Month: March 2015

What will the neighbors think? After a bit of recent onstage drama Trey Oswald is out as the vocalist of Reagan Youth — “Please go get help that you so desperately need,” the “members” section of the band’s Facebook page not-so-subtly reads — and former Dead Kennedy’s frontman/punk rock documentarian Jeff Penalty is in. “There’s…

**Matt Olivo is the founding guitarist of extreme metal trailblazers Repulsion, whose Horrified LP ranks as Decibel’s #1 grindcore album of all time. Because we know that every reader ever plays guitar, we brought his print column to the Deciblog. In issue #115 Matt gave his feedback on Esoterik guitars, which “offer uncommon boutique intrigue.”…

What’s up, motherpeckers? The releases are coming fast and furious, but maybe your old pal Waldo is a little jaded and would like to review some stuff that I don’t need to birdshit all over. Well, anyway, let’s get to it. First off, we have the supergroup FULGORA from the frosty nether-regions of, well, Baltimore and…

Camping in the wooded wilderness; submitting to nature’s glories, mercies and otherwise; indulging in extreme metal.  We know what you’re thinking:  Time for another plane ticket to the Pacific Northwest.  Or to Norway. But no!  The Shadow Woods Metal Fest, planned for September 25-27 in beautiful (and probably seasonally chilly) Fannettsburg, Pennsylvania, will be held…

Here, we continue with the third of four weeks dedicated to Relapse-related interviews in celebration of the label’s 25th anniversary. Go check out the interview I did with founder and president, Matt Jacobson here and here. Beyond interviewing Matt himself, the next most obvious thing would have been to track down bands past and present…

Definitely a golden age for hard rock right there, capped off in fitting form in December 1971 by one of the ultimate “cult classics”: Bang’s self-titled debut.

It’s been busy times for Detroit’s Child Bite. The band has been writing new songs in anticipation of hitting the studio with Philip H. Anselmo down in NOLA later this year. Then there’s the fact that the group will appear on the upcoming musical “supplement” to the Morbid Tales! An Illustrated Tribute to Celtic Frost…

Long before guitarist Ryan Butler joined Landmine Marathon he played with the Phoenix hardcore band Unruh. During their five-year run (from 1995 to 2000) they released multiple demos, two albums and toured widely. In addition to seeding Landmine they birthed a rogue’s gallery of Arizona hardcore bands. Unruh recently celebrated their 20-year anniversary with a…

Sonically, Akhlys differs from Nightbringer, but what separates the two entities spiritually? Naas Alcameth: The subject matter of Akhlys is specific to certain dream and para-somnic experiences and their situation and importance within esotericism. All lyrics for The Dreaming I were inspired directly from my own dream experiences I have journaled over the last decade…

Having spent my teen years obsessing over thrash metal in Canada during the 1980s, the question’s come up 35 years later about what would Canada’s own Big Four of thrash be? For me, it’ll always be Sacrifice, Annihilator, Infernal Majesty, and the best of them all, Guelph, Ontario’s own Razor (sorry, Eudoxis). While Sacrifice is…

If you’re into heaviness and weirdness, you’ve come to the right place. No, not the Decibel blog, although there’s certainly no lack of weirdos here; I’m talking about Flummox. This power trio clearly digs Primus, Mr. Bungle, and Mastodon, and their first full length takes them to some unusual places. To their credit, despite some…

Toward the end of our conversation with Christopher Mazeika — proprietor and high priest of Philadelphia’s badass new temple of all that is extremely extreme, Vinyl Altar — we inquire how closely his life resembles what we saw/read in High Fidelity. It’s kind of an offhand, silly question, but what Mazeika gives us in response…

Tad Doyle has preached the Gospel of heaviness for the better part of his life. His seminal band TAD was one of the first out of the gate in Seattle’s grunge movement and one of the earliest bands signed to the legendary Sub Pop label. Although they never achieved the massive crossover success of their…

Long-running UK metallers Hellbastard have two basic planks in their party platform: 1. “Support the underdog & hail the mighty riff.” 2. “Raise hell and rock the fuck out.” Both of these admirable attributes are on display in this double-barrel exclusive premieres (!) of both the band’s trailer for the sure-to-be-sick upcoming album Feral… …and…

