Year: 2011

A couple of weeks ago we caught up with Melvins just before they played a sold-out show at the Electric Ballroom, London. They were traveling light, back to a three-piece for the night after auxiliary drummer Coady Willis called in sick (it was the runs, no one can play through the runs), but nevertheless in…

Alright, you sick fucks, your pile of brutal album titles has been logged and your posters will be sent out anytime between tomorrow and the rapture. Thanks for your participation and, just for kicks, keep sending in titles cause why not. Thanks. —————————– Okay, so we’re gonna make this quick and easy, folks. There are…

Here’s a band there’s got to be a million tattoos for. Unfortunately, 99% of them are those shitty little ninja stars, and the second most popular idea is to simply get the name in the classic font. Those are both boring ideas. The word is a little cool, just cause it usually comes out like…

You know, with all the hoopla over Scion, an imprint of Toyota (gasp!), sponsoring music festivals, funding and pressing free CDs, and generally giving workaday bands (like Immolation, Wormrot, Enslaved) a chance to stick their head out of the boiling financial cauldron that is the music industry, it’s a wonder this commercial for Park Auto…

Veteran death metal guitarist James Murphy (Death, Obituary, Cancer, Disincarnate, Testament) has found that the brain tumor he defeated in 2001 has unexpectedly returned. Although the tumor is benign and is currently being treated pharmacologically — chemotherapy remains an option — Murphy needs our help. The medication Murphy has been prescribed has crippling side effects,…

Here’s the set-up: We’re in Seattle for a long weekend and we’re thirsty. So, of course we have to visit the recent the subject of our Brewtal Truth column, Matt Bonney, director of operations at Brouwer’s Cafe. As you may remember from our interview with Bonney in Decibel, Brouwer’s specializes in what he calls “the…

Yep. It’s that time of year again when everyone starts bitching about department stores replacing the Katy Perry jams on the overhead sound system with whatever yuletide shit is forcing Burl Ives to roll over in his grave this year. Determined not to be outdone by Zakk Wylde — who is apparently following up his…

Dragged into Sunlight are one of the most exciting things to happen to the UK underground metal scene since Anaal Nathrakh started experimenting with black metal’s forbidden fruits and spitting the pips through a particle accelerator. Mixing elements of doom, black and death metal with a horrible, uncodified ritualistic live/visual aesthetic, Dragged into Sunlight genuinely…

Anal Cunt, otherwise known to jittery magazine editors and PC fucks the world over as AxCx, rarely failed to mash the fuck button like 5-year kids hopped up on donuts and Mt. Dew. Not solely because of the group’s name either. Fronted by Seth Putnam, the Massholes from Newton pushed every possible boundary and penetrated…

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 back before the dawn…

UK thrashers Evile were plucked from the womband signed to Earache in 2006, offered before the world as not only the saviors of UK thrash, heir apparent to Sabbat, but the more frenzied quarters of society were proffering them to be the next Metallica. Like, yeah, let’s not burden four kids form Huddersfield, a reasonably…

It’s been well established that the Maryland Death Fest is the favourite annual gathering for us around here at Decibel HQ as well as for a couple thousand of y’all as well. This shouldn’t be taken to mean that there aren’t other extreme metal pow-wows taking place on American soil worthy of your time, money,…

Ah! It’s wonderful to get a tattoo up here that’s not on a man’s ass. Jack, from the valley of the dolls, brings us this fantastic pale slab of Black Flag ink. He clearly had the right idea when he got it. I don’t think you can fuck up with a Black Flag tat, and…

Beneath Oblivion: ‘From Man to Dust’ by Decibel Magazine Rarely do you hear a doom band so good at integrating other influences, from folk to death metal to experimental samples, while being so fucking good at also playing doom. But Beneath Oblivion has created a record that will satisfy those who crave a new spin…

Is Woods of Desolation a one-man outfit? You enlisted Tim Yatras (Nazxul, Lord) for the drums and vocals on new album, Torn Beyond Reason.D.: Yes. Woods of Desolation (WoD) will probably always consist of just myself whilst utilizing session members for recordings. Tim only agreed to help out on the Torn Beyond Reason album. Unfortunately,…

We can’t speak for our fellow Decibloggers, but our own goal for these weekly dispatches is to entertain, inform and occasionally enlighten. Beyond that, anything goes, just as long as it’s within the “extremely extreme” wheelhouse. So, today we’re offering up the premiere of a track from a band that we could hardly argue is…

