Justin Norton

When Oliver Amberg was barely out of his teens he joined Celtic Frost as they started perhaps the most contentious shift in extreme metal history. But Amberg’s roots with the band stretch back several years; he was friends with bassist Dominic Steiner, who played on To Mega Therion (see the Hall Of Fame in our…

The Ohio brothers behind the indomitable Hell’s Headbangers label don’t fuck with the formula. Their excellent releases during the past two years or so include Midnight, Nunslaughter (a new EP every month), Shitfucker and, err…Goat Semen. You can welcome the appropriately named bangers in Gouge to the extended dysfunctional clan. Like many of their brethren…

Long before guitarist Ryan Butler joined Landmine Marathon he played with the Phoenix hardcore band Unruh. During their five-year run (from 1995 to 2000) they released multiple demos, two albums and toured widely. In addition to seeding Landmine they birthed a rogue’s gallery of Arizona hardcore bands. Unruh recently celebrated their 20-year anniversary with a…

Tad Doyle has preached the Gospel of heaviness for the better part of his life. His seminal band TAD was one of the first out of the gate in Seattle’s grunge movement and one of the earliest bands signed to the legendary Sub Pop label. Although they never achieved the massive crossover success of their…

While you might hear an awful lot about society’s ills in metal you don’t hear about the plight of rural America too often. But the harsh realities of Appalachia provide much of the inspiration for Byzantine’s take on thrash, particularly on “The Agonies,” the song we’re premiering today. Frontman Chris Ojeda explains: “The Agonies” is…

It’s hardly a news flash — particularly if you read Neill Jameson’s reports from his time as a record store clerk — but physical music is either in its death throes or experiencing a painful rebirth. Whether it’s A or B depends on who is involved in the conversation. Aqualamb Records is banking on the…

There’s going to be a lot of alliteration today, faithful Deciblog readers. Sorcerer formed in Stockholm, Sweden in 1988 and was active until 1992. But, as we’ve seen many times, good metal bands never die — they just reunite. Sorcerer got back together for a one-off show at the Hammer Of Doom festival in Germany…

Show me that you are suffering? Game on. People are still talking about The Academy Awards. Purina faces a lawsuit alleging their pet food is filled with toxic ingredients. Your album cover is sort of creepy. And it’s Wednesday. Streaming today: “Show Me That You Are Suffering” from the Colombian black/death metal band Nepente. The…

Men Without Hats were one of the biggest pop bands of the early to mid-80s. And “The Safety Dance” was one of the biggest songs of the decade, and continues to resonate. People never stopped doing “The Safety Dance.” Remixes show up every week, including a metal version (more about that below). The Saturday night…

At the beginning of the year we published an interview with author Peter Bebergal about his excellent new book Season Of The Witch: How The Occult Saved Rock and Roll. Among the topics discussed: why metal has picked up (again) on the occult approach and themes so popular in the 70s: “There’s just something about…

In the new edition of Decibel with our tour headliners on the cover J. Bennett gets into a fascinating conversation with Liturgy frontman Hunter Hunt Hendrix (aka Triple H) about just what constitutes “black metal,” among other topics. There’s no need for any investigation or atom splitting when it comes to this band. Hacavitz is…

Boy, it’s easy to get lost in music videos these days. In the latest black-and-white video for Lay Siege’s “Hollow Hands” the English sludge/hardcore hybrid certainly does their best headbanging. But the camera keeps panning to a guy who looks like a community college English professor who is very pissed off at the book he’s…

The videos that arrive at Decibel headquarters are often predictably bad. There are the things we loathe (lyric videos), things we find annoying (videos talking about the making of videos) and the low budget (we’ll just record ourselves playing live and hope people give a shit). Boy, did Shredhead’s new animated stop motion video just…

Last week, we debuted the track “Caravan” from Monolith’s soon to be released album Against The Wall Of Forever. It turns out that there is a pretty decent audience for the band’s proto NWOBHM sounds. So, our friends at the new label Funeral Noise Records (a spinoff of death metal staple Gore House) asked if…

We will never miss a chance to host some new music from our friends in Sandrider. They were the band, after all, that premiered a song here on the ways one might conceivably become the ultimate urban legend. If our math is correct this is the third time they’ve made a streaming appearance on the…

How have you spent the past decade? Think you’ve been productive? Sabertooth Zombie might have you beat: since forming roughly 10 years ago in Northern California the hardcore meets Americana meets classic rock band has released 15 albums or EPs. Fifteen! Today, we are streaming “Gardens Of Loss” from Human Performance IV, the fouth and…

Heaving Earth takes their name from a Morbid Angel song (on the underrated Formulas Fatal To The Flesh). They are from the Czech Republic, where we think some of scenes of Hostel or at least one misanthropic slasher film was set. And they have a new album out on Lavadome called Denouncing The Holy Throne….

