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Ivar Bjørnson talked to Decibel about his love of electronic music and what metal fans can expect when they hear his other work in Bardspec. 

English death-mongering quartet Horrified are on the brink of detonating their new album of of melancholic rage (due out March 25 on Stormspell Records), and they want you to hear it here first.

Orlando’s The Glorious Rebellion is the sort of band that, were they alive and kicking back in the late 80s/early-to-mid 90s, would have been about as seriously tailor-made for a life signed to AmRep as one could imagine.

This month, we contacted Swedish death miscreants Tribulation, whose 2009 debut, The Horror, perked up ears but whose subsequent efforts, including last year’s The Children of the Night, turned our collective heads all the way around, several times over.

Wipe up your drool in time for Thrill Jockey’s March 18th release of No One Deserves Happiness and read what drummer Lee Buford has to say about touring, pop music and working with other bands.

Where were you when you first unlocked an unlisted track after a long period of dubious silence as a record played possum? Or when you noticed an album creeping up to track 69, where Tool’s “Disgustipated” lurked at the edge of Undertow? If you were born after 1995, maybe never.

Illness mainman Gulnar, of Poland, has advanced his dark agenda several more steps with AHP, and we got caught in the line of fire.  Classically deranged raw black metal speed meets eerie ambient speculation for one hell (you can say that again) of a journey.

Jonesing for some cave-galloping, sludgy-toned, fuzzy hate-spittle metal?  Feel like you haven’t gotten your rocks off properly for the past several years?  Then you’re probably already a Black Cobra fan.  If you weren’t already a fan, you can get in on the, eh, fifth floor right now with the Cali band’s forthcoming record, Imperium Sumulacra.

This month, we talked to every last damn member of 2015 eye-wideners Publicist UK about their inspired, curious choice of cover contribution.  We’ll leave the details up to Zack Lipez (vocals), Brett Bamberger (bass) and the Davids (Obuchowski and Witte, guitar and drums respectively), but we were certainly as positively surprised and amazed at their work on Tori Amos’s “Precious Things” as we were about last year’s Forgive Yourself.

Trigger warning: You may not want to read Josef Fritzl’s Wikipedia page

Every week, Decibel will premiere new material by bands of a heavy nature.  There’s no boundaries here, either.  Death, black, doom, sludge, progressive, stoner, retro, whatever!  It’s all fair game.  What’s this section called?  DEMO:LISTEN, naturally.  This week we take a look at El Topo, an instrumental oddity hailing from Istanbul, Turkey.

This month, we talked to Tatsuhito Mikami of Japan’s Church of Misery (and to vocalist Scott Carlson) about their contribution,  a special mix of “Confessions of an Embittered Soul” from COM’s forthcoming And Then There Were None record.

Every week, Decibel will premiere new material by bands of a heavy nature.  There’s no boundaries here, either.  Death, black, doom, sludge, progressive, stoner, retro, whatever!  It’s all fair game.  What’s this section called?  DEMO:LISTEN, naturally.  This week we scream into the abyss and the abyss screams back: New Zealand’s Veneficium, Obduktio & Scumripper from Finland and Brooklyn’s Horns & Hooves.

If you didn’t catch Richard Christy’s review in Decibel #136, let me introduce you to the most metal horror film ever: Deathgasm. It’s a Kiwi midnight party flick made for and by metalheads where blackened doom riffs unlock portals to demonic dimensions and “metal up your ass” is less of a threat than a literal promise. We’re talking corpsepaint, monsters, hilarious black metal music video parodies, dildo fights, and enough blood to satiate the most demanding gorehounds.

Upon learning that Tom and Jim Morris have been in the process of downsizing their operation, we at Decibel had to get all the dirt straight from the Morrisource.  We tracked down Tom Morris for his thoughts on the move and his studio’s past and future in the industry.

Every week, Decibel will premiere new material by bands of a heavy nature.  There’s no boundaries here, either.  Death, black, doom, sludge, progressive, stoner, retro, whatever!  It’s all fair game.  What’s this section called?  DEMO:LITION, naturally.  This week we take a look at three deserving European devastators: Belgium’s Humanity Defiled, Italy’s Dawn of a Dark Age and the Ukraine’s Nonsun.

During a recent tour with Thou, The Body and friends Heat Dust, Thou bassist Mitch Wells shot some interview footage and other moments, then cut them together to memorialize the time the bands spent together.

This March, Wolvserpent release their next dark expedition in the form of a single-track 40-minute EP called Aporia:Kāla:Ananta.  This morning we get to bring you a sample of the new material, so kick back, dig in, or do whatever you do when it’s time to hear idiosyncratic new doom.

Stream a killer split from two Oakland bands and get a detailed report of what’s going on with metal on their side of the Bay. 

This week, restless doom lords Lycus will release their mesmerizing second full-length, Chasms, and to celebrate, we wanted to give the band a chance to sound off about their year in the run-up to the new album.

Since the release of Aluk Todolo’s 2012 album (Occult Rock, natch), the band have been burrowing further into their sound, and now, on the eve of the release of fourth full-length Voix, they treat us to a preview of their rhythmic, dissonant approach.

With a name like Brimstone Coven, it better be good. Hailing from West Virginia, Brimstone Coven take on throwback metal–the kind with real singing–and summon it full-throttle into the present. Rife with roving, mountain-sized riffs that are festooned in fuzz and cleverly populated with harmonious vocals–think vintage Ozzy meets John Lawton–, the group’s new album, Black Magic, represents the new era of ’70s-inspired metal. So, sit back, burn some incense, turn down the lights. It’s Brimstone Coven time.

I’m no more or less happy to drink my way across tonight’s hallowed boundary between old and soon-to-be-old than I have been any other year.  I’m certainly more than willing to present you with five of this year’s best blog posts.

This year, French label Les Acteurs de L’Ombre launched Emanations, a division meant to spotlight emerging local talent with limited cassette and CD releases, and several interesting recordings have surfaced as a result.

This Decibel scribe has always fallen horned-head-over-cloven-heels for the frozen-horror lullabies crafted under the Lustre moniker.  In about three weeks, Nachtzeit will release an EP of self-proclaimed regressive black metal that strips any conceit of beauty or complexity from his other work and rages bleakly in the northern darkness.

In the grand tradition of Karma to Burn, QotSA and taking the re-bar solidness of the Swiss rock/metal scene as irreverent artistic influence comes instrumental/power/stoner trio, Dog Days. 

Chicago prog metal unit Dissona will soon release their second full-length scorcher Paleopneumatic.  The album wormhole-hops through myriad styles and instrument combinatorial choices; the overall effect is a twisted journey through a musical landscape molded by dudes who really know their shit.

We spoke with Mark Kloeppel of Baltimore’s Misery Index about his band’s contribution to the Flexi Series.  Misery Index’s song – a cover of Sepultura’s “Primitive Future” – can be found in our current issue (#135, January 2016, Lamb of God cover), but you can also check it out right here while you read Kloeppel’s comments on the recording’s origins and execution.

Among 2015’s other contenders, five curried nearly enough votes to make it onto our list… but only nearly.  Does that mean we shouldn’t spill some love-ink for them?  Hell no!  Here’s the five records that tied for #41 on our Top 40 Albums of 2015.

Metal has a vast expanse of space that it calls its popularity continuum, and I, admittedly, have no idea where Finland’s Re-Armed would be located along this stretch of real estate. However, the band  recently returned from a three-week tour of China. We quiz vocalist Jouni Matilainen and bassist Juhana ‘Bobo’ Heinonen about their latest adventure.