Shawn Macomber

Back in April an itsy bitsy salmonella swaddled spicy tuna roll tried it’s damnedest to throw a monkey wrench into self-described “party death metal rockers” Attila’s latest North American tour — prophetically dubbed “The Sick Tour” — but stricken frontman Chris Fronzak refused to sis out, instead performing through what he describes as “gut wrenching…

Calling the split “amicable but lamentable to say the least,” Averse Sefira have sadly called it a day. The long-running Austin black metallers are survived by a stellar discography — see Advent Parallax or Tetragrammatical Astygmata for the incontrovertible evidence — as well as a very entertaining, sporadically updated blog that explored the band’s occult…

Just when we thought metal fashion faux pas couldn’t get any worse this year than Varg Vikernes playing a bizarre game of living Stratego in his backyard, here comes the New York Times with an article entitled “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Metal Model” to prove us all wrong. Seems Moscot, a New York-based eyewear…

“He was the exact type of person that grindcore is meant for — a true maniac.” So says Agent of Satan’s Lord Balsakk of his longtime friend, bandmate, and Bay Area grind/powerviolence standard-bearer Kindred (aka Stinkweed), a main player in Plutocracy and Agents Of Satan who passed away recently under mysterious circumstances. (“He was afflicted…

Look, as regular viewers of Project Runway and The Rachel Zoe Project already well and truly understand, there is a fine line between embodying haute couture and becoming, in the immortal words of Tim Gunn, “a pterodactyl out of a gay Jurassic Park.” In Varg Vikernes’ promo shoot for the upcoming (actually quite excellent!) third…

Meet Sandrider, the excellent new stoner rock/metal band of Nat Damm and John Weisnewski of Seattle noisecore heroes Akimbo. By way of introduction, we are streaming “The Corpse,” a standout track from the band’s epic self-titled slayfest available now from Good to Die Records. Though a very different beast musically, Sandrider’s debut, hypnotic and pummeling…

The eponymous antihero of the Troma Entertainment joint Mr. Bricks: A Heavy Metal Murder Musical awakens from a night of hot carnal action to find his comely young sweetheart missing and a bullet lodged in his forehead. His reaction is a bit unorthodox: He breaks into song…and then starts cracking skulls with his kiln-fired namesake,…

As above, so below. Through his work with EyeHateGod, Outlaw Order, Arson Anthem, and The Guilt of… Decibel readers have long known Mike IX Williams as one of extreme music’s most distinctive, subversive and iconoclastic voices. Less attention has been paid, however, to Williams’ similarly idiosyncratic and visionary literary output, including his excellent collection of…

There could have been no better producer for We Are Knuckle Dragger‘s debut album than Steve Albini

Dr. Vivek Venkatesh’s office at Concordia University in Montreal is almost certainly unique in the world of academia. There probably aren’t many professors out there, for instance, who mix and match All Pigs Must Die prints and Latin salsa posters or keep vinyl collections as close at hand as research materials. And if any Decibel…

“When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you,” Nietzsche promised in Beyond Good and Evil, but Mr. Philosophize with a Hammer never did recommend any appropriate mood music for making goo-goo eyes at the infernal regions. Which is why it is such a great thing for we lovers of darkness…

Recently Anthropic Records — purveyors of excellence and, in their own apt formulation, “heart-breaking, chest-crushing noise and doomed psychic soundscapes” — unleashed Anthrosphere III, yet another fantastic (and free!) compilation of the latest gnashing and wailing coming out of the Philadelphia metal underground. To mark the occasion we invited Anthropic proprietress Shannon Marie to share…

Ever wondered what a You Can’t Do That On Television skit full of jokes about black metal would look like? Well, so has alt-country crooner/Mandy Moore arm candy Ryan Adams, apparently: His new internet show “Night Sweats” marries over the top disheveled chic and a dash of self-deprecation with Fenriz jokes, corpsepaint, a synthpop loving…

This morning Decibel has the distinct honor of premiering the latest aural/visual mindfuck from long-running Japanese experimental black metal practitioners SIGH. The track, “Far Beneath the In-Between,” is taken from the band’s upcoming Candlelight Records release In Somniphobia, an otherworldly, beguiling, frequently bizarre medley of various metals (black, traditional, prog) shot through with folk, jazz,…

So Alissa White-Gluz of The Agonist recently appeared on MTV’s Made to wear odd tiny hats and dispense life advice as a quote-unquote “Queen of Scream.” Her disciple is a lil pious church mouse named Julia, a sixteen year-old so terribly cyberbullied that by her own admission the only places she feels safe are “church,…

