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If you’re into heaviness and weirdness, you’ve come to the right place. No, not the Decibel blog, although there’s certainly no lack of weirdos here; I’m talking about Flummox. This power trio clearly digs Primus, Mr. Bungle, and Mastodon, and their first full length takes them to some unusual places. To their credit, despite some…

Toward the end of our conversation with Christopher Mazeika — proprietor and high priest of Philadelphia’s badass new temple of all that is extremely extreme, Vinyl Altar — we inquire how closely his life resembles what we saw/read in High Fidelity. It’s kind of an offhand, silly question, but what Mazeika gives us in response…

Long-running UK metallers Hellbastard have two basic planks in their party platform: 1. “Support the underdog & hail the mighty riff.” 2. “Raise hell and rock the fuck out.” Both of these admirable attributes are on display in this double-barrel exclusive premieres (!) of both the band’s trailer for the sure-to-be-sick upcoming album Feral… …and…

Last year, Mutoid Man slammed our faces into various solid objects by blasting on to the scene with their Helium Head EP. The quality of high-octane punky, rocking prog metal quickly saw them outgrowing their selling point as a simple side project of Stephen [Cave In] Brodsky and Ben [Converge] Koller to become a propulsive…

Today we bring you an exclusive video premiere by Italian death/thrashers Krysantemia, celebrating the advent of their third album, Finis Dierum, on Memorial Records.  The band’s blustery/blistering confluence of influences has seen them perform alongside Obituary, Rotting Christ and Kataklysm, and is right now crisscrossing Europe in support of warmongers Marduk.  The new album was recorded…

Ok, this is the second part of our interview with Relapse’s El Presidente, Matt Jacobson. Go here for part one from last week and a bit more of a thorough explanation about this being done in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the label, even if the last part of this half of the interview…

Decibel Hall of Famers Sick of it All don’t require much of an introduction, so let’s just say it’s an extremely extreme honor to present the exclusive premiere of the NYHC legends’ video for “Get Bronx” off the recent hardcore scorcher The Last Act of Defiance and get on with the show…

If you like filth, boy do we have a split for you!  New York sludge/hardcore/softball aficionados Mortals and Philadelphia crust scumbags Repellers have teamed up to deliver four tracks of total nastiness straight to your face. You know why this is so fucking good? Groove, and lots of it. Both bands traffic in unpleasantness, but…

Last week in a rare over-ground win for underground art and authenticity the preconceived notion-smashing At the Gates comeback record At War With Reality won the Swedish Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal Album of 2014. We, of course, would like to believe this is at least in part the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s…

Tech death. It has lyrics. Generally they are hard to notice underneath the infinite pretzel knots of the instruments, but they are there. This lyric video from Continuum proves it. Of course, said lyrics sound like technobabble from 1970s Marvel cosmic comics, but they exist! Continuum is the brainchild of Chase Fraser (Decrepit Birth, Animosity),…

There is a whole motherfucking lot to recommend Berserker II: The insane line-up (see flyer below), a punk rock “swap meat” hosted by Tesco Vee of the Meatmen, a sweet ass T-shirt designed by Decibel‘s own Mark Rudolph, etcetera… We recently reached out to fest organizer/Child Bite vocalist/guitarist Shawn Knight to get the inside scoop…

It’s hardly a news flash — particularly if you read Neill Jameson’s reports from his time as a record store clerk — but physical music is either in its death throes or experiencing a painful rebirth. Whether it’s A or B depends on who is involved in the conversation. Aqualamb Records is banking on the…

The upcoming self-titled full-length from Tasmanian tech-death wrecking crew Psycroptic really brings the band’s brand of manic, virtuoso brutality to another level. But don’t take our word for it — delve into the entire aural beast below. And then head over to Prosthetic to pre-order yourself a copy of this brain scrambler. Check out the…

This year, Relapse Records turns 25 years old. Jesus frickin’ fuck, where has the time gone?! It just seems like yesterday we were combing blurry ads and squinting our way through mail order reprints in fanzines for Suffocation and General Surgery EPs and Amorphis and Deceased full-lengths and here we are in 2015 with the…

The upcoming Harm’s Way record Rust — out March 10 via Deathwish Inc — is an industrial-by-way-of-metallic-hardcore-by-way-of-Triptykon multidimensional rager that is going to turn a lot of heads. This afternoon Decibel is pleased to exclusively premiere the video for “Amongst the Rust.” For more information, check out our profile of the band in the current…

