Month: September 2013

I assume there are some fans of guitar shred reading this, because this is a metal website on the Internet. Well, today’s your lucky day! Century Media gathered four pretty killer shredders with long, flowing locks at the Carvin store in Hollywood on August 26 to allow them to show off their skills, jam together,…

The last time we spoke to black metal pontificator Alexander von Meilenwald he had the following to say about The Ruins of Beverast’s origins: “I didn’t define any concrete goals in the beginning, to be honest. The Ruins Of Beverast were established rather spontaneously when I felt the need to express new musical urges that…

The dudes in Primitive Man spent much of the summer on the road in support of their debut, Scorn. Like any other touring band, the Denver trio–which features drummer Isidro “Spy” Soto, vocalist/guitarist Ethan Lee McCarthy and bassist Jonathan Campos–has a batch of go-to tunes when it comes time to traverse the good ol’ U.S….

So Randy Larsen and Bernie Romanowski from long-running noisecore antiheroes Cable launched a new project a little while back called Empty Flowers to explore 90s-style smart, seething gut-punch post-hardcore. And the mix actually works! Really fucking well! The band’s debut, Six, created some impressive atmospheres and undercurrents, but the sophomore release Five sees Empty Flowers…

If you were to ask Vulture Industries’ main-brain Bjørnar Nilsen where inspiration comes from, he’d probably say this: “We draw inspiration from all over but tend to give each part a good kick in the side to bend it a bit out of shape. If you draw a hexagon and put Tom Waits, Nick Cave,…

There are a lot of hooks on Surgical Steel, but that has always been the case with Carcass; no matter how brutal it gets, it’s always hummable. Has that been deliberate?“Well yeah, I’m glad you think that. Yes some of the music is difficult to the untrained listener but we do wanna have hooks; they…

** Niklas Sundin and I first interviewed back in ’93 after the release of Skydancer. Well, this year Skydancer, Dark Tranquillity’s stunning debut album, turns 20. To honor how time has been kind to this stellar release, Niklas agreed to answer a few nifty questions. More importantly, Dark Tranquillity have acquired the rights to both…

It’s been awhile, so let’s get into it, shall we? GORGUTS are back at it with Colored Sands, and lemme tell ya, it’s REALLY good. All the elements are there: death metal, tech metal, and there are some downright pretty moments. I mean, one can’t really touch some of the older chapters of this legendary…

Anybody heard of “Kurt Ballou”?  The hairy dudes in this video here keep referring to him as if he’s well known or somehow important, even relevant (!) to the current music scene.  Weird.  He twiddles knobs, people.  It’s not like he’s some badass guitar player or (ha!) songwriter in a legendary metallic hardcore band.  Let’s…

Given the opportunity to write about craft beer every month in Decibel has been eye-opening.

Decibel invites you to start your weekend off right with this exclusive slab of epic, filthy-yet-strangely-beguiling sludge noise perfection from Virginia’s own Akris. The song, “Row of Lights,” is off the band’s forthcoming full-length debut on Domestic Genocide Records. For further information visit Akris’ official website and/or friend them on Facebook.

Yeah yeah yeah, the J-E-T-S, JETS! JETS! JETS! are the joke of the NFL media world. The silly, lap-banded, foot-fetishizing head coach with his man-boy crush on a crappy, metrosexual Rico Suave-like quarterback headline the comedy. Enter the new, Jay-Z-managed, prima donna quarterback, “fighting” for the starting job, adding a considerable amount to the drama….

So, here we are: another year, another season, a new regime. First of all, I want to say that after 14 years of the Andy Reid era, I am quite excited for a new coach. Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing but the utmost respect for Andy, and I thank him for the five…

OK, maybe not quite, though if you do this long enough chances are you’ll be on both ends of hellish interviews. Thankfully, the only thing really wrong with this particular chin wag with From Hell is that it’s been sitting on the back burner for a while, so it may seem more general and vague…

Bloody Hammers obviously have an awesome name, but that Master of Reality-style logo they have (along with the pentagram and naked chick on the cover) may make you think that they’re yet another of the 70s throwback bands that Rise Above keep putting out. Nope! These guys definitely have some pretty black Sabbath running through…

Romanian black metal trio Persekutor’s Angels of Meth was the best album nobody heard in 2006, an anger brownie with hatred frosting. Unfortunately, a protracted legal dispute between the band and its former label Thousand Year Reich over rights to the masters has cast an official stateside release in doubt, and the only official copy…

Metal has always been a global phenomenon. However, one of the communities we don’t hear too much about outside of some fine work by filmmaker Sam Dunn is India. Decibel wanted to get a closer look at what’s going on in India and how globalization and cultural shifts are shaping metal music there. We had…

Avulsed’s supremely excellent death metal splatter platter Ritual Zombi has already received plenty of Deci-love — see Rod Smith’s 8/10 rave in issue 107 and/or my own giddy profile in 108 — so we were more than a little honored when legendary vocalist Dave Rotten offered us the opportunity to premiere the beautiful, nightmarish clip…

There comes a point where progressive is no longer progressive. It’s a step beyond. For Venezuelan guitarist Felix Martin, he’s taken the six-string and transformed it into a 14-string creating what he calls “jazz metal.” Now, if we’re to rewind history a bit, “jazz metal” was already covered—to some degree—by Cynic, Pestilence, and Atheist. But…

by Jason McCash, The Gates of Slumber So begins another campaign for an NFL club full of much history–from the greatest game ever played to housing two of the greatest QBs that ever played the game in Johnny Unitas and Peyton Manning. Many NFL records were and still are held by many players that called…

Gorguts released its long-awaited fifth album today, the band’s first in over 12 years. To celebrate, vocalist/guitarist Luc Lemay decided to take a breather from death metal and reveal a little bit of his softer side, highlighting five songs/pieces of music that show the “beauty and poetry in music.” Once you’re done checking out Luc’s…

Check out all this sonic extremity that German label/distributor Iron Bonehead is trying to drill through your thick skull!  On Friday, we brought you a tasty helping of ugly old school death from Abyssous.  This morning (as some of us return to work from a sun-baked Labor Day weekend) we serve up an entire platter…

by Chris Brock, Early Graves Oh, the Oakland Raiders. What a fucking terrible year they had last year, and this year isn’t looking much better. Unlike their Coliseum-sharing pals, the A’s, they have had no luck in turning a totally shit roster into something golden. Instead, we fans have another painful year to watch under…