Kevin Stewart-Panko

In the boundless quest to distinguish one’s band from metal’s ever-growing pack, comes another new sub-genre, given birth by Vancouver’s Auroch. Referring to themselves as “Lovecraftian death metal,” the trio is set to release their debut full-length From Forgotten Worlds via Poland’s Hellthrasher Productions. The band’s debut, which follows a spate of five demos that…

The Slovenly Swiss sludge slatterns better known as Abraham were brought to my attention courtesy their label boss, Robin Staps. You may recognise Robin’s name as he’s the driving engine behind The Ocean and, because he seems to think that the seven or eight hours of sleep he gets each month is a luxury, he…

Ok motherfuckers, starting tomorrow, one of the most fun-filled touring adventures of the year kicks off in Springfield, Virginia. A co-heading run featuring grind grand pappies Napalm Death and the travelling bachelor party known as Municipal Waste with the reigning good-time guardians of gore grind, Exhumed offering direct support would normally be enough to top…

Golden Void is a band that I stumbled across thanks to the fine fuckers over at Thrill Jockey who pimped them as an outfit inspired by “Sabbath, Hawkwind and rounded out by Robert Fripp, Jimi Hendrix, and even some Can in there as well.” Those of you familiar with the instrumental, psychedelic, Fat Albert-ness (yeah,…

Having shows in one’s place of residence seems like such a big deal to most people. To an old fart like myself, going to see a band play in a basement or living room is as natural as going to see a band play at some place where overzealous security goons get way too familiar…

Usually, when some public relations goomba contacts me, spouting off about how I’m guaranteed to love whatever new band they’re promoting, I go out of my way to hate that band. I used to do it subconsciously (probably) and don’t mean it as a slight to whatever band is in question, but as I’ve gotten…

Eagle-eye devourerers of Decibel will likely recall my review of Montreal’s The Great Sabatini’s latest album, Matterhorn in a recent issue. In reviewing their new record, I made reference to Pig Destroyer, Kyuss, Blind and Deliverance-era Corrosion of Conformity and described the proceedings thusly: “…hails from further out in left-field with more peaks and valleys…

Hands up those of you who remember Wales trio Taint? Aside from having our man Bonazelli throw down as the band’s biggest supporter to the tune of given up first born and oaths taken on the graves of dead relatives, the trio gave the world three unfuckwithable albums (All Bees to the Sea, Secrets and…

Vancouver’s Scythia is a confusing bunch. Are they pirate metal? No, not really. Folk metal? Nah. They may have folk elements, but they’re not that dour. Yeah, you heard me. Battleshield metal? I made that up, but it makes them sound a lot tougher and more sinister than they actually are. Let’s go with what…

So, the other day, Repulsion’s bassist/vocalist/friend of Decibel, Scott Carlson sent us a link to a rather peculiar little article from the Washington Post with the comment attached, “Our music is truly Repulsive.” Check it out: Is Listening to Music Making You Worse at Your Job? Now, why out of all the bands that have…

When we were told that Chicago’s Like Rats featured members of grind provocateurs, Weekend Nachos getting in touch with their inner Tom Warrior (the one who’s written about in the Only Death is Real book, not this one), we got pretty excited. We got even more chuffed when Dom at A389 came a ringin’ with…

We here at Decibel are all over Chicago’s Encrust.

Normally, I’d sound off on something like this, but sometimes nothing more than “what the fuck?” needs to be said. Ok, let me just add one bit of commentary: the moustache that appears at 3:56 of part one kicked my ass like it’s never been kicked before.

