!) stood between our homes in Toronto, Canada and our first date supporting Kylesa on their Ultraviolet tour ...