Chris Dick

Post-punk aficionados Soft Kill feel the weight of Tom Petty’s recent passing. To cope and to honor the legendary musician, Soft Kill have covered “Insider” off Petty’s “Hard Promises” album.

The passing of Black Mark Production’s Stig Börje “Boss” Forsberg is remembered, along with the publication of Forsberg’s last-ever words on Bathory’s Under the Sign of the Black Mark.

Drummer Dirk Verbeuren details the five most complicated Megadeth songs to play past and present.

Legendary producer, engineer and musician Bob Rock discusses working with Metallica and the way that producing records has evolved over time.

Decibel sits down with Implore bassist/vocalist Gabriel ‘Gabbo’ Dubko to find out more from one of the best new bands on the planet. “Subjugate” is a must-hear!

Get ready for a dive into the darkest depths of death metal’s extended play past with Decibel. We’ll provide the oxygen, you provide the courage.

Certainly, lists polarize, but if anything’s accomplished from this piece it’s awareness of 5 top-level string-burners and their music. Time to thrash ’em all!

Let Cloak take you “Beyond the Veil.”

Stunned by Horrified’s awesomeness (potential Top 10 here), we begged and pleaded (actually, we asked) to premiere a track off “Allure of the Fallen” for the Deci-masses. You’re welcome.

The making of Prong‘s Beg to Differ.

Decibel caught up with Tribulation guitarist Jonathan Hultén about his first solo singer-songwriter record, due out this month.

From musical influences like Mercyful Fate, Slayer, and Possessed to filmic influences like Hammer Horror, Sweden’s Vampire are taking death metal into the abyss. Formed in 2011 in Gothenburg, the Swedes — helmed by drummer (now vocalist) Hand of Doom and guitarist Black String — quickly impressed, with the group’s 2012 self-titled demo garnering heavy…

When Swedish supergroup–members also call Entombed A.D., Unleashed, Necrophobic, Usurpress home–Fireborn phoenixed into Firespawn in 2015, few expected such proficient, punishing death metal. The band’s debut, “Shadow Realms”, took the tenets of classic sounds, Stockholm and Tampa Bay, and twisted them into a nastier, more incendiary style. Thus, Firespawn was born! Two years after “Shadow…

There’s nothing cooler than a logo, a mark, an emblem. From extreme music’s inception, artists–thrash metal, grindcore, death metal, doom metal, black metal, etc.–have placed a heavy weight on their logos. Some are immediately recognizable (like Metallica, Death, Morbid Angel, Napalm Death, Cathedral), some aren’t so cleverly designed. Over the years, Decibel has top-listed logos for our most favorite of extremely extreme genres. Today, we dissect and pontificate on the Top 5 Grindcore Logos. Music isn’t considered as part of the findings, as that would unfairly settle the list. So, find out who tops our list. And argue about it.

After 20 years later in the grave, Chile’s Death Yell has reformed. Not only to exact revenge on the time away from the molten metal spotlight but to issue the band’s first album, Descent into Hell. Now signed to Hells Headbangers, the Chileans are using their time wisely, focusing on reality instead of fantasy. Hell is real, and Death Yell have returned to remind us.

Ewigkeit‘s last album, 2013’s Back to Beyond, was released on a little known label called D.T.M. Productions (also home to Jaldaboath). To say it went under the radar is a massive understatement. Nevertheless, with the recent resurrection of Norwegians In the Woods…, in which Mr. Fog (aka James Fogarty) is new frontman, spawned yet another resurrection. See, prior to the Fogarty replacing Jan Kenneth Transeth, he had, from a certain vantage point, put his long labor of love Ewigkeit on hiatus.

There are musical surprises. And then there are musical surprises. Valborg aren’t an easy band to peg. The band from Bonn, Germany have tried the patience of categorization from their inception in 2002. Valborg’s debut album, Glorification of Pain, continues to stupefy, confound, and amaze. That was eight years ago. Since Glorification of Pain, the Germans have made five more stunning, left-of-center albums, the latest of which is the brutal brain scratcher, Endstrand.

