Chris Dick

How does the commentary track thing work? Are you talking over the music in real-time or is the commentary track spliced in after it’s finalized? Fenriz: Lord have mercy! Just listening to Viking’s Do or Die album from ‘87 on vinyl and starting the interview. Well, it works like a commentary track on a movie—I…

There are game changers and then there are game changers. I wouldn’t say Hard ‘N Heavy’s Grindcore Special Issue was a game changer in the same way Entombed, Paradise Lost, Napalm Deafth (phonetic spelling, natch), Bolt Thrower, Tiamat, and many others were in the dimmest part of the early ’90s, but it, unlike any Xeroxed…

#5 – Halloween End of the ’70s to be exact… But hey, Michael Myers is a bad-ass and one of those slow stalker killers that for some reason never go down and make the body count go higher by each sequel. It has to be said though that this is also one of the very…

What do you make of Second Ring of Power after all these years? It’s getting a second chance at life, so to speak.Jan Kuhanen: All of our albums have been re-released, so Second… is in no way specific. Plus, we have some bonus stuff with all of them except with the first one. Ismo Toivonen:…

The ever-resourceful (not to mention corporately brave) folks at Scion A/V have targeted Los Angeles as the city where they’ll corral a label — this time Nuclear Blast Records — and ask select number of the label’s artists to perform for an audience. Of course, they’ll be performing for an audience. It’s not like Deicide’s…

There isn’t just a horde of zombies coming from Camp Terrorizer. There are hordes of zombies. Plural. As the first Terrorizer, helmed by the inimitable Pete “Commando” Sandoval, album since 2006’s Darker Days Ahead, Hordes of Zombies repositions two members of Morbid Angel as the bad-ass mother-monster truckers we’ve come to expect (at least since…

Self-described “occult rock” outfit The Devil’s Blood garnered a fair amount of attention on 2008’s Come Reap EP. Now that time separates Come Reap from The Devil’s Blood’s lauded debut, 2009’s The Time Of No Time Evermore, the mysterious, Fenriz-approved Dutch duo has prepared yet another ritual in the form of The Thousandfold Epicentre, a…

In a universe of unpronounceable band names from cultures far flung and unfathomably distant, the Deciblog herewith and hereby and therefore brings you Ptahil (allegedly mouthed “Pet-a, Hill”). The band name has its origins in the Mandaean religion (Wikipedia, thanks), which like all things cool as fuck, from an occultist’s point of view, emanates from…

This is the album that solidified Diamond’s legend as not only one of the great metal vocalists of all time, but a great horror storyteller (and songwriter) with a flair for the dramatic.

It’s not often we bring you a bit of rock swagger. Mostly it’s darkly blasts, noisy grinds, or the brutalest of death that streams to the masses on the Deciblog. Mostly. Today, three days after an old fat dude in a puffy candy cane outfit dropped a deuce or two (socks, no-market cologne, lottery tickets,…

Where do you see Heritage of Satan as a single album and as part of Root’s catalogBig Boss: This album fits perfectly into discography of Root. It is the symbolic ninth album, so this serial number really says something. [Smiles] I’m not sure how I feel about Heritage of Satan. It feels less complete than,…

What do you get when you cross prime German thrash — Sodom, Kreator, specificially — with the unparalleled gravity of Brazilian thrash, which was influenced by prime German thrash? Norwegian noisemakers Nekromantheon. Formed in 2005 in the same town (Kolbotn) that birthed the mighty/Deci-approved Darkthrone, this power trio from the North is perhaps one of…

Becoming has a different feel compared to In the Absence of Light. What do you attribute that to?Ken Sorceron: Just looking back our catalog I would say each release has a different feel actually. I think we are proving to be one of those bands that recreates itself whenever and however we feel like it….

Formed by Cretin/Citizen mastermind Matthew Widener, Liberteer is the grindcore equivalent to the folk-Viking metal movement in Europe. Right. He’s taking back what’s his/ours. Amidst uncompromising blasts of anarcho-crust-punk-pissedasfuck whatever (a Napalm Death-Discharge Molotov cocktail birthed in nastiest defiles of Every City, USA), Liberteer throws down like it’s 1776. By using/integrating military march music and…

5. CarnifexThere’s nothing wrong with Carnifex per se, but whenever I hear the band’s name—which is rare—I immediately think Carfax. Sure, word ‘carnifex’ has a brutal origin—meaning ‘executioner’—, but the omnipresence of the Carfax Fox on television has potentially altered my reality. And who says carpet bomb advertising doesn’t work. Oh, random factoid. Salad Works,…

