Daniel Lake
Throw Me A Frickin’ Label Hack: Poland’s Entropia
March 29, 2013 Daniel Lake
Because every day another band records another song. Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck. Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm. Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…
Vampire Talk to Decibel About Selling Out
March 22, 2013 Daniel Lake
Selling out… of all their cassettes, that is. Crazy, right? I mean, when you make 100 white cassettes and 100 red cassettes, there’s no way you expect to sell all (er… drop the zero, carry the…) two hundred of them! So Vampire wised up and ordered 100 more black cassettes of their demented lo-fi thrash…
Watch a New Semantik Punk Video!
March 15, 2013 Daniel Lake
To paraphrase my favorite comic, Mitch Hedberg (R.I.P.), Semantik Punk is a Polish experimental punk outfit that people will either love or hate, or think they’re okay. They’re hardcore enough to sound like a badly scratched Converge or Dillinger Escape Plan CD that won’t stop skipping to random spots on the disc; they’re rock enough…
October Falls: Exclusive Full Album Stream of The Plague of a Coming Age
March 8, 2013 Daniel Lake
I like the new October Falls record. How much do I like it? You’ll have to wait for the next issue of Decibel to find out exactly, or you could completely ignore me (I would) and just listen to the album right here before you can buy it. If you’re familiar with Mr. Lehto’s expressions…
Finland’s W.A.I.L. Was Absolutely Interviewed, Literally
March 1, 2013 Daniel Lake
Early in 2011, I was floored by a band I had never heard before making noise I never knew I always wanted to hear. They’re from Finland, so, yeah. Duh. At this point I expect sweet Finnish lullabies to kick my ass and melt my face. The phrase “Wisdom through Agony into Illumination and Lunacy”…
Nader Sadek Live! DVD Footage Premiere
February 22, 2013 Daniel Lake
Egyptian-born Nader Sadek, stage set designer and mask maker extraordinaire for kvltists Sunn O))) and Mayhem, received further notoriety nearly two years ago by writing a phenomenal death metal record and getting legendary gentlemen like Steve Tucker (ex-Morbid Angel), Rune Eriksen (Aura Noir, Ava Inferi), and Flo frickin’ Mounier (Cryptopsy) to lay it down all…
Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: Ukraine’s Nonsun
February 15, 2013 Daniel Lake
Because every day another band records another song. Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck. Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm. Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…
Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: Montreal’s Pronostic
February 8, 2013 Daniel Lake
Because every day another band records another song. Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck. Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm. Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…
Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: Brazil’s Bode Preto
February 1, 2013 Daniel Lake
Because every day another band records another song. Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck. Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm. Because this post was up last week for about a minute, but you didn’t see it,…
Happy 100 Call & Response: Mr. Ed Guesses Scores Given Old Decibel Reviews
January 18, 2013 Daniel Lake
Have you heard? Decibel Magazine just launched its 100th issue! We’ve kinda kept it quiet, only hyping it every other day or so for only the past several months. Turns out we’re hosting a celebration show in Philly this weekend! Who knew? I wonder who will headline… As this extremely extreme monument edged closer to…
Full Album Stream! Porta Nigra’s Fin De Siècle
January 11, 2013 Daniel Lake
Billed as “Decadent Dark Metal” by the excellent taste-havers over at Debemur Morti Productions, Porta Nigra have just graced the world with their debut full-length recording. Fin De Siècle appeared in Europe a couple months ago and has just made its way to American shores this week. The title translates to “end of the century,”…
Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: Black Table
January 4, 2013 Daniel Lake
Because every day another band records another song. Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck. Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm. Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…
Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: Argentina’s Mortuorial Eclipse
December 28, 2012 Daniel Lake
Because every day another band records another song. Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck. Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm. Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…
Exclusive! Vit Premiere Video For “16 Bodies”
December 21, 2012 Daniel Lake
Vit kill. Probably not literally, but who knows? Their brand of grueling harshitude is just about my favorite kind of ear-hate: a doomy churn filled with motion and eventful anarchy, a corpse-painted wretch that forgoes all amusical mopiness in favor of mounting, forboding horror. Fans of genre-shunting black mood enhancement take heed. Vit are shuffling bleakly…
Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: Town Portal
December 14, 2012 Daniel Lake
Because every day another band records another song. Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck. Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm. Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…
Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: Mesmerized by Misery
December 7, 2012 Daniel Lake
Because every day another band records another song. Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck.
Rudolph Can Play This Fucking Game: Thrash It or Trash It!
November 30, 2012 Daniel Lake
While hordes of old people who still use dial-up are swarming to super-sized retail outlets this season to buy their loved ones’ affection, the more tech-savvy among us simply point and click our money away into the bitwise abyss. Similarly, while the plebes will rely on radio and opinionated journalists to decide which tunes may…
Obscene Extreme Sails To America!