There’s a good reason we don’t feature a lot of digital hardcore around these parts. That’s because most of it isn’t worth featuring. Dudes, if there was ever a musical revolution that fizzled out like a wet firecracker of disappointment quicker than the one Atari Teenage Riot was supposed to lead into the frenzied future,…

Alright, doodz…get your flat-brimmed ball caps out and your buttoned-down plaid shirts to the ready

I discovered Richmond’s The Catalyst the old-fashioned way: the dude at their former record company, Perpetual Motion Machine, sent me a vinyl copy of their first EP, Marianas Trench. Then, that same person sent me a CD copy of the expanded version of said record, Marianas Trench+9. At least that was the old-fashioned way for…

Obviously, War On Music’s Charley Justice works a lot faster than I do. When his original retail location at 38-44 Albert Street in downtown Winnipeg went up in flames back on April 19th, he ramped up his usual whirlwind of internalised kinetic energy and went to work at opening another location as quickly as possible….

…Gaza fucking rule. The Salt Lake City ragers have a new album, entitled No Absolutes in Human Suffering, in the starting blocks and set to explode all over your faces on July 31st, courtesy Black Market Activities. Having just returned home last week from the opening slot on the Corrosion of Conformity/Torche/Black Cobra tour, the…

While this isn’t really new news, as the original annoucement of noisy, melodic, post-everything-core quartet, Planes Mistaken For Stars reuniting for a quick East Coast summer tour was originally made back in May, the kick-off date draws closer, my friends. And seeing how memory retention is on par with attention spans these days, we here…

Orange County’s Seven Sisters of Sleep aren’t big on going out of their way to get in people’s faces. Then again, I’m speaking from a shaking babies and kissing hands perspective. I’ve never seen them live and judging by the rusty heroin needle guitar tone and sociopathic throat abuse that drives their hammering of metallic…

Vancouver’s Titan’s Eve impressed this hack a couple years back with the streamlined and melodic mixture of thrash and traditional metal of their The Divine Equal self-released debut. I hadn’t heard much from or about the band since the album was made publicly available, probably because I wasn’t paying attention, as usual, but word has…

A couple weeks ago, I was sweating it out in Texas; in Austin, to be exact, at the Chaos in Tejas Fest. Late on Sunday afternoon, when most people were winding down their weekends and preparing for the sobering bitch-slap of reality that is Monday morning, myself and a few other hearty souls were taking…

I’ll admit it; I hadn’t heard of Chicago’s Jar’d Loose until the press folk the band hired to spread the word spread the word right into my lap one day. I’ll also admit that there was a pretty good chance I would’ve passed on checking the band out because of that horrendous name they’ve saddled…

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I don’t “do” podcasts. The reasons are many, but chiefly it’s because if I wanted to listen to the directionless ramblings of stoners talking about popular culture, I would hide out in the basement when my wife and her pot smoking pals get together. If I wanted to…

We’re all about A389 Recordings ’round these parts. If it’s not the consistently awesome cover draping each and every release and their annual birthday bash show/extravaganza every January, it’s that they’re fellow proponents of the flexi-disc and that alongside every world-hatin’, religion-baitin’, humanity-despisin’ slice of holy terror hardcore they release, they go ahead and show…

Pick Your Side is a new hardcore band based out of Hamilton, Ontario (and Buffalo, New York) which features ex-and-present members of Haymaker, Fuck the Facts, Psyopus amongst others. They’ve just released their full-length debut, Let Me Show You How Democracy Works courtesy of A389 Records and played a hometown show last weekend and as…

Here’s my first holy shit column, as documented in the annals of the Deciblog. Check it out to get an idea of what I’m holy shitting about.

The era surrounding the release of Total Destruction, the 1993 sophomore album by New York City noiseniks Unsane, took Chris Spencer’s life on the craziest of rollercoaster rides.

If you’re reading this and into grindcore, you’re probably already well aware that Discordance Axis’ The Inalienable Dreamless is viewed by grind heads in the same way Master of Puppets get looked at by thrashers. Both are genre-defining albums that no die hard fan of the respective sound is nothing but 100% behind. Both Master…

Last week, I interviewed one half of Calgary’s Mares of Thrace – the singing/guitar playing half, Therese Lanz – about a bunch of stuff that didn’t really have anything to do with the band or their upcoming release (next week!) on Sonic Unyon Metal, The Pilgrimage. This week, I offer this chat with drummer Stefani…