Kevin Stewart-Panko

When I was a kid, of course I loved Christmas. Gifts, food, candy, chocolate, family and friends dropping by and bringing more gifts, food, candy and chocolate, a fat man breaking into your house and not stealing shit…what’s not to like? Then, during my angsty teenage-and-early-20s, I really developed a rock-solid hate-on for the holiday…

We threw them a frickin’ bone a couple months ago, and now they’ve taken that bone and jumped eyebrows deep into the fray. Iowa’s Green Death is set to release a CD/DVD combo with the kicker being that they’re doing it all by their lonesome. Hell, at the time of the following interview with vocalist…

Germany’s Obelyskkh may have one of the oddest monikers in extreme music today, but just as their choice of band name tests all parts of your pronunciation apparatus, so does their music cover all bases in the world of psychedelic, stoner, sludge, doom rock and metal on new record, Hymn to Pan out on Exile…

The 8th FunFunFunFest kicks off next week in Austin and though it may not strictly be an extreme music fest along the lines of the usual multi-day extravaganzas featured in this space, it is one of the largest fests I’ll have the opportunity to write about and still offers a shit-ton of metal and hardcore…

Tokyo’s Melt-Banana has been airing their newfound status as a two-piece for the first time in North America for about a week now with about three more weeks to go. It’s been a tumultuous term for vocalist Yasuko “Yako” Onuki and guitarist Ichiro Agata that’s seen them embrace life as a duo (and almost break…

Back at the end of July, the Canadian government quietly enacted a piece of legislative shit that, essentially overnight, made it exponentially (and in most cases, prohibitively) more expensive for bands to tour our country. Basically, where once a band consisting of anywhere between three and fourteen members would have had to collectively pay $450…

“The Unwound path crossed a lot of different scenes.” – Justin Trosper “We took our music in a lot of different directions, though always staying very Unwound.” Sara Lund The above quotes from Unwound guitarist/vocalist Trosper and drummer Lund basically explain and justify the appearance of the not-metal band this week on the ol’ Deciblog….

It would appear that amongst the many names I get lovingly and not-so-lovingly referred to as, the ether has added “fest guy” to the list. Have a fest to promote or chat up and I’ve become yer go-to-man. Not that I have a problem with this, jus’ sayin’ is all so you’re not surprised and/or…

Ever been to Great Falls, MT? Surprisingly, I have. Ever heard of/heard Great Falls, the band? I have. Hell, I even enjoy them. Ever seen Great Falls live? Done that too and I enjoyed it some more. Ever seen a show in Great Falls, MT? Even more surprisingly, that’s also something I’ve managed to tick…

Activator is a relatively new four-piece from New York playing New York-styled crossover/hardcore/thrash in a New York state of mind. Their self-titled debut album was just released a couple days ago and features all the stuff 80s and 90s Lower East Side dreams were made of all lovingly caressed by a modern thrashing edge. Feel…

Tell your average schmoe on the street that you’re doing an interview with Matt Harvey and they’ll probably think the topics of conversation are set to include pitch selection, what it’s like having Andrew Bonazelli as a stalker and season ending surgery. What automatically comes to mind when you mention the name Matt Harvey to…

OK, maybe not quite, though if you do this long enough chances are you’ll be on both ends of hellish interviews. Thankfully, the only thing really wrong with this particular chin wag with From Hell is that it’s been sitting on the back burner for a while, so it may seem more general and vague…

I usually try to keep up with current events and what’s going on in the world, but admittedly, I have very little clue what the hell is going on in Turkey. Well, let me step back a bit; I know what’s going on in Turkey – it’s hard to ignore images of mass demonstrations, military/police…

Before you jump all down my throat and get up in my grill, understand that not all metal festivals are on the same level as Wacken, MDF, Roadburn, Chaos in Tejas, Bloodstock, one of the annual Scion-sponsored shin-digs or even Hopscotch or FunFunFunFest. Not every fest has the ability to draw thousands or can be…

Featuring ex-members of Family and probably some other bands, Brooklyn’s Grandfather is currently riding a wave churned by positive recommendations from the likes of Steve Albini (who engineered the band’s Why I’d Try debut), Spin Magazine, Brooklyn Vegan and a bunch of other press outlets that people apparently pay rapt attention to. Album number two,…