Gore House Productions is known for their embrace of some of the most depraved death metal on the planet. The bulk of their catalog would be considered NSFW. But gore-hound-in-chief Carlos Matt is launching a sister label called Funeral Noise Records that aims to embrace different and, dare we say, more accessible metal. Decibel got…

The East Coast is about to get hit with a snowstorm of apocalyptic proportions in the next 24 hours or so. Could there be better timing to debut “Dead Heaven,” the first track off Abyssal Gods, the second album from the urban black metal band Imperial Triumphant? Here’s what we’re hearing: “Abyssal Gods focuses on…

Folks, that’s an animated Barney Greenway. Consider us chuffed. Napalm Death was recently featured on our cover in conjunction with the release of their massive new album Apex Predator-Easy Meat. In our story last month Greenway told us: “I know it sounds sickeningly upbeat but I’ve never gone into a show and been in the…

Decibel is stoked to premiere “To The Devil…A Daughter,” a track from the debut Wolfpack 44 album The Scourge, featuring additional vocals from Jinx Dawson, frontwoman of the legendary occult band Coven. Coven also released a version of the song on their latest album Jinx (Nevoc Music). Dawson wrote the lyrics, and Wolfpack 44 guitarist…

Nunslaughter has been recording mandatory underground metal since 1987, a time when extreme metal was largely in retreat and teased hair was the norm. The band has been led for close to three decades by the inimitable Don Of The Dead (Donald Crotsley) a walking metal encyclopedia content to release the bulk of his band’s…

Let’s clear away any confusion at the outset: Mark SaFranko is not someone’s father who has decided to moonlight in a metal band or one of the few remaining music talent scouts. SaFranko is an American author based in New Jersey who, for more than three decades, has lived a writer’s life and all it…

Any astute follower of metal in the past five years has likely noticed a huge uptick in the number of bands with a proto-70s sound and occult themes: The Devil’s Blood, Sabbath Assembly, Blood Ceremony and The Oath. A few of these bands have been on Decibel’s cover: In Solitude and Ghost B.C. (twice). While…

Post-holiday doldrums. The coldest time of the year, especially with climate change. It’s time for your favorite band to get the 30-year-old van out of the garage and challenge ice storms and snowpiles to play for your benefit. West Virginia’s favorite sons Karma To Burn will be one of the brave soliders taking to the…

People have been writing to ask about starting a yoga practice. Some common themes, or excuses, come up in these messages. The end of the messages usually end like this: “I’d do yoga, but…” • I’m not flexible; • I need to get into shape before I go to a class; • I need to…

There are 52 weeks in a year. Give or take a few holidays and medical procedures that equals more than 100 blog posts annually when you have slots on Monday and Wednesday. There’s literally no way anyone trying to make a living could create that much original content (although Decibel alumni and Invisible Oranges founder…

It’s instructive to look back at a collection of work over the course of a year. During 2014 we’ve endeavored to get you as many interviews we could on Mondays and Wednesdays in addition to streaming tracks, which are sort of a default necessity in music writing these days. If you take a look you’ll…

Broken Hope’s Jeremy Wagner sat down with us beginning last week for his four-part shredder’s studio. Here is the second installment from the death metal veteran turned author. We’ll be running the final two takes at a time to be revealed in 2015. — Savatage: Sirens (title track) (1983) The guitar work of Criss Oliva…

When you invite a a published novelist to the shredder’s studio expect a narrative. Such was the case with death metal veteran and Broken Hope founder Jeremy Wagner. Not only did Mr. Wagner visit the shredder’s studio — he provided your host with a near novella on the riffs that shaped him in chronological order….