Year: 2012

Two years after the tragic death of Makh Daniels, Early Graves triumphantly returned with a new record this week (Justin M. Norton put it much more eloquently in his review in our December issue). Instead of putting together a typical playlist to celebrate Red Horse, the quintet decided to go all multimedia with its theme:…

“How’s the iPhone pit over there,” Converge vocalist Jacob Bannon says at one point midway through the band’s headlining show last week at Slim’s in San Francisco. Good question. It’s hard to figure out who would want to mind meld with their personal device when a trashcan was lobbed into the pit midway through “Trespasses.”…

In less than one week Dragged Into Sunlight will unleash Widowmaker, and while perhaps not quite powerful enough to actually slay a significant other, it is a churning, seething beast of a record sure to raise the bar in the world of pitch black epic, serpentine metal. Those sky high post-Hatred for Mankind expectations? Widowmaker…

Sometimes in the face of overwhelming shittiness, we need a little something to distract us. We suspect that a pretty large number of our brethren (and sistren, or whatever…) are currently without the ability to log onto the Interhole at the moment thanks to Sandy but for those who are, here’s something that is completely…

Samhain is upon us! It’s better known as All Hallow’s Eve or Halloween these days, but that’s the Christians-supplanting-an-ancient-pagan-ritual-for-conversion-purposes naming convention thing. Ah, they did such dastardly deeds all over Europe, the Near East, Africa, Asia, and so forth. Anyway, it’s time for the leaves to turn a golden brown, the air to have a…

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 have a special treat (or…

Originally, this frickin’ boner was supposed to go out to the tragically unsigned Secrets of the Sky, an Oakland, CA collective who specialize in black-splashed prog-n-doom awesomeness.  Now that Secrets of the Sky are untragically signed to Gravedancer Records, you’re hopefully going to hear a lot more about them in the coming months and years. …

When word arrived that the Darkness would be rolling through L.A. again on their way to meet up with Lady Gaga in South America, we told J. Bennett to grease up his tits for a pre-show rematch with frontman Justin Hawkins. The following conversation took place on Tuesday, October 23, the night before the band’s…

Ok motherfuckers, starting tomorrow, one of the most fun-filled touring adventures of the year kicks off in Springfield, Virginia. A co-heading run featuring grind grand pappies Napalm Death and the travelling bachelor party known as Municipal Waste with the reigning good-time guardians of gore grind, Exhumed offering direct support would normally be enough to top…

Since All That Remains released its debut a decade ago, the band has been a model of consistency in terms of the album cycle. In fact, it has dropped a new record like clockwork every two years since 2002, meaning no one should be surprised that full-length number six is set to drop on November…

Venomous Maximus isn’t a cover band that does a cool version of “Witching Hour.” This Houston band likes riffs, penned a song that’s an indirect ode to King Diamond (see below) and has earned comparisons to Pentagram and Electric Wizard. We’ll gladly take that over a Cronos impersonation. For your exclusive streaming pleasure, Venomous Maximus…

Only a short few months ago, Killing Joke frontman Jeremy “Jaz” Coleman went mysteriously missing. Canceled shows happened and, well, a bunch of (admittedly European) press covered Killing Joke when they would’ve anyway. Turns out Coleman was running around the Western Sahara, working on a solo album and a book. Neat. Coleman’s never been a…

Metallica were wise to wait several years before making their first promotional music video. Having experienced it first hand—waiting patiently for a metal video to pop up so we could capture it on our VHS recorder—we can attest to the fact that the dawn of music videos in the early ’80s was the worst. Especially…

There are many things we could say about Apparitions Among the Graveyard Skies, the just released horror-worshipping, gore-festooned debut album from superlative down n’ dirty death metallers Orloff, but here is the fun fact that probably best sums it up: The first 100 copies ordered come with a limited edition barf bag. Which is why…

Bands always make such a big deal about playing the Roundhouse because of who played here in the past. It’s a former railway engine room, with a lot of rock ‘n’ roll history. But any similarities between the 1960s Roundhouse and today’s venue begin and end with the building’s foundations and unalterable architecture. It’s hard…

(infinite thanks, adrien begrand, for bringing this to our attention)

