Year: 2012

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 overseas for some seminal…

When the idea was pitched for a Decibel exclusive oral history of Brujeria (November 2012, Issue #97), it seemed straight forward enough:  Get the maniacs behind one of the world’s worst-kept-secret bands to dish out a chronological breakdown of the life and times of White Cali’s most feared sonic terrorists.  The reality of weaving such…

Having shows in one’s place of residence seems like such a big deal to most people. To an old fart like myself, going to see a band play in a basement or living room is as natural as going to see a band play at some place where overzealous security goons get way too familiar…

A Life Once Lost’s fifth full-length has been a long time coming. Not only has it been five years since our hometown favorites put out Iron Gag, but when we last spoke to Doug Sabolick back in January 2011 (you know, back when there was hope for the Phightins), the band had already been writing…

I don’t know about you but a “climax community” sounds like a hell of a nice place. It definitely beats what we usually see in America: retirement communities, gated communities and segregated communities. Who doesn’t want to get down? A climax community is actually a term involving heady ecological ideas that hurt our feeble brain….

ODERUS ASKS DEZ: 1. What is that thing on your chin? Dez: It’s a Tattoo to ward off Scary Monsters, much like yourself, my monstrous friend! In all honesty I tattooed my face to separate myself from the pack! Also it reminds me that the corporate world cubicle thing was / is NOT A LIFE…

You’ve used the words “six months” a few times [regarding touring again]. Is that when you anticipate everybody should be ready to go? I see six months as the longest possible period of time that I can be held down. Honestly, it’ll be sooner than that, but I don’t wanna… How did you come to…

For the record, the “Exclusive” up in the title of this blog post actually means something. What it means is that this post is the only place where you can hear new music from the upcoming Dragged Into Sunlight album Widowmaker (and see the amazing artwork) until it is released by Prosthetic Records on MP3…

Your account of the crash was harrowing, but also very eloquent. It also seemed pretty thorough. Why did you decide to talk more about it going forward?I wanted to do the statement for a couple of reasons: Most importantly, I just wanted to do it. It was helpful for me to put it out there….

Today on a very special Halloween edition of Into the Depths we’ll be speaking with Ola Lindgren about the humble Baltic Sea origins of his death thrash powerhouse Grave, its various and sundry triumphs, trials, and tribulations, what it was like to watch the nascent Swedish death metal scene rise in real-time, and the band’s…

UK underground champs Dead Beyond Buried are giving their new album, The Dark Era, and that’s pretty cool, right? Everyone likes free stuff. That’s a given. And especially free music. Eight out 10 features with bands at some point touch upon the music industry’s perilous position right over yon great fiscal abyss, into which it’s…

by Scott Evans Ian wrote Part I right after Friday, our setup day. I’m writing this a month or two later, but I’ll pick up where he left off. Besides Ian’s rig relentlessly shitting the bed during setup, our tracking weekend went pretty smoothly. Since I engineer and play in the band at the same…

Hmmm… there are some interesting releases coming up, but the next couple weeks look a little dry. I’ll start with the horribly named BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME, who are releasing The Parallax II: Future Sequence. This is a follow-up to the The Parallax: The Hypersleep Dialogues, both in concept and sound. This isn’t my…

Wednesday’s Presidential debate wouldn’t have been so boring if Jim Lehrer had asked the candidates whether Onward to Golgotha was a top 20 death metal album of all time, or merely top 40. Alas, he choked, leaving it up to your friends at Decibel to nerd out about Incantation history. And honor it on flexi disc….

Manetheren’s Time is about as casual an experience as the sprawling dozen-plus-tome story that gives the band its name.  (Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series became so outrageously complex that now, even five years after Jordan’s death, a secondary author is still finishing the three books needed to complete the tale.)  Don’t belly up to…

Usually, when some public relations goomba contacts me, spouting off about how I’m guaranteed to love whatever new band they’re promoting, I go out of my way to hate that band. I used to do it subconsciously (probably) and don’t mean it as a slight to whatever band is in question, but as I’ve gotten…

Odds are that pretty much anything we cover would be the last thing anybody waking up from a long night of debauchery would want to hear. Just because your head feels like it might explode, however, doesn’t mean that comfort cannot be found via some quality tuneage. Just ask bassist/vocalist Jon DeHart of West Deptford,…

Of all the bands to crawl back from the metal abyss here’s something we never expected. VON is releasing a new album at the end of October and dB got an exclusive stream of “Jesus Stain” from Satanic Blood. The band expects to play a limited run of shows. Take a listen below and then…

It ain’t often we say, “Hey, check out this black metal band with a great bass player!” Normally, bass players in black metal get the Jason Newsted treatment, but Borre-based Nidingr have two in guitarists Blargh and Teloch. Why have a full-time bass player when you have two guys with enough talent to sound like…

The craft beer world is still trying to undo the damage done by shitty pale American lagers to canned beer’s reputation. It’s a sad fact that most craft beer drinkers think that bottled beer is “better” than canned beer, when the exact opposite is actually the case. If we all agree that craft beer is…

When we interviewed metal iconoclast Vanessa Nocera back in August for the Women in Metal issue she cited the “poetic atmosphere” of surrealist horror films as an prime influence, so we are extremely pleased and honored the Wooden Stake frontwoman has graciously agreed to help us kick off our Halloween month coverage with a truly…

The concept of faith might be diametrically opposed to Marduk’s pitch-black worldview but the Swedish fundamentalists are worthy of yours. Of all the Second Wave black metal bands who still consider their iconoclastic craft a full-time concern, Marduk are the ones who always deliver. They could be accused of lacking a sense of adventure when…

by Ian Miller There’s nothing like hearing a good drummer play a good drum kit in a room designed expressly for the purpose. In this case, the drummer is recovering from a head injury, but who can tell? I’m Ian Miller. I play bass in Kowloon Walled City. We’re about to record our third record,…

After nearly a decade of European dominance of all things anti-Abrahamic metal—starting with Bathory’s Viking-themed classic Hammerheart—Agalloch issued debut album Pale Folklore.

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’re going on a 50 million…

Decibel knows you’ve got a metal wishlist 23 albums long and five gigabytes of Profound Lore records you still haven’t heard all the way through, but each week we like to give you the opportunity to tune in to a project that isn’t backed by anybody’s hype machine.  Because music is universal, expression is boundless,…

Eagle-eye devourerers of Decibel will likely recall my review of Montreal’s The Great Sabatini’s latest album, Matterhorn in a recent issue. In reviewing their new record, I made reference to Pig Destroyer, Kyuss, Blind and Deliverance-era Corrosion of Conformity and described the proceedings thusly: “…hails from further out in left-field with more peaks and valleys…

To celebrate the release of Legend, last week we brought you Witchcraft bassist Ola Henriksson’s playlist of weightlifting songs. We’d wager that this week’s entry, however, marks the first time any of the artists below have been, and likely will be, mentioned around these parts (other than this apparently). Not only did frontman and founder…

Pentagram frontman Bobby Liebling has received much deserved attention for his comeback from a harrowing addiction and the revival of his musical career, not to mention late in life fatherhood. A few of his former bandmates might not have dealt with the same demons but they’ve had their share of tough times seeing their musical…

“I think ‘Doom-Jazz’ means playing heavy music, but not robotically,” said bassist Alexi Papadopoulos to Decibel when we were all much younger. “We like to give ourselves the elbow room for self expression. We are very scientific about our modes and time signatures and cues, but that’s what makes it fun.” That’s exactly the type…