Daniel Lake

We always enjoy finding cool new sound-sculptors out in the cyber world, especially when we can use this blog forum to turn other people on to some under-the-radar artists.  We love it even more when those artists’ musical ventures make progress beyond their own self-run webpages. Earlier this year, we featured Ukrainian drone-doomers Nonsun as…

Too many approval-stampers are content to shovel anything slow, synth-shrouded and packed with molasses-dark death growls into a funeral doom-shaped hole in the earth.  One self-important windbag (the one in charge of this Deciblog post) would suggest that “funeral doom” must actually beckon from the grave and whisper oh-so-reasonably that bathing with sharp objects is…

As a music writer who’s supposed to help guide people to the most worthy holes to shove their money, time and psyches into (because spending any of those things on your own children is simply preposterous), I always worry a little bit that I’ve tumbled way too far down the rabbit hole of my own…

Muscular, mournful prog metal, anyone? In the Silence are a pretty new find for me, but they don’t fit the Frickin’ Label Hack pattern because they’re sittin’ pretty with a label already.  Initially self-released, the band’s A Fair Dream Gone Mad saw a release through Sensory Records a few months back.  That’s cool, though.  I…

I love me some Secrets of the Sky.  I loved their album To Sail Black Waters when I first heard (half of) it last year.  I loved it more when the other half made it to the Soundcloudosphere (beyond the stratosphere, just underneath the Bandcamposphere).  I love it now that it’s being released by Kolony Records….

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)…

Anybody heard of “Kurt Ballou”?  The hairy dudes in this video here keep referring to him as if he’s well known or somehow important, even relevant (!) to the current music scene.  Weird.  He twiddles knobs, people.  It’s not like he’s some badass guitar player or (ha!) songwriter in a legendary metallic hardcore band.  Let’s…

Check out all this sonic extremity that German label/distributor Iron Bonehead is trying to drill through your thick skull!  On Friday, we brought you a tasty helping of ugly old school death from Abyssous.  This morning (as some of us return to work from a sun-baked Labor Day weekend) we serve up an entire platter…

We got an earful of Abyssous recently when we browsed through some recent promos for a bit of quick, juicy entertainment. Admittedly, it was the band name that drew us in… but it was the gristly death metal within that kept our attention pinned.

Florida’s Orbweaver just released one of those records that sounds just like its cover art.  Like, if Mastodon’s latest actually sounded like the roar of a multi-jawed bull with scales, or if mid-period Novembers Doom actually sounded good.  Copiously limbed, eye- and mouth-dominated monstrosities from space are climbing through razored tears in space-time to devour…

Catuvolcus, those purveyors of anthemic historical metal, have been waking ancient Gallic spirit from their home in Warwick for the past six years.  In that time, they’ve dropped an EP and two full-length records.  Decibel‘s only exposure to their sound has been through Gergovia, the band’s second album, and it’s a heavy-as-hell burner of a record….

 Last Friday, August 2nd, I spent most of the day in a Washington, DC suburb to take in one of the oddest summer festivals around: Summer Slaughter 2013. Past years have found this tour loaded with distinctively death metal acts, abounding with brutality and breakdowns. This year’s edition of the tour certainly included a fair bit of…

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)…

 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)…

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)…

It’s possible you’re not yet an initiate of the Lustre phenomenon.  Despite several recent releases, I think the last time the project drew Decibel’s attention was when Scott Seward reviewed 2010’s A Glimpse of Glory.  So, yeah, it’s been a while.  Since then, head nature-screamer Nachtzeit has given the world another EP, a split, a…

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)…

 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)…

Chris Dick recently sounded a black metal call to arms – specifically to state that the Deciblog needs to make like a Cajun dish and get blackened – and when Chris Dick calls our arms, he gets them. Dyed-black-in-the-wool underground demo aficionados don’t need much encouragement to vomit filth in any given direction, as I…

How many extreme-minded riff lovers do you think headed to the Deciblog today for a treatise on classical piano composition?  Not the standard purview of a magazine proclaiming the virtues of black-thrashing terror, I’ll grant you, but this spring Forbidden Records has brought us an album that, by all outward signs, should be a lo-fi…

We all come to grips with death in our own way.  Personal loss has informed much of our favorite music, and last month a much more widely experienced sense of loss affected the heavy music community when Jeff Hanneman passed away.  Artist Justin Bartlett’s tribute to the late guitar hero came about as an online…

Sometimes our love for quasi-musical extremes has a flattening effect on the diversity of material we hear.  Dynamics traverse the vast range from loudest to loudest-er, wanton mayhem and terror begin to appear tame enough for family breakfast conversation.  It can be refreshing to hear an album like Slidhr’s Deluge try to save black metal…

Do you love Decibel‘s most favoritest non-metal-but-kinda-pretty-metal band? Live near Charleston, South Carolina? Or just happen to be passing through the area this coming Monday, May 27th? If so, make sure you roll on over to Monster Music & Movies for a special in-store performance and signing session with Baroness, scheduled for 4:00 pm on…

The man-boys in Converge suggest we shouldn’t have any heroes.  Ironic, that, since they qualify as heroes themselves.  Another hero whose deeds we love to celebrate is Neurosis vocalist/guitarist Steve Von Till.  The man has helped guide the forces of nature his band channels into masterpieces of world-ending ferocity, and this alone makes him an…

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)…

Admission of personal bias:  I think Max is awesome, because I’ve seen Max do Max’s thing in Max’s band (Exist) and Max’s band is awesome.  I once described Exist’s music as not metal so much as a rad jazz quartet that decided to plug in and rip it up all loud-like.  Those proggy death-flecked jams…

 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)…

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)…

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)…

Nader Sadek has penetrated the Decibel psyche in various, um, incarnations over the past few months, and the invasion has been most welcome.  In February, we teamed up with Metal Injection to bring you live performance clips from the Living Flesh DVD before you could buy it.  Now we drop some most righteous news upon…