Adem Tepedelen

For whatever reason, when people talk about influential metal scenes of yore, the L.A.area  just doesn’t seem to get the credit it’s due. Sure, the whole Hollywood/Sunset Strip glam thing left its mark in the mid-’80s, but some of the world’s biggest and influential, ahem, “real” metal bands arose from the L.A. area much earlier…

Leslie West will never be known as the “Eric Bedard of heavy rock.” The former Mountain guitarist/vocalist, who’s now well into his 60s, is apparently un-fucking-stoppable. Mere weeks ago the brother, who is diabetic, had to have emergency surgery to amputate one of his legs just below the knee. For most 60-something guitarists that would…

Unearth and the generous folks at Metal Blade Records have provided us with a little swag to give away to celebrate the recent release of the band’s new album, Darkness in the Light, and their current stint on the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival tour making the rounds through the middle of August (see dates…

It’s a well-established fact that we like to drink beer and listen to metal. But second only to that pursuit is being able to talk brewskis with other like-minded beer geeks. So upon hearing that Tombs bassist Carson Daniel James is an equally devout barley-pop imbiber, we called him to talk (and drink) beer. Decibel…

Zymurgy magazine recently revealed the “Best Beers in America,” a list derived from more than 28,000 votes from readers around the world. While Russian River’s Pliny the Elder imperial IPA topped the list for the third year in a row, Stone Brewing, of Escondido, California placed three of their brewtally named beers—Arrogant Bastard, Ruination and…

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, every Wednesday morning, a Decibel staffer or special guest will take to the Deciblog to bitch and moan at length as to why everybody’s full of shit and said dud is, in fact, The…

In which we re-assess Slayer‘s 1998 flirtation with nu metal. 

In 1985, any punk band with the temerity to add metal elements to their sound were rather haphazardly lumped into the “crossover” category.

The decision to induct Venom’s debut, Welcome to Hell, rather than the band’s second album, Black Metal, came down to one simple fact: there would be no Black Metal—the album or the genre—were it not for Welcome to Hell.

Because Angel Witch’s debut turned out to be not only their best album, but the only one recorded with anything resembling a stable lineup, it seems all the more precious today.

After 60-plus Hall of Fame inductions, one thing that stands out is that precious few of those albums contain and are best known for a single truly classic song.

It’s strange that the one of the cornerstones of doom is actually one of the most lyrically positive albums in the entire secular metal canon.

It’s hard to say who was more shocked—punks or metalheads—by hardcore band D.R.I. signing with Metal Blade Records via the label’s new Death Records imprint in 1985.

In 1985, the hardcore punk and metal scenes were like the pre-Civil Rights deep South: segregated. The two just didn’t mix.

As far as Hall of Fame inductees go, the making of Black Sabbath’s ninth album, their first with former Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio, easily ranks as one of the most drama-filled.

It’s a stretch to call Diamond Head’s 1980 debut, Lightning to the Nations, “extreme” metal. In their era, the über-influential New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Diamond Head—four teenage mates from Stourbridge, England—were well-respected practitioners of a burgeoning new form of metal that was brash, raw and relatively fast.