By now, Alcest’s “Autre Temps” isn’t necessarily a Deciblog premiere, but instead of streaming it on YouTube in-between clips of ninja squirrels and keyboard baby Amur tigers you can listen here where you belong. “Autre Temps” is the lead-off track to Alcest’s upcoming, much-anticipated full-length Les Voyages De L’Âme, and true to form it features…

The swamp black water from Georgia’s Okefenokee must have some kind of primordial quality to it. The bubbling earth’s been seeping into the state’s water supply (from the southeast, natch) for longer than history can record. Of course, dudes with beards, flannel button-ups, and guitars (possibly drums) drink said black water and what comes out…

We know who coined the term ‘blast beat’ or ‘blastbeat’, but which group was the first to employ the technique now synonymous with extreme metal drumming? Now that is a question I bet even a TakeLessons drum teacher wouldn’t be able to answer. Was it grindcore legends Napalm Death? Was it crossover heroes D.R.I.? Or…

Depending on your outlook on album art, it’s either an outmoded concept destined for the trash heap or a mandatory connection between the visual and audial. There have been some creative examples of album art in years past, but it’s a bit of a head-scratcher when two bands of underground stature end up with very…

What do you think separates One for Sorrow from Across the Dark?Niilo Sevänen: The core of the music is still the same, but we don’t want to repeat ourselves and make the same album again and again. I think we’ve always managed to evolve and bring some new twists to our music. This time the…

You know, with all the hoopla over Scion, an imprint of Toyota (gasp!), sponsoring music festivals, funding and pressing free CDs, and generally giving workaday bands (like Immolation, Wormrot, Enslaved) a chance to stick their head out of the boiling financial cauldron that is the music industry, it’s a wonder this commercial for Park Auto…

Veteran death metal guitarist James Murphy (Death, Obituary, Cancer, Disincarnate, Testament) has found that the brain tumor he defeated in 2001 has unexpectedly returned. Although the tumor is benign and is currently being treated pharmacologically — chemotherapy remains an option — Murphy needs our help. The medication Murphy has been prescribed has crippling side effects,…

Anal Cunt, otherwise known to jittery magazine editors and PC fucks the world over as AxCx, rarely failed to mash the fuck button like 5-year kids hopped up on donuts and Mt. Dew. Not solely because of the group’s name either. Fronted by Seth Putnam, the Massholes from Newton pushed every possible boundary and penetrated…

Is Woods of Desolation a one-man outfit? You enlisted Tim Yatras (Nazxul, Lord) for the drums and vocals on new album, Torn Beyond Reason.D.: Yes. Woods of Desolation (WoD) will probably always consist of just myself whilst utilizing session members for recordings. Tim only agreed to help out on the Torn Beyond Reason album. Unfortunately,…

So I’m a day late in writing this, I was supposed to yesterday but I felt like the walking dead after driving through a blizzard to Salt Lake City yesterday. So I passed out on a couch and slept ‘til about 10 minutes before the show. I feel much better now, time to write this…

People want to know the arrangement between Scion and Immolation. I’m sure you can attest to ‘underground’ metalheads being slightly skeptical of a car company’s involvement with a cult death metal act.Ross Dolan: I can see where some people may find it unusual that a company such as Scion would invest money into an underground…

I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning to drive to Iowa, all the way from Cleveland. Cant sleep any more so I guess it is time to recap the last week of tour… Ill pick up where I left off last time, in New York. I was kind of antsy about this show, as…

Earlier this month, we had the desolate delight in premiering Vallenfyre’s–featuring Paradise Lost’s Gregor Mackintosh on vocals/guitar, Paradise Lost drummer Adrian Erlandsson, My Dying Bride’s Hamish Glencross on guitar, and Doom bassist Scoot–new song “Desecrated“. To say it raised a few eyebrows would be an understatement. Who knew six string moper Mackintosh had the balls…

Nowadays, I manage a record store, it’s that simple. I went to the source. Not because, like a junkie moving to Nepal to grow poppies, I was cutting out the middle man, more because there is not much else I can do or have an inexhaustive knowledge of. I know things that are of absolutely…

Having formed before most of us — me, included — were born and having the dubious distinction of some of the worst cover art of all time (Narita, thank you very much), New York heavy metallers Riot are preparing to release their first album in five years. Titled Immortal Soul, the group’s new effort obviously…