History

Decibel Magazine is the world’s foremost heavy metal authority. Based in Philadelphia, PA, we have never deviated from our original mission of exploring the past, present and future of extreme music. Since our debut issue (October 2004), Decibel has exhibited an insatiable curiosity for all things heavy, covering both the underground and mainstream with painstaking obsession and irreverent humor.

Each month, we treat our loyal readers to dynamic exclusive content. The Decibel Hall of Fame offers comprehensive oral histories on the greatest metal albums of all time, and has already been partially anthologized in our now out-of-print Precious Metal: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces. The Decibel Flexi Series (profiled in NPR) gives subscribers a new, ultra-limited vinyl flexi disc included with the magazine every month—each one featuring exclusive music from your favorite artists in the form of previously unreleased tracks, covers, live songs, demos, alternate takes, re-recordings and more. In addition to our head-turning cover stories, we take time to tackle controversial issues (the relationship between metal and National Socialism) and champion the underserved (spotlighting both women’s and the LGBTQ community’s place in metal), all the while remembering to have fun (our Cannibal Corpse-headlined “zombie issue”).

Our renowned print edition notwithstanding, the plague of Decibel continues to spread. The Decibel Magazine Tour has unleashed six exceptionally-curated national tours across North America, headlined by the likes of multiple cover stars Kreator, Behemoth, Cannibal Corpse, Abbath, Carcass and At the Gates. After publishing the first monthly craft beer column in a music magazine back in 2009, we have continued to foster the relationship between craft beer and extreme metal by launching the inaugural Decibel Metal & Beer Fest in 2017, showcasing internationally acclaimed craft breweries like Unibroue and Three Floyds along side some of extreme music’s finest such as Sleep and Agoraphobic Nosebleed for a one-of-a-kind annual event.

Doubt our expertise? Our founder and editor-in-chief, Albert Mudrian, wrote the book on death metal and grindcore, 2004’s Choosing Death, which we’ve reissued in 2015 in revised and expanded form under our new imprint, Decibel Books. Since then, we’ve also published titles from authors Dayal Patterson (Black Metal: The Cult Never Dies: Vol. 1) and Mark Rudolph (Metal Gods: A Tribute to Judas Priest) and well as our second Hall of Fame collection (The Decibel Hall of Fame Anthology: Vol II).

What does the future hold? Expect more diversification. Expect us to keep it true. Only print is real.