** 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….

Last year, Mutoid Man slammed our faces into various solid objects by blasting on to the scene with their Helium Head EP. The quality of high-octane punky, rocking prog metal quickly saw them outgrowing their selling point as a simple side project of Stephen [Cave In] Brodsky and Ben [Converge] Koller to become a propulsive…

One look at the cover art for Enforcer’s new album, From Beyond, and it’s pretty clear the Swedes wish they were living in 1983. From the sci-fi D&D skull creature to the Tempest-ized Enforcer logo, it all screams early ’80s. Get under the presentation and, well, it’s still ’80s. “From Beyond” jets like a V-8…

Today we bring you an exclusive video premiere by Italian death/thrashers Krysantemia, celebrating the advent of their third album, Finis Dierum, on Memorial Records.  The band’s blustery/blistering confluence of influences has seen them perform alongside Obituary, Rotting Christ and Kataklysm, and is right now crisscrossing Europe in support of warmongers Marduk.  The new album was recorded…

Ok, this is the second part of our interview with Relapse’s El Presidente, Matt Jacobson. Go here for part one from last week and a bit more of a thorough explanation about this being done in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the label, even if the last part of this half of the interview…

Decibel Hall of Famers Sick of it All don’t require much of an introduction, so let’s just say it’s an extremely extreme honor to present the exclusive premiere of the NYHC legends’ video for “Get Bronx” off the recent hardcore scorcher The Last Act of Defiance and get on with the show…

I’d been stoked to hear the new full-length from Ruby the Hatchet ever since I saw them open for Floor in early 2014. Now that it’s dropped, I’ve been jamming Valley of the Snake on a daily basis — it’s one of the more enjoyable “debuts” (it’s the band’s second record but first label release)…

If you like filth, boy do we have a split for you!  New York sludge/hardcore/softball aficionados Mortals and Philadelphia crust scumbags Repellers have teamed up to deliver four tracks of total nastiness straight to your face. You know why this is so fucking good? Groove, and lots of it. Both bands traffic in unpleasantness, but…

While you might hear an awful lot about society’s ills in metal you don’t hear about the plight of rural America too often. But the harsh realities of Appalachia provide much of the inspiration for Byzantine’s take on thrash, particularly on “The Agonies,” the song we’re premiering today. Frontman Chris Ojeda explains: “The Agonies” is…

We interrupt your regularly scheduled headbanging to bring you an exciting revelation. This year, on Saturday, April 18–known to the western world as “Record Store Day”–American thrash metal legends Metallica will reissue their demo, No Life ‘Til Leather. What’s more, the demo will be reissued on its original format, a limited-edition cassette! Metallica’s own label,…

Who can ever forget that moment in Penelope Spheeris’s The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2: The Metal Years, when then-W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes did an interview while drunkenly floating in a swimming pool, presumably guzzling vodka while his embarrassed mother sat nearby? Although that interview was staged, it remains one of the defining portraits…

Last week in a rare over-ground win for underground art and authenticity the preconceived notion-smashing At the Gates comeback record At War With Reality won the Swedish Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal Album of 2014. We, of course, would like to believe this is at least in part the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s…

Tech death. It has lyrics. Generally they are hard to notice underneath the infinite pretzel knots of the instruments, but they are there. This lyric video from Continuum proves it. Of course, said lyrics sound like technobabble from 1970s Marvel cosmic comics, but they exist! Continuum is the brainchild of Chase Fraser (Decrepit Birth, Animosity),…

There is a whole motherfucking lot to recommend Berserker II: The insane line-up (see flyer below), a punk rock “swap meat” hosted by Tesco Vee of the Meatmen, a sweet ass T-shirt designed by Decibel‘s own Mark Rudolph, etcetera… We recently reached out to fest organizer/Child Bite vocalist/guitarist Shawn Knight to get the inside scoop…

It’s hardly a news flash — particularly if you read Neill Jameson’s reports from his time as a record store clerk — but physical music is either in its death throes or experiencing a painful rebirth. Whether it’s A or B depends on who is involved in the conversation. Aqualamb Records is banking on the…

The upcoming self-titled full-length from Tasmanian tech-death wrecking crew Psycroptic really brings the band’s brand of manic, virtuoso brutality to another level. But don’t take our word for it — delve into the entire aural beast below. And then head over to Prosthetic to pre-order yourself a copy of this brain scrambler. Check out the…