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We weren’t surprised to find out that one of the people involved with efforts to place a gigantic Baphomet statue on the Oklahoma Capitol grounds is connected with extreme metal. I guess we’re just happy that they are pursuing their goals through civil discourse rather than pulling a Burzum. Brian Werner is a High Priest…

Since our Brewtal Truth column first appeared in Decibel nearly five years ago, it was inevitable that this day would one day come. All we needed was to find the perfect partner, and when we learned about Denver’s TRVE Brewing Co. in 2012, we knew that they were it. So, after many bestial sacrifices, summonings,…

The day Christians have long feared, the day that would part the Heavens and kick-start the apocalypse, is upon us. In the unsuspecting locale of Oklahoma City, a group of enterprising Satanists is working (not via hex or spell, mind you, but the legitimate channels of public policy) to place a gigantic statue of Baphomet…

Well folks, it is the holiday season; what with the temperatures falling and nights closing in, and even the walls closing in, too, it’s officially the most miserable time of the year. Respite is in short supply. Hard liquor and pharmaceuticals can only do so much. But, step away from the shotgun, there’s a hefty…

The Internet is the darnest thing. One minute you could be sifting YouTube to harvest bootlegged footage of metal dudes on cooking shows, the next you could be jamming a new track from band whose oeuvre is every bit as esoteric an experience as seeing Marty Friedman on a Japanese cookery show. Maybe there is…

Back in the fall of 2010, we gave you an early double dose of Halloween and winter, courtesy of the Black Metal Hall of Fame special issue. Three years later, we’re taking our corpsepaint craving to the next demented level and unveiling the Top 100 Black Metal Albums of All Time. We corralled our staff…

Stick around long enough and you might get the things you always wanted. For some kids that’s a medical degree or a wedding fit for Disney. What I wanted was to hang out with Tesco Vee, the imposing frontman of The Meatmen who made me laugh on a daily basis with juvenile sexual ripostes on…

Okay, so this week’s big metal in the movies news has been dominated by former thrashers turned FM rock-metal conglomerate Metallica, who have roped in the wee creepy guy from Chronicle to star as a citizen roadie on a mission across town during a miscellaneously apocalyptic event. Taking its title from one of the many…

The folks who work hard to bring you the extremely extreme each week might be cantankerous but that doesn’t mean we don’t look out for our fellow man. Case in point: the gifted guitarist Jason Becker, who was struck with with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which most readers know as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The disease…

A member of our extended family needs your help. Joe Wickstrom is the bassist of Atriarch and has played with numerous Portland bands. He was diagnosed with peripheral arterial disease in 2011 and has had a tough go. The disease narrows the arteries and makes it tough for blood to reach the limbs and extermities….

Dark Descent Records have announced a two-day showcase festival at the Ash Street Saloon, Portland OR for October 4th and 5th. And the lineup (below), presented by Dark Descent in association with Parasitic Records and Ash St PDX is the exactly sort of super-necrotic death/doom/black bill of extremity that’s guaranteed to help you shake out…

Do you love Decibel‘s most favoritest non-metal-but-kinda-pretty-metal band? Live near Charleston, South Carolina? Or just happen to be passing through the area this coming Monday, May 27th? If so, make sure you roll on over to Monster Music & Movies for a special in-store performance and signing session with Baroness, scheduled for 4:00 pm on…

Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult is a 600-page book by UK author Dayal Patterson that delves deep into the history and development of black metal as an art form and a culture. It is released on November 13th, but is now available to pre-order from Amazon at a discounted price. Published via Feral House,…

Nader Sadek has penetrated the Decibel psyche in various, um, incarnations over the past few months, and the invasion has been most welcome.  In February, we teamed up with Metal Injection to bring you live performance clips from the Living Flesh DVD before you could buy it.  Now we drop some most righteous news upon…

So, you’ve been hunting for a specific Decibel back issue, but the webstore says it’s sold out. Short of the advent of time travel, we can’t help you with procuring a print edition, but now that Decibel is available in the iTunes Store, you can revisit your favorite extremely extreme magazine in digital form. Away…

After 17 years of recording silence, death metal legends Carcass have returned to the studio to track their first new LP since 1996’s Swansong. The record, produced by Colin Richardson, will be released sometime in 2013 through a yet-to-be determined label. Bassist/vocalist Jeff Walker exclusively provides Decibel with a few details. Please tell us the…

While hordes of old people who still use dial-up are swarming to super-sized retail outlets this season to buy their loved ones’ affection, the more tech-savvy among us simply point and click our money away into the bitwise abyss.  Similarly, while the plebes will rely on radio and opinionated journalists to decide which tunes may…

For 14 years, extreme hate-thunder has rained down from the blighted Czech sky every July, under the Obscene Extreme banner.  In 2013, the organizers are seriously upping the ante, and we here at Decibel get to formally welcome Obscene Extreme America!  It’s in Mexico!  (Yeah, against the protestations of xenophobes all over the United States,…

After much fevered online speculation, we’re finally ready to announce the headliner of Decibel‘s highly-anticipated 100th Issue Celebration Show! Four-time cover stars, Hall of Fame inductees for 2001 classic Jane Doe and constant presence in our Top 40 Albums of the Year feature any time they release an album, the mighty Converge will join Pig…

Wednesday’s Presidential debate wouldn’t have been so boring if Jim Lehrer had asked the candidates whether Onward to Golgotha was a top 20 death metal album of all time, or merely top 40. Alas, he choked, leaving it up to your friends at Decibel to nerd out about Incantation history. And honor it on flexi disc….

The Mayans were off by a month: The world will officially end on Saturday, January 19 at Union Transfer in Philadelphia, PA, when Decibel Magazine proudly brings you our truly apocalyptic 100th Issue Celebration Show! Faces will be decimated not only by Pig Destroyer Repulsion Municipal Waste Tombs and Evoken but a special surprise headliner…

Breaking Shit by Decibel Magazine It’s strange to be premiering a song off Leave Your Leather On because I’ve been blasting the album for weeks. (It pays to be a big-time journalist.) And yes, I know – I guess these guys forgot about that Limp Biscuit song. Who cares? Stuff still has to get broken…

Despite the exhortations of much extreme metal that life isn’t worth living there are things left to get excited about. One of them is the upcoming album from Pig Destroyer, their first since dB’s 2007 album of the year Phantom Limb. News flash: the new album from Relapse is called Book Burner and we’ve secured…

Harrowing, multi-dimensional enlightenment is a fickle beast.  You expect it in extreme locales under strikingly improbable circumstances, perhaps while ingesting mind-altering substances… not so much in a well-lit library crowded with suits, police officers, and raggedy internet-moochers.  Yet here I am getting a hit of pure dark French terror-bliss, and my mind can’t manage to…

“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…

After very regrettably missing the first four dates of the inaugural Decibel Magazine Tour due to visa delays, black metal miscreants Watain officially enter the fold at tonight’s show in Lawrence, KS. We’re all beyond thrilled to finally see the completion of this diabolical puzzlebox, and you should be too. Let’s all go off to…

This particular blog post was originally designed to be a congratulatory stamp for Winnipeg “elitist-asshole metallic noise rock with touches of post-metal, hardcore, sludge and doom” band, KEN Mode as they very deservedly came out on top in the category of Best Metal Album of the Year at last weekend’s Juno awards. To the most…

I grew up in Ohio and even have the state outline tattooed on my miserable excuse for a bicep (with a skull and crossbones inside — YOU FIERCE, BOY!). So it gives me great pleasure to announce — two fucking days after April Fool’s, no less — that sanity has prevailed and the first date…