Sacred cows have been slain before. They’ll be slain again. Today, we’re not butchering yet another divine bovine (not in total, we’d be nuts and in poor taste), but rather turning the tables on last week’s Bathory post, where we unsheath our Bathory collection (from 1984’s Bathory to 1988’s Blood Fire Death) listening for Quorthon’s sonic hell-born warts.

Lists polarize. There, we said it. We’re click-baiting just like the big guns. Other websites lede (yes, lede) with must-click, must-share titles like: “Killswitch Engage Caught On Tape Stealing Soilwork Roadmap” or “Burzum’s Varg Launches Role-Playing Game” (well, that actually happened) or “Ozzy’s Six-Decade Sex Addiction — All The Sordid Details Inside!” Here at Decibel, we care enough to bait you with things like The Top 5 Bathory Songs… After Twilight of the Gods.

The last time we talked to Farsot, bassist/keyboardist v.03/170 was fielding our inquiries into the band’s inner workings. The Germans had just released their second album, 2011’s stupendous Insects, and we here at Decibel were obsessed with what made the landmark effort tick. Now, seven years later, we inquire about album of the year contender (my opinion, natch) in Fail-Lure.

“I do not know if we can talk about concept because it really reflects our life concretely,” says Khaos-Dei vocalist Nacht. “Catechism is the natural evolution of our first album.

Look up the word ‘kafirun’. In Arabic, it translates to ‘unbeliever’ or ‘atheist’, but Canada’s most violent black metallers Kafirun aren’t addressing Islam or its treatment of Al-Kafirun on debut album, Eschaton.

For Greece-based Acherontas, it would seem as if black metal, as a genre, is secondary to the devotional aspects of what drives, inspires, and fulfills their physical and incorporeal beings.

The 1990s have come and gone. The greatness of Immortal, Emperor, Dissection, Unanimated, and others is now history. The cruel sands of time are slowly ebbing away at the monuments erected by the gods of old. But as it was so it will be. California’s Highland, formed by three Armenian-Americans, are standing for the ways of the past by thrusting it, via scorching melodic black metal, into the present.

Sweden’s Gravehammer met its maker in 2010. Despite the group only issuing a lone EP, 2010’s Ensnared in Dismal Blasphemies, the Gothenburgers were well on their way to Nordic infamy, their hybridization of death, black, and thrash metal on either end of Decameron, Grotesque, and vintage Kreator. Now, known as Ensnared, the Swedes have taken what they learned on the fiery path with Gravehammer into new depths of darkness, where the horns of Hell blare violently and incessantly, where the air is insufferably hot and smells of brimstone cooking in the vast ovens of the underworld.

We’ve been hitting Soft Kill‘s newest album, Choke, hard for almost six months now. When Choke smashed into winter 2016, it immediately reminded of UK legends The Chameleons (Script of the Bridge is a genuine deserted island-type record), French mopers Asylum Party (whose Borderline album is a must-hear), and Belgian treasure obscure The Names, whose single “Nightshift” went on to inspire contemporary pop-prog outfit like Mew.

Some bands are formed from friendships. Some bands are formed out of necessity. Some bands form a bond based off past relationships. For England’s Memoriam, featuring current and ex-members of Benediction and Bolt Thrower, the circumstances around their 2015 formation is the result of all three aforementioned scenarios.

Throughout rock ‘n’ roll history (we’re talking proto-metal here), J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have influenced heavily. Whether it’s lyrical references or inspiration — such as Led Zeppelin‘s “The Battle of Evermore” and “Ramble On” or Rush‘s “The Necromancer” and Rivendell” or Black Sabbath‘s “The Wizard” — or bands taking Tolkien-named places, things, persons to call their own, rock, metal, and all their relevant sub-genres owe much to Tolkien. Death metal and black metal, of course, are no exception.

Thrash metal’s new wave of ‘bangers are obviously cuing off benchmarks and milestones set in the ’80s and ’90s. To wit, Denver-based riff-slayers Havok originally formed as a nod to their favorite bands and records, but over time (or four full-length albums) they’ve come into their own.

The subject header from Albert read: “top 5 idea”. The body read: “The greatest death metal albums marred by terrible production.” He then presents three albums, Reek of Putrefaction,  The Red in the Sky is Ours, and Breeding the Spawn. Immediately, I recognized a gold post idea if there ever was one.