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While the moniker may conjure up images of retirees bashing each other over the head with hoes, slashing at their wrinkly skin with hand rakes, Freddy Kruger-ed up gardening gloves and lots of screaming while being chased by gnarly pairs of razor-sharp hedge clippers, Psychotic Gardening is actually a band. You may have made that…

It might seem like Cradle Of Filth has been around forever because, well, they have. But even the black metal superstars had their formative period. One of the documents of that time was Total Fucking Darkness, COF’s third demo. Decibel got the first sneak peak of this old but new material, the track “The Raping…

Rituals are a dime a dozen. Any greasy-haired jabroni with a couple half-baked tremolo riffs and a motheaten cloak can stage a ritual; extra points if he cops a wood-burning kit for Christmas and goes to town on some dirt from outside his grandma’s prayer meeting to accent the seven copies of his upteenth Garageband…

Aurvandil play sick folk-influenced black metal. You can listen to our debut of their second screed to the darkness below, and in the meantime, here’s the man himself to explain what’s going on. What’s your writing process like? There are a lot of intricate layers going on in the music and that must be complicated…

This bit of news may be a week or two old, but considering the connection to the Decibel family and that this album is one of the unsung, unheralded, un-everything albums of the 2000’s that you probably don’t own but should, we felt it merited some more mention. Here are a few informational snippets from…

As fun as it is to cover everything Carcass and At the Gates are up to, occasionally it’s nice to shine a light on a truly underground band. Dallas’s Bludded Head definitely fall into that category, scooping out unpleasant sludge with a tendency towards the minimalist. Their misery comes from a real place, too – singer/guitarist…

Tusmörke came out of nowhere (well, Norway) two years ago with a supernaturally good debut album, one that paid homage to Krautrock groups like Amon Düül II and English psych folk like Jethro Tull while investing their retroactivity with an infectious verve. Not metal in the least, obviously, but where else can you find listeners…

Blistered is a five-piece metallic hardcore outfit who call Tampa home and came to my attention courtesy the good folks at 6131 Records who are releasing their latest offering, and EP called Soul Erosion, which you can stream below. As winter goes on and my stir-craziness hits epic proportions, part of my decision to give…

Satyrs are super horny (literally!) goat people. Satyress is the female version of that. Do not do a Google image search of the term unless you want to feel dirty. But if you want some awesome occult doom with an intense vocalist, Satyress the band are your thing. Their debut, Dark Fortunes, contains so many…

This is not an April Fool’s joke, except on the politically correct thought police: We have the first new Meatmen track in two decades! When I was a kid I sat in my room and cranked The Meatmen at ridiculous volumes and memorized Tesco Vee’s banter on the classic Meatmen platters. So to say this…

Raw Power have long been one of the most underappreciated bands of the early crossover movement (I even did a Lazarus Pit on them a few years back). Still going after 30 years of punk fury, their 10th full-length, Tired and Furious, is about to kick everyone’s ass. We have the first track for you,…

Danny Lilker is a goddamn legend in the metal scene. His long history includes stints in bands as diverse and influential as Anthrax, Nuclear Assault, Storm Troopers of Death, and Brutal Truth. Now on the verge of his 50th birthday, he’s announced his retirement from the touring life, and what better to celebrate his accomplishments…

Old death metal dudes never go away for good. They just do one (or all) of the following: reform; work on a reissue of their out-of-print material; write new songs or join a new Six Feet Under or Malevolent Creation lineup. For Portland death metal OG’s Dead Conspiracy it’s three out of four. They’ll reissue…

You guys realize that we are in a renaissance for doom metal right now, right? So much excellent heaviness out there. Maybe it’s because everything sucks just like it did back in the 70s. I don’t know, I’m not an historian. I do, however,  know quality when I hear it, especially when it’s as attached…

The hard road of Pentagram frontman Bobby Liebling, who has fought the real demons of addiction for decades, was well chronicled in the documentary Last Days Here as well as J. Bennett’s May 2011 cover story. While the film had a happy ending everyone knows that after the credits roll life continues. Hollywood doesn’t like…

