Kevin Stewart-Panko

The band’s name may not be familiar to the majority of you and their moniker isn’t going to help them stand out from the crowd, but Toronto’s Nephelium is bound to garner interest solely based on the fact that they originally called Dubai home. And not the “new” Dubai where everything seems like it prolapsed…

In a couple days time, if you’re looking for something to do in Baltimore that doesn’t involve dodging bullets or dealing with shitty temperature fluctuations, why not mosey your bulbous buttocks down to the Sonar Compound to help celebrate A389 Records’ eighth birthday? The label is one of our favourites around these parts and now…

Between the variety of magazines, websites and projects that currently leave me little time for much else in life outside of writing for the variety of magazines, websites and projects I have on the go, I do a fuck of a lot of interviews. Sometimes, you’ll find me writing about the same band/person in multiple…

For about a year now, the paper and staple parent to this little blog thing you’re reading has been offering subscribers exclusive bonus tracks and covers by some of the magazine’s favourite folks via the antiquated and nostalgic, but nerdishly cool, medium of the flexi disc.

Having been out of the loop for reasons mostly pertaining to visiting family and cramming food into any available space in my body, I was gutted to hear about the passing of Woods of Ypres’ mastermind, David Gold. As I’m sure the pertinent details surrounding the car accident that took his life one week ago…

Amsterdam-based KONG has been one of my favourite bands for over twenty years. I remember coming across a half-page story about the band in an issue of Metal Forces like it was yesterday, except it was 1990. The piece was promoting this oddball Dutch instrumental band and their debut album, Mute Poet Vocalizer, claiming it…

Wither Lightning Bolt? The Providence bass and drum duo – not that type of bass and drum! – noted for their infectiously catchy and immensely noisy songs as well as their steadfast refusal to play on stages, employ a guitar player, use more than one cymbal and anything less than 2400 watts of bass amplification…

One of the great things about going on tour is meeting and seeing bands you’d never previously heard of and experiencing what those bands, usually local openers often still in their infancies, have to offer, then bringing home a pile of demos that have been distributed to the members of the travelling road show and…

Voivod might have set the standard for Québec heavy metal with their highly idiosyncratic sound, but it was death metal that was embraced the most by the French Canadian province when the 1990s rolled around.

While it may not be a slow day in the world of news as it pertains to extreme music – Pennsylvania “fuckrock” band Gods & Queens are still fuck rocked in Europe; Mexican gore grinders Rottenness are, last I heard, still stranded in Texas on tour after spending the money they allotted to get home…

It’s been well established that the Maryland Death Fest is the favourite annual gathering for us around here at Decibel HQ as well as for a couple thousand of y’all as well. This shouldn’t be taken to mean that there aren’t other extreme metal pow-wows taking place on American soil worthy of your time, money,…

Let’s face it: everyone from skate-shorts-sporting thrashers and isolationist of ‘troo kvlt’ black metal church burners to gurgling death metalheads and flat-brimmed hardcore heads loves hair metal. If they say they, they’re fucking lying. If it’s not the good time, formulaic party music, it’s the fantastical lyrics and ongoing hope that all it takes for…

While society feared the collapse of the wired world, Lorrain, Davis and the Burdettes feared having to play high-velocity, crusty hardcore for the same people in the same venues until Y3K, or until they kicked the collective bucket, whichever came first.

City of Fire is the Vancouver-based atmospheric, psychedelic heavy rock/metal band featuring members of Fear Factory, Strapping Young Lad and Zimmer’s Hole. Due to the relative popularity of the member’s day gigs, there’s a good chance the band’s name may be familiar to some of you. However, as vocalist Burton C. Bell explains, there’s a…

‘Round about this time next week, gore metal legends, Exhumed will be embarking on their first eastern North American tour since the last time there was no more room in hell and the dead previously walked the Earth. The festering quartet already draped the western half of the continent in their gooey claret this past…

