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Continuing the trend of posting streams from bands whose names I can’t pronounce, this week we have a full album stream from Fluisteraars. Apparently it means “the whisperers” in whatever language they speak in the Netherlands. Not a hell of a lot of whispering going on to these ears, but there are definitely some nuances….

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’…

Iron Hand are a crusty d-beat/hardcore band from New Haven, CT, and, courtesy of Safety Meeting Records you can stream their awesome debut 12-inch, Injected Fear right here, right now. Injected Fear is a rugged and lean 18 minutes of the sort of unpolished fury that’s probably best experienced live as it rattles around an…

** We interviewed Alcest frontman Neige for the March 2014 issue of Decibel [HERE]. The magazine interview focuses on Neige’s childhood influences, working with Slowdive’s Neil Halstead, and how the sea became central to the Frenchman’s inner and outer calm. The remains of that interview are below. You’re kind of seen as the ex-black metaller….

The weather may be brutally cold when Amon Amarth, Enslaved and Skeletonwitch roll into Minneapolis on Saturday, February 8, but there will be a special strong beer, brewed specifically for this event by Surly Brewing, waiting for them. Surly is sponsoring the show at Mill City Nights and head brewer Todd Haug decided to provide…

Extreme metal fans complaining about the “lack of darkness” on an album with more than its share of shade have a severely skewed opinion of what constitutes “dark” music.  But that’s completely understandable. After all, when you subsist on a diet of nothing but barbecue and someone hands you a salad, you’re going to wonder…

Courtesy of FDA Rekotz, the Deciblog is proud to bring you a wee afternoon poke in the eye by way of “Cryostasis”, taken from Morfin’s debut LP, Inoculation. The album drops on Feb 21st. You can pre-order it here. Morfin will be mother’s milk to all those old-school death metal connoisseurs who get their necks…

What’s the connection between craft beer and metal? We hear this question a lot. Well, specifically, we are asked this question a lot since our craft beer book, The Brewtal Truth Guide to Extreme Beers, was published last November. For people who aren’t necessarily into both things, it’s hard to see the commonalities. On the…

As a general rule, we would suggest you not listen to instrumental “post” metal.  It certainly has its occasional charms and does an admirable job drawing the aurally cautious into the integrity-crushing arms of extreme metal.  Beyond the realm of intellectual curiosity and compositional hedonism, however, this gravity well of musical talent too often grows…

Those of you who pay rapt attention to the Throw Me a Frickin’ Bone column might already have taken note of Vaporizer and the kind words I’ve bestowed upon their intense irascibility and how I gave their EP a nod as one of the top self-releases of last year. If you haven’t already checked them…

I don’t usually premiere tracks on here, but when I do, there are few bands I’d rather talk about than Junius. After spoiling us with excellent full-lengths in 2009 and 2011, these Massholes are finally returning with a collection of new recordings next month after a nearly two-and-a-half year break. Given that a few weeks…

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…

What does the word “Hark” mean? It means to “pay attention to”. Who said Decibel never educates? Truth be told, whenever I hear the word “Hark” I immediately think of the song, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing“. But there might be some deep-seated issues with church choir with that one. For the band Hark, the…

Deciblog faithful, for your streaming pleasure we have the new Deadkill album No, Never! available starting today from our friends at Good To Die Records. Give it a listen and then read a track-by-track breakdown from the band. Orpheus Bryan Krieger: Brutal opera about descending into the depths of hell for one you love: love…

Finally, a track premiere from a band whose name I can pronounce! It’s not a name I can say in polite company, but, you know, baby steps. Hard to believe these guys have been slinging their unique brand of shitkicker punk for nearly 20 years, but here they are, on full-length number seven and still…

Not long ago we introduced you to Concordia University professor/extreme music lifer Vivek Venkatesh. Today the man we affectionately call “Professor Death Metal” graciously gives us a sneak peak at “From Pride to Prejudice to Shame: Multiple Facets of the Black Metal Scene within and without Online Environments,” a chapter he co-authored with professor Jeff…

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…

Re-Spect! Vogue! 

The last time lead Nocturnal Breed headman Kenneth Svartalv (aka S.A. Destroyer) ushered his forces into war was back in 2007, just as world financial systems were crumbling under their own gluttonous weight. Now, some seven long-ass years later, S.A. Destroyer returns with the Breed in tow and V. Fineideath replacing A. E. Rattlehead on…

Still a little slow around here, if you know what I’m pecking about. But let’s just dive into it, shall we? Culted release Oblique to All Paths on Relapse.  Culted are a file-sharing kind of group that never really all get into the same room. Amazingly, though, they’ve crafted an angry, nasty ambient drone/black metal/sludge…

Carcass, the Black Dahlia Murder, Gorguts and Noisem aren’t nearly enough. Here are the regional openers who’ll kick off select dates of the 2014 Decibel Magazine Tour.   Maruta Tues, March 18 / Orlando, FL @ The Beacham Theater Founded in the swamplands of South Florida in 2005, Maruta have been blurring the lines between…

Ladies and germs, courtesy of the good people of Kaotoxin Records, it is our great honor to host this online premiere of Drawer’s self-tilted sophomore album. Drawers are a five-piece outfit from Toulouse, France, who play sludge or a variant thereof; Drawers is really just big-riffed, amp-worshipping metal. This is sludgish metal. Indeed, calling Drawers…

Do not fear the can. The can is a beer drinker’s friend. Especially when the beer is coming all the way from Maui. It protects and helps keep the product inside cool (metal chills faster than glass) and fresh. The folks at Maui Brewing Co. would be foolish to package their product any other way,…

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,…

The latest Clutch album may be the band’s best since 2005’s Robot Hive/Exodus, but the live setting is where these Marylanders have built their name over the years. So it was fitting that the quartet opened up its recent set in Port Chester, NY with “Earth Rocker”, a tune that in many ways sets forth…

For your streaming pleasure today we are premiering the track “Brushfires” from Arizona’s Godhunter, a nasty hybrid of thrash and sludge. Preorder the album City Of Dust here from The Compound. Some details on the track follow the stream. Brushfires is an analogy for the divisiveness that embroils the political nature of mankind. In that…

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…

I had an interesting conversation with a metal peer over coffee yesterday, and was asked what makes a “traditional” heavy metal album made in 2014 worth spending money on when all I have to do is listen to a Judas Priest album. I had to pause and consider that for a minute. For a writer…

I’m pretty sure “Soreption” is a made up word. I think maybe it’s a phonetic transcription of vocalist Fredrik Söderberg’s shrieks. These dudes play seriously gnarly technical death metal to the level where you might need a physics degree just to headbang to it. You can hear them constructing the framework of the abyss as…

A couple months back I was honored to usher the legendary 1995 Integrity album Systems Overload into the Decibel Hall of Fame and now, on the eve of a hell-freezes-over reunion at the A389 Recordings ten-year anniversary Bash in Baltimore, comes a new track from the Systems era line-up. Enjoy an exclusive stream of “7th…