Waldo wasn’t a big fan of the new Acheron album, Kult Des Hasses, but he’s a parrot – what does he know? They’ve been doing their death metal thing for 25 years now, and they sound just as putrid as the day they were first spawned. Lots of guest players, lots of Satan, lots of…

California’s Exmortus blew my ears and balls back with their debut full length, In Hatred`s Flame back in 2008. The quartet seemed destined to take their prodigious talents, love of aggressive 80s-inspired metal, interest in neo-classical shred and proclivity for combining all three of those elements to the top of the then-bubbling thrash revival. Then,…

Hey, finally a band name AND song title combo that describes my managing editor’s life. Vices play hardcore with a blues rock edge, reminiscent of Maylene and the Sons of Disaster before they started to suck. “Wasteland” will make you want to go smash some liquor bottles down by the creek real good. Their debut…

I discovered Brazil’s Hellbenders the old fashioned way: their U.S. publicist pointed me in their direction. However, instead of doing what I normally do and ignoring the histrionic pitch (which, after having the band described as Brazil’s answer to Kyuss/High on Fire/stoner/desert rock, would have been the logical thing to do), I bit. And man,…

Prizehog’s fourth album is called Re-Unvent the Whool. That should give you an idea of just how weird these weirdos are. They come from Portland, because of course. Disconnected sludge floating in an abyss of fuzz, “Shed” is a pretty good example of what you’re going to get when you contaminate your turntable with the…

The latest video from Mantar has something for everyone: shirtless dudes, screaming, wolves, epilepsy-triggering editing. It’s also in black and white, just to give it that extra bit of artsy. Musically, they have some Motor-sludge lovin’ blackness going for them as the dynamic duo as they smash through post-metal, doom, and even some screamo. In…

You know you’re in for some serious black metal destruction when the waveform is a solid block. Entartung have an unpronounceable name and a penchant for German efficiency, one that they put towards killing your eardrums. They’ve built a pretty impressive temple of evil in Peccata Mortalia, their second album. Most of you are snowed…

Symphonic death has enjoyed a fair bit of popularity over the years—largely in Europe—but Fleshgod Apocalypse might be one of the best bands of the style. Formed in 2007, the Italians have spent the last seven years refining bombast, adding bombast, and making bombast more, well, bombastic. The group’s latest long-player, Labyrinth, featured Fleshgod Apocalypse…

On Monday, Swedish death metal legends—that’s right, fucking legends—At the Gates announced that they signed to Century Media and planed to record and release their first new studio album since 1995’s landmark Slaughter of the Soul later this year. No biggie, right? Well, Decibel thought it was worth looking into a little further, so frontman…

Last month Canadian epic/progressive metallers Scythia made a viral digital splash with the absurdist Pogues-meets-Dream-Theater-meets-drunken-hobbits video for the rousing anthem “Bear Claw Tavern” off the upcoming album …Of Conquest, and now the band reveals another exclusive jam here this morning. “This track is a ‘one-of-a-kind track’ on the record,” guitarist/vocalist Dave Khan tells Decibel. “‘Reflections’…

T.S.O.L. vocalist, author and provocateur Jack Grisham has visited the land of the extremely extreme several times in the past year or so. He wrote a moving tribute to Jeff Hanneman in our memorial issue last July. In August, he joined the Deciblog for a career-spanning interview where he talked about the classic Dance With…

Last time we heard from Monument of Misanthropy, they were charging towards the completion of their IndieGoGo campaign to launch their debut album Anger Mismanagement. And guess what? MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Go high-five a fellow metalhead in celebration. High-fiving your own reflection in a mirror will do in a pinch. So what does the metal community…

The email came in from Ol’ Man Mudrian a few days ago and it went, in part, like this: “Have you ever heard Sam Black Church? People from the New England area like to blow them incessantly, but people like me who “never saw them live” just think they accidentally invented nu metal. Either way,…

On Friday, January 10, Brutal Truth bassist Danny Lilker announced via Facebook that he “will be retiring from being a full time recording and touring musician” on his forthcoming 50th birthday, October 18, 2014. The news flash resonated throughout the entire online extreme community, who, in the process, appears to have disregarded Lilker’s commitment to…