Frank Allain (Fen) interviewed

** UK black metallers Fen have plied the marshes of greatness since debut album, The Malediction Fields. But on new album, Carrion Skies, Fen are out of the swamps they’ve called home and they’re into the wild (dark) urban streets. They’ve gone above and beyond on Carrion Skies, reducing their ethereal qualities to bone-breaking effectiveness….

Through A Hive Darkly…

We’ve sang the praises of trailblazing Philadelphia transcendental slayers Hivelords many a time in this space and so when the band offered to document a recent descent into studio madness for its upcoming full-length Anthropic Records release, we of course eagerly agreed. The reality-refracting entries are below… Part I: A Nash-ing of Teeth Spoiler Alert:…

Holiday Playlist: Db Does VD

So Decibel assumes at this point you’ve got your dozen roses, the perfect card, maybe some wine. All these have been easily attainable and, really, almost unavoidable for the last four to six weeks. Valentine’s Day mood music, on the other hand, has remained maddeningly elusive for those inclined towards the extremely extreme. Until now….

STREAMING: Moonspell “Extinct” + Fernando Ribeiro interviewed

When Moonspell emerged in 1994 with the Goat on Fire / Wolves from the Fog 7″, there was no indication they’d be killing it two decades later. Initially, their homeland (Portugal) was a strike against the Lisbon-based black metallers. The Iberian Coast wasn’t Norway, Sweden, Finland, Greece, or Great Britain; it didn’t have the Nordic…

Encrotchment With Eddie Gobbo From Jar’d Loose: Divisional Weekend

Rage Against the Machine, Arizona Concert Watch, 2015 New Millennium Homes Our first game of the weekend takes place in the House of Pain of Football (hold the Everlast), Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. New England is the serious favorite to win it all. No one is taking Batlimore seriously this year except the cast of…

Playing Catch Up (Again) with Rottenness

“Mexican-American death/grind bands, like to answer telephones and say hello to Decibel hacks on the other end…” It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Mexico’s Rottenness. Breaking up for a short spell during 2012 didn’t help their cause, but the band is back with a new line-up and album in the wings. Gone are…

TMaFLH Update: Foul Spirits

A little more than a year ago, we got in touch with a Kent, Ohio quartet called Foul Spirits who delivered some slimy sludge-death with an EP called Live in Fear.  Now the boys have finished recording their full-length album, called Volatile Versatile, and if you’re interested in the kind of redlined destruction offered by bands like Gaza…

Encrotchment With Eddie Gobbo From Jar’d Loose: Week 15

Please North Korea, threaten a terrorist attack over ALL Seth Rogen and James Franco movies from now on. Vat on the Pats This past week, the inevitable happened: The New England Patriots claimed their sixth straight AFC East title, and are on the fast track (for the millionth time) to the playoffs, with a bye…

Ex-DEP Jeff Tuttle: Onward and Upward

Some of us recognize Jeff Tuttle as a recent guitarist with the Dillinger Escape Plan, where he tore ears and brain matter from 2007 until 2012.  Jeff has also been active as a filmmaker (see his new-ish video for a new Child Bite song here) as he continues his musical pursuits in Old Gods and…

Greber: Not Named After a Goalie

I’d like to take this opportunity to nip something in the bud: Cambridge, Ontario’s Greber is in no way associated with, saluting, paying homage to, or actually even really aware of, former NHL goaltender Martin Gerber. The first indication should have been that the moniker as selected by the two-man sludge/doom monolith is spelt completely…

Encrotchment With Eddie Gobbo From Jar’d Loose: Week 14

Darth Raider Welp, Raiders fans: I hate to say it, but I think I’m going to be retiring Oakland Raiders talk for the rest of the season. With three weeks left, and teams fighting for their playoff lives, I don’t see how a two-win team could be worth mentioning. That said,  I’m going for one last…

Horrendous interviewed

** 2014, the Year of the Horse. 2014, the Year of Horrendous. While Horrendous’ previous full-length, The Chills, sent death metallers back to the grave (whatever that means), new album Ecdysis made the stateside trio a household name (admittedly small number) and a contender for top spots on Year End lists. Trust us, the word…

Sucker For Punishment: Grand and Morbid

Anguish, Mountain (Dark Descent): What I get most out of the second full-length by the Swedish doom band, aside from the lovably goofy cover and the simple yet enjoyable music therein, is just how well vocalist J. Dee enunciates. It’s a lost art, especially in extreme metal, and even though the lyrics are your usual…

For Those About to Squawk: Waldo’s Pecks of the Week

So much not thrilling going on this week. I dunno, maybe my beak is sore from all of this typing, I have a (ahem) hunt-and-peck approach to typing, you know… BLOODBATH are releasing Grand Morbid Funeral; get your HM-2 pedals a-ready for the stompin’. It harkens back to the so-called glory days of early death metal,…

Sucker For Punishment: Blackest of Times

The year is starting to wind down, but a smattering of noteworthy new metal releases are still trickling in over the next month, including a couple this week. Read on! Apostle of Solitude, Of Woe and Wounds (Cruz del Sur): More people should be getting excited for the first new Apostle of Solitude album since…

