Chris Dick

Ulver traded their wolves’ skin for electronica and trip-hop 16 years ago. Are you over it yet?

Reach negative enlightenment and reignite the blaze of evil (typical Monday goals, obviously) with this stream from Norwegian black metallers Tortorum.

Pure
Not-so-strange in stereo
dB rating: 8/10

To a small number of people, Eucharist are legends. They were, in effect, part of the new wave of Swedish death metal, where outright brutality was replaced by cleverly designed aggression and insane heaviness was supplanted by unheard of musicality. That Eucharist, for a spell, shared rehearsal space with early incarnations of At the Gates and Dissection should speak volumes. And it does.

If there’s one album in 2016 that deserves top honors but is likely to not get noticed it’s the new Hammers of Misfortune platter, Dead Revolution.

Ode to the Flame sounds like a typical Nuclear Blast release. A valiant knight astride a white armored horse. The knight’s hand is aloft, in it he’s holding a great flaming sword, for which he’ll use to the slay the malignant flying beast perched behind him on the top of a snow-capped mountain. But Ode to the Flame isn’t a typical Nuclear Blast release. Not by its cover or band the band, Mantar, that created it.

Far more prevalent now than ever before. Decibel flips through the musty pages of history to highlight the Top 5 Norwegian Death Metal Albums Of All Time.

2016 is the year progressive metal emerged from its long-standing shadow. The genre, long associated with haughtiness and a self-serving nature (music for musicians), is far more advanced now. So too are its audience and exposure points. This brings us to progressive metal stalwarts Redemption, a band that’s enthralled smart-minded music fans since its eponymous debut hit shelves (actual store shelves) in 2003.

Belgian death-grind outfit Aborted just celebrated their 20th Anniversary. Well, last year they did. But think of it. 20 years of death, grind, and chopping up listeners into little sanguine bits. The group’s new album, Retrogore, isn’t too far removed from its predecessors, but where it stands on its own, is in the songwriting.

Flashback 1982. Hollywood, California. The various members of newly formed W.A.S.P., still high on George Miller’s Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior aesthetic, are in a friend’s metal shop.

From England to Florida, from Tokyo to Oslo, from Australia to San Francisco, postal workers were the bandwidth by which death metal, black metal, doom metal, and every other underground form of metal communicated. Open a letter and out poured legion! Here’s a tribute to Decibel‘s fave old-school fliers.

Ohio post-metal/rock outfit If These Trees Could Talk are the latest sensation on Metal Blade. A label normally known for its heavy metal, death metal is experiencing a growth spurt into other genres–not unlike its ventures into rock in the ’90s, with the Ohioans leading the charge. 

We sit down with the Wretched End‘s Samoth to discuss In These Woods, From These Mountains and why it’s different from its applauded predecessors.

After 21 years of housing some of the finest metal acts known to mankind, British label Music For Nations closed shop in 2004. The label was folded in Sony Entertainment’s Zomba Record Group and mothballed until last year when Sony rekindled the legendary label’s fire.  So, we’re celebrating with an essential Top 10. 

Read on as we interrogate Convulse leader Rami Jämsä.

Since 1990, Sweden’s Centinex, despite a brief breakup, have ruled underground death metal with an iron fist. With stints on labels like Underground Records, Emanzipation Productions, Repulse Records, Candlelight Records, and now Agonia Records, the merchants of death have kept their profile six feet under while continuing to wave the maggot-infested flag of true death metal.

Is The Book of Opeth essentially a glorified biography with slightly more detail than what used to be on Opeth‘s website? Decibel reviews. 

The grandiose, striking and remarkable rush forth mere minutes into Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk’s prologue “Alsvartr (the Oath).” Nightmarish berceuses haunt mercilessly from the darkest corners of imagination, while frontman Ihsahn poetically invokes the illustrious nightspirit, as if there’s ordinary business in need of attending on the edge of town.

Every year, we travel to Baltimore  for Maryland Deathfest, easily the best run festival for underground metal to grace America. Here are five of my memorable moments at MDF 2016. Music-related missives are forthcoming in the August 2016 issue of Decibel.

Digital artist Stephan Dreadford accidentally fell into the craft of animating famous heavy metal cover art. The single incident, which involved doing animated cover art for social media for his brother’s band, has now pushed Dreadford down a very cool path. Over a very short time, Dreadford has animated numerous cover paintings, turning them into moving pieces of awesome–by such artists as Ed Repka to Andreas Marshall–from static greatness. Dreadford’s vision has put into–well, actual–motion covers by Judas Priest, Sodom, Blind Guardian, Helloween, Pantera, Kreator, and many more. He sees the art like we all do… Living, breathing covers, but instead of using our imaginations to see where, for example, Mark Wilkinson (cover artist for Painkiller) wanted go, Dreadford does it for us. Read on as we extol the virtues of Dreadford’s GIF prowess.