Get ready to put whatever trivial bullshit you were planning to bitch and moan over today on hold: The upcoming documentary Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet is imbued with the kind of uplifting against all odds triumph and spellbinding never-say-die persistence that reorients perspective in a serious way. After making a name for himself in…

It’s your lucky day, readers. Ever-evolving Nashville pitch-black metallers Enfold Darkness have graciously sent along a new track for Decibel to premiere and it is a doozy! Check it out below… Enfold Darkness: “Lairs of The Ascended Masters” by Decibel Magazine Here is what Enfold Darkness founder/lead guitarist Matt Brown had to say about the…

Christ, it is tough to believe The Day the Sun Went Out came out long enough ago for Boysetsfire frontman Nathan Gray to be playing in a band with his seventeen year-old son, but what perhaps surprise even more is the buzzing vitality of the raw, frenzied, shades-of-early-Integrity metallic hardcore I Am Heresy delivers. Gray…

Okay, so after the debut of this former vocalist for a “pretty large Christian heavy metal band” and her daughter on Toddlers & Tiaras, I’m starting to come around on James Durbin. The blaspheming begins at the 3:20 mark and lasts until you start emitting a Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?-esque cackle, at which point…

“Rumpelstiltskin Grinder, by nature, is a band that goes a little too far and takes things a little over the top,” guitarist/vocalist Matt Moore tells Decibel. “And we are completely in touch with our core values on Ghostmaker.” The band is currently putting the final touches on the follow-up to 2009’s Living for Death, Destroying…

Ten years ago death metal pioneer Chuck Schuldiner lost his battle with cancer. As the fervor surrounding recent Death and Control Denied reissues clearly demonstrates, the man’s legacy has only continued to grow in the intervening years. There are several great remembrances floating around today — I particularly recommend NPR’s “Death is Never Finished” and…

Morbid Angel recently invited Decibel to the set of the band’s upcoming video for “Existo Vulgore.” We didn’t spot any strange winged demonic creatures skulking about, alas, but it was a good time nonetheless and during the drive from Morbid HQ in Tampa to Seminole’s Studio 75 David Vincent graciously answered our questions, riffing on…

Sure, Twitter has more than its share of detractors. And it isn’t as if the revulsion to 140 characters or less is completely baseless — though Christ knows you all could be a little less self-righteous about it! (Pro tip: approach it like Sudoku.) Nevertheless, ye holdouts amongst the Decibel readership are depriving yourselves of…

Seven psalms of uncompromising Satanik supplication. That is how the press release accompanying In Nomine Odium describes the long-awaited new album from French black metallers Haemoth. Well…here’s hoping Old Split-Foot is prepared for a cacophonous cauldron of churning fuzz, pitch-black ambience, and way-more-than-two-minutes-hate. Hoo boy. Stellar stuff, but not exactly easy listening — check out…

Yep. It’s that time of year again when everyone starts bitching about department stores replacing the Katy Perry jams on the overhead sound system with whatever yuletide shit is forcing Burl Ives to roll over in his grave this year. Determined not to be outdone by Zakk Wylde — who is apparently following up his…

As a Northeast male of a certain age I was psyched to see Revelation Records post the “ill-fated” unfinished documentary on the last show of straight-edge hardcore band In My Eyes, along with a cool little epilogue from guitarist Anthony Pappalardo… EDGE DAY 2000: The Last Show Of In My Eyes from Revelation Records on…

Will wonders never cease? Not long ago Billy Corgan outed himself as a Mercyful Fate fanboy able to correctly name the preeminent Black Sabbath record — that’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, kids — and now the 90’s alt-rock icon has formed his own pro-wrestling company — Resistance Pro — where he’ll serve as “creative director.” The…

Ask Resurrecting Judas bassist/vocalist Dylan Hromadka about the inhuman growl n’ howl he laid down to give the monster in the recent reboot of The Thing a voice, and in return you’ll receive a list to rival the one Benjamin Buford ‘Bubba’ Blue rattled off to Forrest Gump whilst singing the praises of shrimp, the…

As an unabashed booster of the original version of Quietly, Undramatically, I have to admit I was a bit skeptical when I heard Woe mastermind Chris Grigg was embarking upon a full remix of the record. The end result, however, definitely won me over, bringing a new level of epic-ness and clarity out of the…

The nature/nurture quotient breaks down, the promise of the sprawling, churning overture that launches the anthemic title track is relentlessly fulfilled. Reroute to Remain is not only In Flames most multidimensional, diverse offering, it is also the record where every previously established aspect of its game — stellar, yeomanly guitar work; a rhythm section jackhammering ever deeper into the foundation — congeals, raising the whole to hitherto unscaled heights.