November 21, 2012 Daniel Lake
For 14 years, extreme hate-thunder has rained down from the blighted Czech sky every July, under the Obscene Extreme banner. In 2013, the organizers are seriously upping the ante, and we here at Decibel get to formally welcome Obscene Extreme America! It’s in Mexico! (Yeah, against the protestations of xenophobes all over the United States,…
Interview: Wretched on the Road
November 16, 2012 Daniel Lake
Rabid death crew Wretched are on a rockin’ roll. In March of this year they released their third full-length record in as many years, and they’ve been burning up the road with some seriously badass acts in the months since. Right now they’re out with Six Feet Under, and they’ve got mucho dates scheduled for…
Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: OK’s Lost Empires
November 9, 2012 Daniel Lake
Because every day another band records another song. Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck. Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm. Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…
Autumn Screams Doom Recap – Sidebar Tavern, Baltimore – October 26 +27
November 2, 2012 Daniel Lake
This year’s pre-Halloween weekend marked the beginning of (hopefully) a new Baltimore tradition: the Autumn Screams Doom two-day festival. As coordinator/originator Dan Petruccelli tells it, he hopes ASD will “bring old school doom and new school doom together. There’s so much each one brings.” He noted the periodic fluctuation of the audience’s mean age as…
Throw Me A Frickin’ Label Hack – Secrets of the Sky
October 26, 2012 Daniel Lake
Originally, this frickin’ boner was supposed to go out to the tragically unsigned Secrets of the Sky, an Oakland, CA collective who specialize in black-splashed prog-n-doom awesomeness. Now that Secrets of the Sky are untragically signed to Gravedancer Records, you’re hopefully going to hear a lot more about them in the coming months and years. …
Full Album Stream: Blut Aus Nord’s Cosmosophy
October 19, 2012 Daniel Lake
Look at that picture. Seriously, stop reading these worthless scrawlings and LOOK UP THERE. The artwork associated with Blut Aus Nord records has always kicked a certain amount of ass, but a trio of sculptures depicting humans in various anguished poses sprouting branches from every which limb? Genius. Pile on the hand-headed snakes and chaotic…
Behexen’s Nightside Emanations: Full Album Stream
October 16, 2012 Daniel Lake
Finland’s Behexen have the good taste to traffic in occult black blasphemies, and the good sense not to bludgeon their audience, um, senseless. Christian-slaughtering speeds certainly take their due, but Behexen take the time to smell the burnt-offering entrails, too. The year 2012 finds the occult Scandinavian crew unleashing its fourth full-length recording in its…
Brujeria Revisited: Surviving Mexico
October 12, 2012 Daniel Lake
When the idea was pitched for a Decibel exclusive oral history of Brujeria (November 2012, Issue #97), it seemed straight forward enough: Get the maniacs behind one of the world’s worst-kept-secret bands to dish out a chronological breakdown of the life and times of White Cali’s most feared sonic terrorists. The reality of weaving such…
Manetheren’s Time: Full Album Stream
October 5, 2012 Daniel Lake
Manetheren’s Time is about as casual an experience as the sprawling dozen-plus-tome story that gives the band its name. (Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series became so outrageously complex that now, even five years after Jordan’s death, a secondary author is still finishing the three books needed to complete the tale.) Don’t belly up to…
Throw Me A Frickin’ Label Hack: Germany’s Oliver Kaah
September 28, 2012 Daniel Lake
Decibel knows you’ve got a metal wishlist 23 albums long and five gigabytes of Profound Lore records you still haven’t heard all the way through, but each week we like to give you the opportunity to tune in to a project that isn’t backed by anybody’s hype machine. Because music is universal, expression is boundless,…
Bonin’ the Interhole: Portugal’s Malevolence
September 21, 2012 Daniel Lake
Bands like Gojira and Godflesh might be major brand names ‘round these parts, but mention them to your average Metallica-loving broseph and you’re likely to get a squinty-eyed, the-fuck-you-say? half-nod. But Decibel just won’t quit. We dig deeper, danker, darker and dirtier (though rarely fitter or happier) to turn up a few otherwise overlooked gems….
Bonin’ the Interhole – Francesco Marras
September 14, 2012 Daniel Lake
Bands like Gojira and Godflesh might be major brand names ‘round these parts, but mention them to your average Metallica-loving broseph and you’re likely to get a squinty-eyed, the-fuck-you-say? half-nod. But Decibel just won’t quit. We dig deeper, danker, darker and dirtier (though rarely fitter or happier) to turn up a few otherwise overlooked gems….
Bonin’ the Interhole: Dead River Runs Dry
September 7, 2012 Daniel Lake
Bands like Gojira and Godflesh might be major brand names ‘round these parts, but mention them to your average Metallica-loving broseph and you’re likely to get a squinty-eyed, the-fuck-you-say? half-nod. But Decibel just won’t quit. We dig deeper, danker, darker and dirtier (though rarely fitter or happier) to turn up a few otherwise overlooked gems. …