Thirty years. What does that mean for Sodom to have been doing extreme metal for three decades? That’s a long time for any career let alone a metal band. Tom Angelripper: Yes, I can’t believe that we are still around with touring, recording, and all the activities. When we formed the band in ’82 we…

Look at that picture.  Seriously, stop reading these worthless scrawlings and LOOK UP THERE.  The artwork associated with Blut Aus Nord records has always kicked a certain amount of ass, but a trio of sculptures depicting humans in various anguished poses sprouting branches from every which limb?  Genius.  Pile on the hand-headed snakes and chaotic…

Happy Halloween, kiddies. We’ve got some spooky stuff lined up for you. CRADLE OF FILTH release The Manticore and Other Horrors, and you know it’s, like, haunting and stuff. This is pretty gothy, boys and girls, and this one’s a little more punk, meaning the riffs aren’t as complex as some of their past efforts,…

Golden Void is a band that I stumbled across thanks to the fine fuckers over at Thrill Jockey who pimped them as an outfit inspired by “Sabbath, Hawkwind and rounded out by Robert Fripp, Jimi Hendrix, and even some Can in there as well.” Those of you familiar with the instrumental, psychedelic, Fat Albert-ness (yeah,…

In anticipation of next week’s release of his band’s fourth record Lovelessness, Bison B.C. guitarist/vocalist James Farwell penned one of the most introspective and honest playlists we’ve ever run. He also sent over the following introduction, which is fortunate because we could not have put it any better. Listen along to his picks here. “Here…

“Madness is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.” So said Heath Ledger’s eminently quotable Joker in The Dark Knight. And there is perhaps no better push than new material from the two maniacs behind Anaal Nathrakh. Decibel is happy to give you a sneak peak of “Todos Somos Humanos,” off the upcoming…

Informed by early Emperor, inspired by Anaal Nathrakh and motivated by long-ignored black metallers Mysticum, Rage Nucléaire might just be Canada’s best new black metal outfit. There seem to be too few from a country dubbed, “The Great White North”, but I digress. Anyway, the history of Rage Nucléaire surprises. No, the French-Canadians weren’t part…

Name five great metal bands. Here’s the first ones that come to my mind: Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Metallica and Slayer. What makes them great? Priest and Maiden have iconic, virtuosic vocalists. Metallica, Black Sabbath and Slayer more or less all created their own sort of subgenres. But the one thing all five…

For the majority of the nearly 50,000 people who bought their tickets to one or more of the Great American Beer Festival sessions (which took place in Denver last weekend) when they went on sale last summer, the opportunity to attend this massive beer tasting event is probably the pinnacle of their craft beer-drinking year….

We’re about two weeks out from the release of American Baby, the driving, effervescent debut from ex-Torche/current MonstrO guitarist Juan Montoya’s instrumental metal outfit Stallone. Burly as their namesake, Limited Fanfare Records describes the EP as “riff oriented, drop-tuned melodies combined with an uplifting expression of aggressive energy” and that seems pretty spot on, though…

Finland’s Behexen have the good taste to traffic in occult black blasphemies, and the good sense not to bludgeon their audience, um, senseless.  Christian-slaughtering speeds certainly take their due, but Behexen take the time to smell the burnt-offering entrails, too.  The year 2012 finds the occult Scandinavian crew unleashing its fourth full-length recording in its…

If you mention “gallery” and “death metal” in the same sentence we’re probably going to think Gallery of Suicide. Maybe this is a sign of the yawning chasm that exists between extreme metal and art/gallery culture, or maybe it’s just a deeply concerning hardwired word association. But, if you think about it, aside from the…

Back in May, Decibel streamiered Evocation’s “Through The Darkened Peril” from the group’s killer demo/unreleased compilation Evoked From Demonic Depths – The Early Years. In that post, we gave a little background in why they mattered to a changing ’90s scene and how their 2006 reformation—an act of revenge, really—has given five dudes from Sweden…

Although our European brothers and sisters in despondent doom may’ve had the jump on Decibel this time around, it doesn’t deter our dismal displays of adoration—check out their Hall of Fame record example—for the venerated My Dying Bride. So much so, we’ve got four songs from the Brits’ latest long-player streaming. These tunes of torment…