As a Northeast male of a certain age I was psyched to see Revelation Records post the “ill-fated” unfinished documentary on the last show of straight-edge hardcore band In My Eyes, along with a cool little epilogue from guitarist Anthony Pappalardo… EDGE DAY 2000: The Last Show Of In My Eyes from Revelation Records on…

Welcome to University of Leeds. This is Damnation Festival’s seventh year, the fourth since moving to the three-stage venue. It’s no minor triumph to last seven years as an underground metal-fest, packing the punters in when having to compete with larger festivals with their larger budgets, surviving all that industry bullshit at a time when…

So I’m a day late in writing this, I was supposed to yesterday but I felt like the walking dead after driving through a blizzard to Salt Lake City yesterday. So I passed out on a couch and slept ‘til about 10 minutes before the show. I feel much better now, time to write this…

In honor of GWAR guitarist Cory Smoot, who passed away yesterday as the band was preparing to enter Canada, we offer this typically deranged Frank Lemke review of this fall’s annual GWAR-B-Q in Richmond, originally trimmed for space from the magazine. Saturday, September 17 The National, Richmond, VA The GWAR-B-Q was booked outdoors, at Hadad’s…

That’s right, folks, our Collector’s Edition Thrash Metal Hall of Fame issue is back from the printers and available—right now—to buy from the Decibel webstore and a select few indie record stores. After hopefully violating innumerate health and safety regulations to print the third of Decibel’s gnarly Hall of Fame Collector’s Editions in Vic Rattlehead’s…

Let’s face it: everyone from skate-shorts-sporting thrashers and isolationist of ‘troo kvlt’ black metal church burners to gurgling death metalheads and flat-brimmed hardcore heads loves hair metal. If they say they, they’re fucking lying. If it’s not the good time, formulaic party music, it’s the fantastical lyrics and ongoing hope that all it takes for…

I know what you’re thinking. “A little late for Halloween, idiot.” Wrong, idiot. I wrote this weeks ago. Just for kicks, this Halloween I decided I’d dress up as a “metal head.” I do, of course, listen to metal. But I’d say that my actual style is a lot more casual, since I usually don’t…

The Sun Through a Telescope: “Darkyard” by Decibel Magazine The kind of music that comes from The Sun Through a Telescope can only be produced in a solo project. There is no way the kind of experimental, psychedelic insanity on EP Summer Darkyard (from our friends Handshake Inc.) could be filtered through another human being…

People want to know the arrangement between Scion and Immolation. I’m sure you can attest to ‘underground’ metalheads being slightly skeptical of a car company’s involvement with a cult death metal act.Ross Dolan: I can see where some people may find it unusual that a company such as Scion would invest money into an underground…

Our pals over at Metal Sucks have put together a two-day Suckfest of some of our favorite bands, and it’s all happening this weekend, November 4 and 5, at the Gramercy Theatre in Manhattan. Tickets are currently on sale and available from LiveNation. The best part of the inaugural Metal Suckfest is the wide array…

Will wonders never cease? Not long ago Billy Corgan outed himself as a Mercyful Fate fanboy able to correctly name the preeminent Black Sabbath record — that’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, kids — and now the 90’s alt-rock icon has formed his own pro-wrestling company — Resistance Pro — where he’ll serve as “creative director.” The…

A few weeks ago we posted a Live Evil festival preview which was, in all fairness, maybe a little mean-spirited seeing that the vast majority of folks couldn’t cross ocean, continent or geographical border to attend an underground metal festival in London, U.K. Not at such notice, anyways. Live Evil 2011 was the festival’s sophomore…

I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning to drive to Iowa, all the way from Cleveland. Cant sleep any more so I guess it is time to recap the last week of tour… Ill pick up where I left off last time, in New York. I was kind of antsy about this show, as…

Earlier this month, we had the desolate delight in premiering Vallenfyre’s–featuring Paradise Lost’s Gregor Mackintosh on vocals/guitar, Paradise Lost drummer Adrian Erlandsson, My Dying Bride’s Hamish Glencross on guitar, and Doom bassist Scoot–new song “Desecrated“. To say it raised a few eyebrows would be an understatement. Who knew six string moper Mackintosh had the balls…