Truth be told, I spend way too much money on music. Truth be told, and considering my monthly take home, I spend waaaay too much money on music. A couple years ago, as a means of avoiding homelessness, I came up with a plan to curtail my record shopping insanity. Basically, if I’m browsing at…

As I sit and write this from sunny Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, it’s Election Day here in my home province. Today, Ontarians are being asked to go to the polls to elect the Premier of Ontario. I know to a lot of you FOX-watching ass-hats, the word/title of ‘Premier’ sounds suspiciously Soviet-like in its pronunciation, but…

According to the calendar hanging on the wall about two feet to the left of my bulbous head, today is Rosh Hashanah. In technical terms, this means today is the first of the high holidays, or Yamin Noraim, celebrated ten days before Yom Kippur and is observed on the first two days of Tishrei, the…

Can you feel it in the air? For two months starting October 1st, it’s Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and my birthday all rolled into one once again! Throughout my years as an unashamed and drooling Melt-Banana fanboy, whenever the Tokyo’s masters of the musical kitchen sink return to tour North America, I get all giddy in-and-outside…

Nothing’s more annoying than the immoral majority telling you how essential, transcendent and (huh-huh) seminal a particular extreme album is, when you know that it’s overrated as fuck. Hence, our OCCASIONAL Wednesday morning column, “Disposable Heroes,” in which one brave soul sails against the current to inform all you clones why you can’t spell classic…

Fuck the Facts is a name grind fans and people interested in the mortified reactions of mainstream society have probably heard bandied about for years. Originally a solo project of guitarist Topon Das, FtF has existed in some form since 1998 with countless releases under its sweaty belt. Inarguably, the line-up currently comprising the “fucking”…

Some of you are familiar with my now-eight-year-old son, Sam via the occasional Study Hall of Fame series here, here and here (the title of which is pretty ironic, because if you asked him what a study hall was, he’d have no clue as Sam is homeschooled). Those of you who follow Canada’s Hellbound.ca may…

In the next issue of Decibel – at least, I think it’s the next issue. I’ve been one of Mudrian’s ink-spilling bitches since day one and I still haven’t figured out when an issue comes out in relation to when I submit copy – I reviewed the soundtrack to the horror/gore flick, Afterparty Massacre. To…

I’ve done a lot for metal over the years. In an attempt to sport the longhair uniform, despite genetics handing my follicles a bum deal, I walked around looking like a frizzed out crackhead throughout most of the 80s. Rooms in my house are filled with records, CDs, magazines and not much else to varying…

The psychedelic slew-foot of Portland’s White Orange first came to my attention because of the intricate design of their …And This is Why I Speak to You in Parables picture disc EP. My copy of …Parables sat at the front of my ‘to listen to’ pile for a long while. I would love staring at…

There’s little more annoying on this planet than the immoral majority telling you how essential, transcendent and (huh-huh) seminal a particular extreme album is, when you know that it’s overrated as fuck. Hence, our new Wednesday morning column, “Disposable Heroes,” in which one brave soul sails against the current to inform all you clones why…

If you happen to be in the neighbourhood of Port Burwell, Ontario a couple weeks from now, want to get away from it all but don’t want to get away from the metal, why not consider attending the inaugural Southern Ontario Metalfest? Modeled after the grand tradition of European open air festivals, the SOMF is planning…

It was only 18 years ago when Rorschach’s second album, Protestant, was released, but man, things were so very different. There was no Internet to help with communication or songwriting; if you wanted to write tunes, a bunch of people had to get face-to-face in a room.

I described them as a band that based their sound on the free-form noise and satanic soliloquy between the backend of “Don’t Burn the Witch” and the “At War With Satan” preview on Venom’s Black Metal.

For years and years, we’ve heard bands and musicians who’ve had their work slighted and slammed by the press defensively proclaim that so-and-so journalist should have his/her opinion taken with a grain of salt, or discounted entirely, because they’re not musicians themselves. That metal’s press corps should actually shut their pie-holes because they’re able to…