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I love me some Secrets of the Sky.  I loved their album To Sail Black Waters when I first heard (half of) it last year.  I loved it more when the other half made it to the Soundcloudosphere (beyond the stratosphere, just underneath the Bandcamposphere).  I love it now that it’s being released by Kolony Records….

Given the opportunity to write about craft beer every month in Decibel has been eye-opening. The idea that our “Brewtal Truth” column would have lasted more than four years (and counting) and even spawn a book—The Brewtal Truth Guide to Extreme Beers, out in November—is pretty amazing. Now it’s time to bring a little “Brewtal…

Ever been to Great Falls, MT? Surprisingly, I have. Ever heard of/heard Great Falls, the band? I have. Hell, I even enjoy them. Ever seen Great Falls live? Done that too and I enjoyed it some more. Ever seen a show in Great Falls, MT? Even more surprisingly, that’s also something I’ve managed to tick…

If you read Jonathan Horsley’s interview with Ben Ward last week, you’d have learned that the dudes in Orange Goblin recently quit their jobs in order to commit full-time to the band. You’d have also read that the UK quartet was about to embark on a massive North American tour that starts tomorrow in New…

There are few guitarists on the planet that get the shredder’s studio worked up as much as former Asphyx and current Grand Supreme Blood Court guitarist Eric Daniels. He writes the riffs that awaken your inner caveman. Eric was kind enough to drop in from across the pond and tell us how he started playing…

** Morne’s third album, Shadows, is a best effort from our favorite funeral doom outfit from Beantown. Come to think of it they’re the only funeral doom band from Boston. So unique was previous album, Asylum, we had to catch up with guitarist Milosz Gassan and bassist Max Furst to see why, in 2013, Morne…

Seeker are heavy, technical, and here to eat all your stuff. Lock up your women, children, and refrigerators, and when you’ve done that, kneel at the feet of vocalist Bryce Lucien and prepare to receive some serious wisdom.   Here we are, on tour as we have been for the better part of the last…

Christ on a motherfucking crutch do we have a treat for you this morning, loyal readers: An exclusive premiere of a churning, kinetic track off what promises to be a seriously off the hook brilliant upcoming debut album from Mutoid Man, the new collaboration between Stephen Brodsky (CAVE IN) and Ben Koller (CONVERGE). We asked…

How did Napalm Death get its first Peel Session? Shane Embury: “I joined Napalm in July ’87, so the first thing I ever did with Napalm Death was a Peel Session—even before we had played live or anything, strangely enough. At that time, the BBC would have contacted Earache and this guy Martin Nesbitt was…

The last time we spoke with Valkyrja they were hot on the trail of releasing second album, Contamination. Since then, the Swedish black metallers have been remarkably quiet, but that’s all about to change on November 11th. Why November 11th? Well, if you have your history book opened, it’s the date Diocletian tried to restore…

Okay, I’m back for a bit. Let’s just get into it, shall we? CARCASS released Surgical Steel this week after a decade or so of relative inactivity. I’m really digging this. The front end of the record is loaded with more of the heavier songs, so some fans may find the latter half tedious, as…

Activator is a relatively new four-piece from New York playing New York-styled crossover/hardcore/thrash in a New York state of mind. Their self-titled debut album was just released a couple days ago and features all the stuff 80s and 90s Lower East Side dreams were made of all lovingly caressed by a modern thrashing edge. Feel…

It’s hard to believe (for me, at least) that God Is An Astronaut is already into its second decade as a band. In fact, the Irish post-rockers just dropped their seventh full-length, Origins, earlier this month. The record marks a return to Rocket Girl, which also happened to license the first album I heard from…

It might be a calculated risk on Albert Mudrian’s part to feature Swedish upstarts (OK, they’ve been truckin’ since 2002) as cover stars on the new issue of Decibel (available HERE), but looking back on previous cover icons his choices have proven, largely, correct. Though it’s easy to point fingers and say, “Hey, this band…

The folks who work hard to bring you the extremely extreme each week might be cantankerous but that doesn’t mean we don’t look out for our fellow man. Case in point: the gifted guitarist Jason Becker, who was struck with with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which most readers know as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The disease…

