There’s a whole lot of scary to live up to when one christens a band The Beast of the Apocalypse, but on Henosis these down and dirty Dutch black metallers give the Dark One a run for his money. The Dictionary of Spiritual Terms defines henosis as “the soul’s purification, accomplished primarily through philosophy, culminates…
Deep in the heart of east central California—that’d be Mono County or to be more specific Mammoth Lakes—lies one of the most enigmatic black metal outfits this side of France. Although Valdur aren’t particularly coy about revealing where they’re from, they’re pretty tight on who they are. Formed in ’03 but fiercely independent—their close affiliation…
Speaking to Terrorizer frontman Anthony “Wolf” Rezhawk just before comeback LP Hordes of Zombies dropped, there was a lot that needed thrashing out. Firstly, there was the prospect of the Californian grind crew getting back together again after founding member Jesse Pintado’s death in 2006. Also, drummer Pete “Commando” Sandoval’s well-publicized back trouble, which has…
Canadian death metal duo Dead Soul Alliance batter and bruise on new album Behind the Scenes. Streaming in brutality only at Decibel!
British black/death immolators Craven Idol deliver Decibel‘s album of the week via Forked Tongues.
Checking out Zarpa Rock’s 1978 album Los 4 Jinetes del Apocalipsis to see if the tunes are as metalhead-friendly as that gruesome cover art.
Decibel staff recommends a collection of hardcore, punk and extreme metal releases for November’s Bandcamp Friday.
This week’s Demo:listen helps to spread the fearsome and powerful sorcery of Seattle black metal duo Kurse Relic.
Revisiting the brilliant bleak hellscape of crust apocalypse that is His Hero Is Gone‘s 1997 album Monuments to Thieves.
Sandra Vungi chats with Decibel about veganism, death metal and more in a new interview.
Norwegian black metallers Djevelkult stream new album “Når Avgrunnen Åpnes.”
Grave Pleasures are this week’s Best New Noise.
If there’s one black metal album that changed black metal—in almost every respect—it’s Dimmu Borgir’s Death Cult Armageddon.
If you didn’t catch Richard Christy’s review in Decibel #136, let me introduce you to the most metal horror film ever: Deathgasm. It’s a Kiwi midnight party flick made for and by metalheads where blackened doom riffs unlock portals to demonic dimensions and “metal up your ass” is less of a threat than a literal promise. We’re talking corpsepaint, monsters, hilarious black metal music video parodies, dildo fights, and enough blood to satiate the most demanding gorehounds.
For “Pestilence By Beemahr” — my short story detailing the grotesque comeuppance a mad perfumer-cum-exterminator receives at the tiny, multitudinous feet of a surprisingly sentient army of flesh-eating gypsy moth caterpillars amidst an egg-web festooned apocalypse, which is available today in the Grey Matter Press rock n’ roll-themed horror anthology Savage Beasts — I drew inspiration from the human-body-as-insect-incubator track “Out of the Body” from Pestilence’s towering sophomore album Consuming Impulse:
These metal mercenaries are coming back with new material, some of which you can hear below in the video they’ve put together, excerpting the new song “CroMagñon” from their forthcoming album Obelisk, and we wanted to hear about where this music was coming from and what the members of Black Table have been up to since we last spoke.
Even though Gruesome “pays homage to death metal’s most celebrated founding American acts, Death” (according to a press release), the band’s tastes in the genre don’t stop and end there. That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given that the group features members of Exhumed (Deci-fav Matt Harvey), Possessed, Malevolent Creation and Derketa. So while Savage Land, the quartet’s debut, may sound very Schuldiner-esque, guitarist Dan Gonzalez was kind enough to tell us about some other death metal bands.
Ask writer/director/provocateur extraordinaire Adam Ahlbrandt for his job description and here is what he’ll tell you: “I make audio/visual filth, gore, death and sleaze.” This is no idle boast as anyone who has seen either Ahlbrandt’s uncompromising, viscera-festooned feature-length films — Cross Bearer (2012); The Cemetery (2013) — or his nightmarish music videos for band…
This was a week where the heavily hyped albums and hive mind faves were few and far between, forcing a metal critic to – gasp – do some actual digging. And there is indeed some interesting stuff out there, including work by some old German veterans I’d counted out long ago, a children’s deathcore band…
Welcome to Tales From the Metalnomicon, a twice-monthly column delving into the surprisingly vast world of heavy metal-tinged/inspired literature and metalhead authors… Tales first encountered the infernally enchanting work of James Newman when the stalwart badasses over at Shock Totem re-released his uber-excellent “ode to 1980s horror” The Wicked last year, and subsequent forays into…