Featured

Each Gehenna album had different sonic attributes. From the eerie black metal of The First Spell through the death metal disposition of Murder and then back to brutal black hybrid on WW. Do you recall wanting each album to be singular, regardless of genre?Dolgar: We always try not to make the same album twice of…

Welcome to The Lazarus Pit, a biweekly look at should-be classic metal records that don’t get nearly enough love; stuff that’s essential listening that you’ve probably never heard of; stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  This week, we go back to Japan, by…

Promoters worldwide would be doing us all a favor if they were to roll out five-band death metal mini-fests every Wednesday. Given that the middle of the working week is the calendar equivalent of dead air, a tour toploaded with a bill that has Krisiun, Malevolent Creation and Vital Remains as a headlining trifecta is…

Decibel‘s NYC bureau had a tough decision to make last Thursday. Should we head on up to the west side for a classy evening amongst Lincoln Center elite to catch a special performance by This Will Destroy You? Or leave Manhattan (perish the thought!) for a night of PBRs amongst our metal brethren to get…

If you didn’t know it by now, Coliseum’s Ryan Patterson is an inhuman machine that runs solely on guitar riffs and beard hair. His newish project is a throwback to the 90s hardcore scene of Louisville where sweat flowed like beer and beer pretty much stayed in the fridges at the convenience store. Joined by…

It ain’t often the Deciblog gets its dirty paws on black metal. It’s even rarer that when we do get black metal to unfurl to the masses like some plague-wielding flag of hate and disgust, it’s of the weird, wait-is-this-real variety.

We don’t think we’re going out on a limb here when we say that AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson wasn’t thinking about buying a nice fruity glass of Sauvignon Blanc for his mates when he wrote “Have a Drink On Me.”

EyeHateGod fans harboring aspirations of appearing on an Emmy-nominated TV show should put on their best fucked-up face, get a photo taken and send it to Caballero Casting quicksmart. The Louisiana casting agency are looking for extras for this week’s Treme shoot, on in which the show’s creators will be dispensing with the trumpets and…

Funeral doom purveyors Evoken have been added to select dates on the inaugural Decibel Magazine Tour. With Behemoth, Watain, The Devil’s Blood, and In Solitude capping the tour, Evoken’s rare appearances will certainly ramp up interest in the tour’s extreme yet diverse sound and vision. Evoken will exclusively play the songs of death and despair…

For a dude who has built a revered legacy on the back of playing big biker doom riffs and wailing with Saint Vitus, Scott “Wino” Weinrich’s recent output has been super-mellow. There was 2010 acoustic solo record, Adrift, then a Latitudes session recorded in London with German singer/songwriter Conny Ochs, before the pair got together…

If trends and interests and habits and all that sort of bullshit moves in cycles, I guess I’m presently going through the second phase of voraciously listening to a bunch of stuff that’s borderline unlistenable. And loving it. Let me explain… If you were a tape trader back in the 80s, you’ll remember scoring N…

By now, Norway progressive/black-ish/folk-ish metallers Borknagar should be a familiar entity to most ‘bangers. They’ve managed nine quality albums — including new long-player Urd — across a 17-year timeline and had the balls to recall and then host former frontman ICS Vortex alongside screamer/crooner Vintersorg, which is something most bands don’t do unless they’re on…

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. I’ve died many small deaths with the loser-ass Jets for 26 years and really wasn’t in the mood for one more dick in the ear. Instead, I Netflix Instant-ed this… … which had its moments, but wasn’t long enough to sufficiently ignore the entire game. And so just as…

About two weeks ago, a massive set of Bob Dylan covers compiled to honor 50 years of Amnesty International—4 discs, 73 tracks and 73 different artists—hit shelves.  Sure, it’s fascinating to see an expansive and eclectic roster that includes old-timers like Pete Townsend, Jeff Beck and Mark Knopfler alongside relative newcomers like The Gaslight Anthem,…

Decibel illustrator and layout guru Bruno Guerreiro is curating his first art show in Philadelphia. Huzzah! Held at Kung Fu Necktie, a neighborhood-centric watering hole/club, Guerreiro is aiming for the highest highs, displaying his illustrations to a backdrop of outer space heavy — in the form of local astro rockers Rosetta and Restorations, Brooklyn-based doom…

It’s a well-established fact that Satan is responsible for all the best bands. Without His presence in the music—from AC/DC to Zyklon B—it wouldn’t be as dangerous, wicked or br00tal. Every metal band worth a damn has in its own way paid the devil his due. Like Diamond Head, for instance, who wrote a song…

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,…

The phone just kept ringing out and going to Tony Foresta’s voicemail. We tried a few times, on each occasion considering leaving a “horny message” at the beep, as requested by the Municipal Waste frontman. It feels now like an opportunity missed. Ach, no matter, it was all cool. Foresta wasn’t dogging the call, obviously,…

Teaming up with Warbringer and label home Century Media Records, we’ve been able to score — for you, of course — a pretty swell prize pack for doing almost the same amount of work as flipping over a couch cushion.

Welcome to The Lazarus Pit, a biweekly look at should-be classic metal records that don’t get nearly enough love; stuff that’s essential listening that you’ve probably never heard of; stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  You people can’t bitch that I picked the…

Currently tearing across the States with fellow thrash vets Anthrax and Death Angel, Testament will be releasing their tenth album in spring. Entitled The Dark Roots of Earth, Testament frontman Chuck Billy has intimated that it’ll go atomic in the pit much in the same fashion as 2008’s The Formation of Damnation did. Hmm… Good…

First of all, let me say that I think one and all will agree: no one likes being ripped off. There are a lot of things we haven’t experienced in life and a lot of things we never will experience, but I don’t think anyone wakes up in the morning and thinks to themselves, “Shit,…

The name of Scourge Schematic’s debut is not exactly cryptic. Life Savings is what the four-piece cashed in to record this EP, hoping somebody out there would give a damn. Money well spent, dudes. Clearly influenced by the death and grind giants of the 90s, the band has soldered elements of thrash and punk rock…

To honor national prog day — yes, it really is 2.1.12 here in the United States, where we don’t mess up the date by transposing the month and day — Decibel was originally going to get Rush to perform Opeth covers in our offices, but logistics proved the event’s undoing. They were all up for…

We’re obviously not breaking the news that Riot guitarist, Mark Reale (far L in photo), passed away on January 25 from complications from Crohn’s disease. Nonetheless, we wanted to pay tribute to a musician—and more importantly, a band—that hasn’t gotten his/their due in American metal history. Reale was not only a founding member of Riot,…

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…

Metal writers (sorry, not journos) are subjected to a slew of email proclamations from publicists, labels, and other label-centric interests. Stuff like “on tour now”, “new promo materials”, “x band celebrates the release of y album”, and so on. Basically, every day it’s email after email of one band’s new album release after another. Well,…

The band’s name may not be familiar to the majority of you and their moniker isn’t going to help them stand out from the crowd, but Toronto’s Nephelium is bound to garner interest solely based on the fact that they originally called Dubai home. And not the “new” Dubai where everything seems like it prolapsed…

The sirens have sounded, and gears too big to comprehend are turning. In the wake of MegaUpload swallowing a massive Viral Load, it’s time to hurry up and download anything at all that you think you might need in your music catalog. It’s crunch time. Our laissez faire internet and “music is free attitude” may…