Adrien Begrand

Video Premiere: Unto Others, “When Will Gods Work Be Done”

June 16, 2021

Portland goth-flavored metallers Unto Others—formerly Idle Hands—return with a new name, a new label and new music.

Album Review: Sepultura – ‘Quadra’

January 28, 2020

Sepultura‘s latest, Quadra, is Decibel‘s album of the week.

Album Review: Abbath – ‘Outstrider’

July 5, 2019

Goodnight Wintermoon – the former Immortal frontman emerges from the cold with album #2.

Album Review: Lucifer – “Lucifer II”

July 3, 2018

Lucifer pay tribute to the heavy rock and proto-metal of decades past on their aptly-titled second album, Lucifer II.

Inside the Lovecraftian Hesher Madness of Nathan Carson’s ‘Starr Creek’

January 13, 2017

In just 163 pages Nathan Carson’s new novella Starr Creek brings together hesher teens, D&D-obsessed 11 year-olds, bikers, cult members, hillbillies, a crazy demonic goat, a hell of a lot of drugs, and a big monster in a crazed collision of Lovecraftian weirdness and, best of all, macabre fun.

Goes Cube

November 21, 2016

Shadows Swallowed the Flood
One more for the road
dB rating: 8/10

Wretch

August 29, 2016

Wretch
A master’s return
dB rating: 8/10

Video Premiere: Psalm Zero – “Not Guilty”

July 6, 2016

On July 15 New York City band Psalm Zero will release their second full-length Stranger to Violence on Profound Lore Records. If you’re not familiar already, we’re great admirers of singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Charlie Looker’s project, which beautifully blends the martial, industrial tones of Godflesh, the post-punk melancholy of Depeche Mode, and the rainy-day doom ‘n’ gloom of Katatonia.

Shining

December 7, 2015

International Blackjazz Society
Blackjazz hands!
dB Rating: 8/10

Introducing: Luminous Vault

October 30, 2015

Metal writers have so little time to devote to new music that you think you can win us over by playing up your lack of image, persona, willingness to be antisocial as a way of looking “dangerous” and “mysterious”? Come on.

But then you get one recording in your inbox that compels you to try it out, and lo and behold, it winds up being one of the biggest revelations of the year.

Video Premiere: Psalm Zero – “Hunchback”

September 18, 2015

Earlier this year Brooklyn duo Psalm Zero released Real Rain, the first of a planned trilogy of special cassette releases called The Birthright Trilogy. Five months later avant-garde stalwart Charlie Looker and guitar genius Andrew Hock (if you read Decibel you know who Castevet are) have returned with the second installation, Hunchback, which will be released September 29 on Black Mass Productions.

Lucifer

June 22, 2015

Lucifer I
New partner, same dance, better result
dB Rating: 9/10

Track Premiere: Clouds Collide, “Perihelion”

May 13, 2015

Clouds Collide is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Chris Pandolfo of Allentown Pennsylvania, and has been steadily showing tremendous promise when it comes to the soaring, epic “metalgaze” pioneered by Alcest and made popular by Deafheaven. The great thing about Clouds Collide is that Pandolfo has used those influences in a constructive way rather then simply imitate, a great example being the 2013 debut full-length Until the Wind Stops Blowing…, a heartfelt tribute to his late mother that was equal parts agony, reflected in the searing black metal passages, and wistfulness, heard in moments that dared to approach the majesty of Ride.

Track Premiere: Akitsa, “Noire Bête Ailée”

May 6, 2015

Helmed by a fellow who goes by the name of Outre-Tombe, Akitsa is one of many bands to help create the fertile Québécois black metal underground that you see before you today. It just so happens Akitsa has a new full-length album Grands Tyrans coming out – its fifth, to be exact – this coming June 2 on New York’s great avant-garde label Hospital Productions.

Hall of Fame Countdown: Slayer’s Reign in Blood

April 30, 2015

There are not many perfect albums in heavy metal history, but Slayer’s Reign in Blood is one of them. Personally, in this writer’s opinion, when it comes to the greatest metal album of all time, it’s a toss-up between Reign in Blood, Master of Puppets, Ride the Lightning, and Paranoid. We’re dealing with an untouchable album here. Well, near untouchable, as Decibel’s Andrew Bonazelli had the brilliant idea for a new way for us to argue about our favorite metal records: why not rank the songs on each Decibel Hall of Fame inductee? Sure, why not?