Grind it out, bitches! Phil Anselmo has some fresh stuff for you from Fulgora, a new band featuring his buddies in Pig Destroyer, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, and Misery Index (although really, two of the dudes are in three of the bands, so that’s a bit of a cheat, but whatever). Basically, what we have here is…

Men Without Hats were one of the biggest pop bands of the early to mid-80s. And “The Safety Dance” was one of the biggest songs of the decade, and continues to resonate. People never stopped doing “The Safety Dance.” Remixes show up every week, including a metal version (more about that below). The Saturday night…

As some of you may know, I’ve been sailing on the good ship Decibel since it was christened. I’ve seen (and heard!) a lot of shit and even remember some of it! And yes, I’m the head knucklehead who wrote the oft-referenced-and-made-fun-of Dragonforce cover story. So, you’d think that having bounced 10+ years of deadlines…

At the beginning of the year we published an interview with author Peter Bebergal about his excellent new book Season Of The Witch: How The Occult Saved Rock and Roll. Among the topics discussed: why metal has picked up (again) on the occult approach and themes so popular in the 70s: “There’s just something about…

Okay, I’m going to be honest with you guys here: by the time you’ll be reading this, I’ll be relaxing on a tropical island, listening to AC/DC bootlegs, and lamenting absolutely nothing except maybe sunburn. Still, I know most of you poor bastards are stuck in much more inhospitable climes. To that end, I have…

What It Once Meant — the documentary detailing the life, death, and (semi) resurrection of Indecision, hands down one of the smartest, most audacious, uninhibited hardcore bands ever — is a real triumph of an often fumbled form: Poignant and funny, harrowing and inspiring, the film opens up a window on a unique assemblage of…

Counting members of such forward-thinking hardcore acts as Have Heart, Fucking Invincible, Verse, and Soul Control amongst its ranks, Sweet Jesus‘ vivifying and powerful debut full-length You Destroy Yourself pays homage to late 80s/early 90s D.C. emotive hardcore without sliding into pure imitation. Today Decibel brings you a taste of what’s to come with the…

I originally got my hands on Barishi’s self-titled, self-released, full-length album via guitarist Graham Brooks who was filling in for fellow Vermonters, Vaporizer during a tour with Vattnet Viskar. After figuring out who the hell I was, he passed along a copy of the record and Bob’s yer fucking uncle. That was about a year…

Former Caustic Resin guitarist/vocalist and Built To Spill-er Brett Netson went and done got himself a brand new rock quartet — that’d be Brett Netson & Snakes — and Decibel has got the opening single from the band’s ridiculously killer, utterly fucking triumphant Scavenger Cult EP. Here’s the breakdown: The Scavenger Cult EP features three…

“Fear and Fury,” the first taste of new Pallbearer music since our favorite album of 2014, Foundations of Burden, is one of the Little Rock doom quartet’s shortest songs yet, clocking in at just under six minutes. But it’s not wanting for the intense, emotional thunder the band has built their following on. It was recorded specifically…

What’s better than a wolf? A black wolf, of course. What’s even better than a black wolf? A black wolf with umlauts. Oakland’s Blackwülf bring some serious stoner vibes to the party, hitting the listener with some fat bottomed rock. “Wings of Steel” is so fresh that it comes from an album they haven’t even…

“Some of you might have been conceived to this song,” Ringworm frontman James “Human Furnace” Bulloch told the gathered at Sonny’s Tavern, the small, homey New Hampshire bar the Cleveland metallic hardcore levelers were then steadily transforming into an overly-amped emotional and physical pressure cooker. “The album it’s on came out in 1993. You do…

The videos that arrive at Decibel headquarters are often predictably bad. There are the things we loathe (lyric videos), things we find annoying (videos talking about the making of videos) and the low budget (we’ll just record ourselves playing live and hope people give a shit). Boy, did Shredhead’s new animated stop motion video just…

You want a crazy ass music video? A Forest of Stars sure have one for you! In this 10 minute animated film by Ingram Blakelock, a little dude sets out on an epic journey across a video game-like world to do… Something, I guess? You’ll have to watch to find out. Oh, and there’s anachronistic…

What do you get when you combine two of the ugliest doom bands out there today? Well, it sure ain’t gonna be pretty. For their latest collaboration, You, Whom I Have Always Hated, The Body and Thou make some serious noise and cover Nine Inch Nails. They also made a video (directed by Thou’s Mitch…