STREAMING: Fides Inversa’s “Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans”

Fides Inversa play black metal in a Primordial style, and they sure take it seriously. I mean, check out the interview below. I had to read it like three times to understand what they were talking about, and I think it basically comes down to “the devil.” Still, their music is pretty rad, so not…

The Deciblog Interview: Paul Di’Anno

“A lot has been written and said about me through the years — most of it bad, some of it untrue.” That’s the opening of the 2010 Paul Di’Anno biography The Beast, which reads more like a gritty LA noir novel than a musical memoir. If you were to read the book — a combination…

Decibel Magazine 2015 Tour Lineup + Dates Announced!

The Decibel Magazine Tour has established itself as the extreme music destination of the spring, bringing metalheads a thoughtfully curated lineup that celebrates the genre’s proud and diverse global legacy. The fourth installment is no different, as Swedish melodeath legends At the Gates join forces with U.S. hardcore heroes Converge and U.K. death/doom supergroup Vallenfyre,…

Sucker For Punishment: Burning Like a Flame

It’s got to be a surreal adjustment for certain popular metal bands who headline huge festivals in Europe and come over to North America to play venues the tiniest fraction of the size. For some bands, you can tell they’d rather be egotistically drinking in the adulation of 75,000 people in a field in Germany…

Metal Yoga With André Foisy #5

André Foisy plays guitar in Locrian and is a certified yoga instructor who teaches in Chicago, including a monthly candlelit yoga event set to dark ambient metal. You can find his yoga teaching schedule and more information about him on his website, Facebook page, and you can find past instructional videos on his YouTube channel….

Encrotchment With Eddie Gobbo From Jar’d Loose: Week 3

Did you guys enjoy the heavily NFL-promoted premiere of Madam Secretary, starring Tea Leoni, as much as I did? Beng Your Pan Last winter, I played a gig in Columbus, OH, at Carabar and struck up a football conversation with the club’s owner, Ron. He’s a HUGE Pittsburgh Steelers fan. I guess a Steelers fan…

Decibrity Playlist: Winterfylleth (Part 1)

Instead of rambling on about how great the new Winterfylleth album is and coming up with some clever way to introduce what Chris Naughton decided to cover in his playlist (spoiler alert: it’s one of my favorites), we’ll just let the guitarist/vocalist handle the intro himself: “Considering topics that would make for an interesting playlist…

Witch Mountain: An Outgoing Debrief with Uta Plotkin

While the news has had time to sink in with the passing of time, it was a big ol’ shocker when Witch Mountain vocalist Uta Plotkin announced she was stepping away from her post after five years of fronting the Portland doom heroes. According to drummer Nathan Carson, he and the other members [guitarist Rob…

Sucker For Punishment: Fire Up the Chain Saw!

When a veteran band finds its second wind working with a certain producer, it’s totally understandable if they decide to stick to that same collaboration for an extended period. Cannibal Corpse went through it in the wake of the stunning success of 2006’s return-to-form Kill; realizing they had found a perfect partner in producer Erik…

When There’s No More Beer in Hell: Cross Examination Returns with Dawn of the Dude

This almost didn’t happen. By ‘this,’ we mean the interview portion of our announcing the return-of-sorts of St. Louis’ Cross Examination to the world of playing crossover thrash while balancing tens of beers on their livers. The quintet, after about six years of silence, has a new 7″ out and available as of last month…

Sucker For Punishment: Worlds Apart

I was among those critics lavishing praise on Pallbearer’s debut album Sorrow & Extinction in February 2012, marveling at its surprisingly graceful take on doom metal. However, as the year went on, I felt I had to pull back from the praise of the critical hive mind, because the more I let that record settle,…

Sucker For Punishment: Godsmack Day Edition

Happy Godsmack Day to all you Boston readers. You must be so darn proud. Anyway, on with the show: Alestorm, Sunset on the Golden Age (Napalm): What grades did the pirate get in school? HIGH SEAS!!! Belphegor, Conjuring the Dead (Nuclear Blast): A merciless return to simple, blasphemous black metal, the Austrian veterans keep it quick…

Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: Texas’s Giant of the Mountain

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)…

“All PsychFest All the Time.” Interview with White Hills

New York-based experimental psychedelic stoner spacerockers White Hills has only been a band since ’round about 2005, yet they’ve already amassed the following discography: They’ve Got Blood Like We’ve Got Blood (Fuck Off And Di/Head Heritage, 2005) Koko (White Hills, 2006) Glitter Glamour Atrocity (White Hills, 2007) Abstractions and Mutations (White Hills, 2007/Thrill Jockey, 2009/Immune,…

Sucker For Punishment: I Got Hurt Feelings

Extreme metal bands withholding lyrics is commonplace, something we writers have learned to constantly deal with, to the point now that even though we’re never given the complete album experience, it’s pretty much taken for granted that we have to give readers an even and thorough assessment of a record even though we have literally…