** Sweden’s In Mourning are one of the country’s most unsung death metal acts–melodic, if you’re looking for an additional qualifier. Formed in 2000, the band took a good eight years before inking a deal with Norwegian indie Aftermath Music. Two years later, In Mourning dropped Monolith on the Pulverised label to great acclaim. But it wouldn’t be until 2012’s The Weight of Oceans where the Swedes found their sound and audience. Moored by the indomitable “A Vow to Conquer the Ocean”, In Mourning’s third album crushed Year End Lists and set the stage for In Mourning to take on the mantle Opeth left behind on the Heritage effort. Well, In Mourning have returned with Afterglow, an album four years in the making. With the drummer Daniel Liljekvist (ex-Katatonia) and a pack of killer songs in “Below Rise To The Above”, “Fire and Ocean”, and 10-minute monster “The Grinning Mist”. Decibel found guitarist Björn Pettersson prepping for the release of Afterglow.

Endless Pilgrimage
A time to kill, a time to heal.
dB Rating: 8/10

** Behemoth frontman Nergal and Decibel have a long history. From Behemoth’s first cover in August 2007 [HERE], to the group’s covers thereafter [HERE and HERE] to headlining the first Decibel tour in 2012, the Poles have occupied a special place in our dark hearts. And let’s face it. They belong there [in our dark hearts]. From the group’s humble beginnings as a Mayhem and Root cover band–more or less–to the stupendous The Satanist album, Behemoth have come a long way from the alleys of Gdansk to the top of extreme metal’s global heap. Decibel caught up with Nergal on the group’s The Satanist tour, where we asked the single more important question there is to ask.

** Twenty-two years. That’s how long Dark Funeral has been at it. It, being black metal. It, being the black metal lifestyle. It, being two EPs and six full-lengths, going back to 1994, when black metal wasn’t hip in your neck of the woods (unless it’s Olso, Bergen, or Stockholm). For the past seven years, the Swedes have been writing new album, Where Shadows Forever Reign. They’ve changed vocalists, with Emperor Magus Caligula exiting after 15 years of service to be replaced by Heljarmadr (Cursed 13). New drummer Dominator (The Wretched End) is an inspired blast machine. And bassist Natt (Angrepp) rumbles Lucifer’s great thunder. Reinforced with dark legions, Dark Funeral will take Where Shadows Forever Reign across the globe. Rise… Legions!

Glorior Belli‘s flipped black metal’s atavistic script not once but six times since forming in 2002. Leader and intrepid boundary breaker Billy Bayou (notice it’s not stolen from Tolkien) has taken Glorior Belli into the bowels of Satan’s celestial abyss and back, with such notable releases as Manifesting the Raging Beast and The Great Southern Darkness serving as Bayou’s malign vehicle. Decibel is darkly pleased to present brand new Glorior Belli track, “Satanists Out Of Cosmic Jail”, from new album, Sundown (The Flock That Welcomes), along with a few Qs answered by Bayou from his throne atop the blackest black.

We catch up with Fallujah vocalist Alex Hofmann for a quick chat.

** Italian symphonic death metallers Fleshgod Apocalypse have taken things to a whole new level on new album, King. Musically, the Italians are more intense, more bombastic, more sophisticated. Song to song, King ravages the tenets of symphonic death metal, establishing a new hierarchy of awesome. Artistically, King has one of the best album covers of the decade. It looks positively old, but Eliran Kantor’s work is undoubtedly modern (and killer). Decibel was summoned to Tommaso Riccardi’s throne room to talk King.

Scent of the Buried
Beautiful friction
dB Rating: 8/10

** Neo-classical outfit Amber Asylum have never been an easy sell. From debut Frozen in Amber to new album Sin Eater, the Californians, helmed by instrumentalist Kris Force, have composed and released music for darker minds and uneasy souls. There’s tradition at hand, but there’s also exploration, in tone, in repetition, in atmosphere, in tolerance, in chaos. The result is an undulating set of emotions that conflict and blend to their music. To wit, Amber Asylum is music of dreams and nightmares, spun wistfully and painfully by Force and company to the delight of the other. Music of this quality was never meant for the masses anyway. Read on as Decibel and Kris find our inners.

Get the inside information on the upcoming Moonsorrow documentary.