Defensible Power Metal: Magic Kingdom

April 29, 2015

As I once wrote in an old issue of Decibel, give one positive review of a Fairyland album, and you’re branded for life. 

Hall of Fame Countdown: Slayer’s Reign in Blood

April 28, 2015

There are not many perfect albums in heavy metal history, but Slayer’s Reign in Blood is one of them. In this writer’s opinion, when it comes to the greatest metal album of all time, it’s a toss-up between Reign in BloodMaster of PuppetsRide the Lightning, and Paranoid. We’re dealing with an untouchable album here. Well, near untouchable, as Decibel’s Andrew Bonazelli had the brilliant/insane idea for a new way for us to argue about our favorite metal records: why not rank the songs on each Decibel Hall of Fame inductee? Sure, why not?

Undersmile: The Best Band at Roadburn a Certain Writer Didn’t See

April 22, 2015

When you attend Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, The Netherlands, you’re going to have to make some difficult choices, because with four separate venues going at the same time, you are not going to see all bands. Especially if you’re like me, and are such a total fanboy when it comes to a handful of acts that you insist on seeing their complete set. 

Kjetil-Vidar “Frost” Haraldstad on Satyricon’s Night at the Opera

April 15, 2015

Back on September 8, 2013 Satyricon staged a special show at the Oslo Opera House in Oslo, Norway, in which the black metal veterans performed alongside the Norwegian National Opera Chorus. The end result was exactly what anyone would expect, the band’s distinct music given more drama and gravitas thanks to the haunting vocals by the 60-member choir. The concert was filmed and recorded, and on May 1 Napalm Records will be releasing Live at the Opera as a special DVD/CD package. It’s a spellbinding performance – check out the performance of “Die By My Hand” after the jump – and we recently caught up with drummer Frost to talk about this release, and what’s next for Satyricon.

Read the interview and check out the video after the jump. 

Track Premiere: Deathwish, “Deathwish”

April 8, 2015

If you’re a regular Decibel reader, your ears probably perk up upon hearing the name “Deathwish”, thanks to a certain record label of the same name that consistently puts out quality extreme metal and hardcore. I’m going to have to ask you to just put aside those thoughts about Deafheaven and Code Orange for the…

Liturgy Channel Gustave Doré in Stunning New Video

April 1, 2015

So rarely do we get music videos that successfully provide visuals that equal the grandeur of extreme metal, but it’s slowly starting to happen, and the new video for Liturgy’s “Quetzalcoatl”, from the excellent new album The Ark Work, is a stunner. Created by Japanese “anonymous contemporary art concept” Aujik, the clip takes a simple…

Track Premiere: Royal Thunder, “Forgive Me, Karma”

March 25, 2015

Atlanta foursome Royal Thunder will be releasing Crooked Doors, the much-anticipated – and outstanding – follow-up to 2012’s standout CVI on April 7 via Relapse, but in the meantime the band has steadily been premiering new songs across the metal/hard rock internet, and today it’s our turn. Not only that, but we’ve been given one…

Kult of the Wizard is Anything but Heartless

March 18, 2015

Hailing from Minneapolis, Kult of the Wizard quietly put out a pair of instrumental EPs in 2013 and 2014, but the foursome’s latest EP, The White Wizard, deserves to attract a good deal of attention from the doom crowd, especially those who are especially transfixed by the melodic tones, occult themes, and blues influences of…

Rejoice, Thrash Fans: Razor Reissues Are Imminent

March 11, 2015

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…

Mammoth Mammoth’s Chris Holmes Tribute

March 4, 2015

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…

Video Premiere: Apocalyptica, “Cold Blood”

February 26, 2015

It’s incredible to think that a band that burst on to the scene with a novel collection of Metallica covers on cello has not only managed to out together a career lasting two decades, but has built itself into an incredibly popular act. Although they’ve been an active touring band, it’s been five years since…

Track Premiere: Acid King, “Red River”

February 25, 2015

A full decade after the release of Acid King’s aptly named third album III, the San Francisco trio is set to make a triumphant return with the excellent new full-length Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere. It’s a record that fulfills the band’s promise of a sound they describe so accurately as “like riding a…

Meet John Hurkes, Metal Chef Extraordinaire

February 18, 2015

If you frequent metal blogs, and for our sake we at Decibel sure hope you do, you might remember the Slayer pizza that attracted some notoriety last year. Hell, the “raining blood from a lacerated pie” line still cracks me up. Anyway, the mastermind behind the most metal pizza ever, Minneapolis-based Chef John Hurkes, has…