I have no idea what a “Domovoyd” is (presumably something in Finnish or maybe a type of mushroom), but a lamia is a creepy snake person thing, and there are some definite serpentine tendencies to their music. It coils around your cerebral cortex, then sinks its fangs right into the pleasure center and injects 200…

Lyric videos are a bit of a mystery. They probably started with pop music on major labels for no other reason than to have a video on Youtube for nerdballs to copy/paste into lyric sites (with typos) as a way to pump up their online cred factor. Well, folks, lyric videos have, fittingly I might…

Prior to the release of 2012’s A Eulogy for the Damned, the Deciblog met up with Orange Goblin and found a band that was pretty much a long-standing institution turned part-time concern. Breaking bread over a table henged with pint glasses of cider and beer, the English quartet were talking about making their first studio…

Welcome to Tales From the Metalnomicon, a column delving into the surprisingly vast world of heavy metal-tinged/inspired literature and metalhead authors… Man, Lewis Dimmick truly delivers something special with This Music, an exquisite collection of lyrical, poignant, often very funny vignettes detailing his coming of age in the 80s New York City hardcore scene. Naturally,…

Given the opportunity to write about craft beer every month in Decibel has been eye-opening. The idea that our “Brewtal Truth” column would have lasted more than four years (and counting) and even spawn a book—The Brewtal Truth Guide to Extreme Beers, out in November—is pretty amazing. Now it’s time to bring a little “Brewtal…

Because every day another band records another song.  Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck.  Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm.  Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…

Tell your average schmoe on the street that you’re doing an interview with Matt Harvey and they’ll probably think the topics of conversation are set to include pitch selection, what it’s like having Andrew Bonazelli as a stalker and season ending surgery. What automatically comes to mind when you mention the name Matt Harvey to…

I assume there are some fans of guitar shred reading this, because this is a metal website on the Internet. Well, today’s your lucky day! Century Media gathered four pretty killer shredders with long, flowing locks at the Carvin store in Hollywood on August 26 to allow them to show off their skills, jam together,…

The last time we spoke to black metal pontificator Alexander von Meilenwald he had the following to say about The Ruins of Beverast’s origins: “I didn’t define any concrete goals in the beginning, to be honest. The Ruins Of Beverast were established rather spontaneously when I felt the need to express new musical urges that…

The dudes in Primitive Man spent much of the summer on the road in support of their debut, Scorn. Like any other touring band, the Denver trio–which features drummer Isidro “Spy” Soto, vocalist/guitarist Ethan Lee McCarthy and bassist Jonathan Campos–has a batch of go-to tunes when it comes time to traverse the good ol’ U.S….

So Randy Larsen and Bernie Romanowski from long-running noisecore antiheroes Cable launched a new project a little while back called Empty Flowers to explore 90s-style smart, seething gut-punch post-hardcore. And the mix actually works! Really fucking well! The band’s debut, Six, created some impressive atmospheres and undercurrents, but the sophomore release Five sees Empty Flowers…

If you were to ask Vulture Industries’ main-brain Bjørnar Nilsen where inspiration comes from, he’d probably say this: “We draw inspiration from all over but tend to give each part a good kick in the side to bend it a bit out of shape. If you draw a hexagon and put Tom Waits, Nick Cave,…

There are a lot of hooks on Surgical Steel, but that has always been the case with Carcass; no matter how brutal it gets, it’s always hummable. Has that been deliberate?“Well yeah, I’m glad you think that. Yes some of the music is difficult to the untrained listener but we do wanna have hooks; they…

** Niklas Sundin and I first interviewed back in ’93 after the release of Skydancer. Well, this year Skydancer, Dark Tranquillity’s stunning debut album, turns 20. To honor how time has been kind to this stellar release, Niklas agreed to answer a few nifty questions. More importantly, Dark Tranquillity have acquired the rights to both…

It’s been awhile, so let’s get into it, shall we? GORGUTS are back at it with Colored Sands, and lemme tell ya, it’s REALLY good. All the elements are there: death metal, tech metal, and there are some downright pretty moments. I mean, one can’t really touch some of the older chapters of this legendary…