Today’s the first day of four of 2013’s This is Hardcore Festival. Last week, we spoke to owner and operator, Joe “Hardcore” Mckay about his background, the fest’s humble early years and most everything else concerning the annual Philly throwdown. Read it here. This week, we tracked down members from a few of the 54…

Next Thursday, the eighth annual This is Hardcore Festival kicks off at the Electric Factory in Decibel‘s spiritual hometown of Philadelphia. This year’s line up is probably the most diverse and judging by what we’ve seen in advance to the weekend, 2013 promises to be the biggest in the fest’s history. We caught up with…

Hailing from Oslo, Spirits of the Dead ignited an incense-scented dookie stick firestorm of praise and wonder with their 2011 second album, The Great God Pan (their debut was self-titled and from two years earlier). Best pegged as a effusive mixture of psychedelic, folk and stoner rock, said album had critics and fans from the…

Considering how quickly fairweather fans come and go from the metal scene, I guess you could say I’ve known “Cannibal” Cam Schwarz since the beginning of time, proportionally speaking anyway. An old-school lifer, Schwarz has been “fighting the good fight” in the name of his love for metal and against gainful employment for as long…

On Tuesday, Japanese post-hardcore legends, Envy will release Invariable Will, Recurring Ebbs and Flows, a 14 LP and double DVD box set to commemorate their 20th anniversary. Here’s a quote from the press release: “Invariable Will, Recurring Ebbs and Flows is a limited-edition super-deluxe box set that collects every song ever recorded by Envy (95…

Sanktuary originally hail from Whitehorse, the capital city of Canada’s Yukon Territory. Look it up on a map and you’ll see why, for that fact alone, we wanted to track them down for a chinwag. To say that the Yukon is a little out of the way is like saying it probably gets a little…

dB HoF No. 102 Prowler in the Yard Label: Relapse Records Release date: 2001 —————————————————– If you’ve been a regular Decibel reader over the years, it may be hard to believe that there was a time when Pig Destroyer weren’t one of the most popular and revered bands in underground extreme music. We haven’t exactly made that…

I first experienced Fargo, ND’s Sleeping in Gethsmane while on tour with KEN Mode. The scene was a show in the band’s hometown and I remember expressing my enjoyment of their set to guitarist Brandon LaPlante, describing them as “one of the few instrumental math rock bands out there with some balls.” Brandon must have…

With a self-released EP on the horizon, a European tour about to kick off in a few weeks and an animated video making the rounds, things are busy for Canadian grind freakazoids, Fuck the Facts. More so when you consider they’re doing this all by themselves now, a fact I wasn’t made aware of until…

I don’t exactly remember how I stumbled across Greenvans, but if Andrew Reitz had been offering the use of 15-passenger vans at affordable rates exclusively to touring bands, it would have made my touring life a fuck of a lot easier. I would have avoided doing month long tours in minivans out of necessity, for…

The ninth annual Chaos in Tejas fest begins in Austin, TX tonight. I have barely recovered from last weekend and Maryland Deathfest, but ever since attending CIT for the first time last year, I made the promise to myself that sleep, work and all that other crap can be worried about later when there’s more…

With a spat of excellent releases from the likes Light Bearer, Amber, Momentum, Northless, Multiple Truths and Protestant, Halo of Flies Records has recently and consistently been knockin’ ’em out of the park. Another stellar forthcoming release is Certain Death, the new 7″ from Pittsburgh grinding powerviolence-ers, Heartless. To celebrate the occasion – and to…

As quickly as Maryland Deathfest architects Evan Harting and Ryan Taylor brought the rage to outdoor stages, photos capturing the scene on Saratoga Street emerged, taken from the multi-story parking garage atop the venue. One thing very noticeable in said pictures are glowing cell phone screens being held aloft as folks attempt to capture the…

Today marks the final installment of Old School hardcore Thrusdays with the members Umea throwback punks, AC4. Check out parts one and two, if you should so desire. This week, I asked bassist Christoffer Jonsson and guitarist Karl Backman to list off the albums they spent as much time longingly staring at back in the…

As I continue on with part two of the three-part old-school hardcore Thursday feature with the dudes from Sweden’s AC 4 (check out part one here), this week I make the not-so-daring proclamation that hardcore is synonymous with Minor Threat. That’s about all I have to say, or should have to say. With that, we…