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We love us some Weekend Nachos ’round the hallowed corridors of the Decibel nerve centre and its various satellite offices. So, when WN vocalist John Hoffman emailed us earlier this week asking if we wanted to throw up the A-side of the band’s new 7″, the “DUH!” was positively Richter Scale-worthy. The track originally appeared…

If you’ve been keeping up with our last two issues (which also happen to be our year-end and 100th), you’ve probably noticed that there’s a new Holy Grail record coming out this month. While you’ll have to wait until January 22nd to see if your excitement about Ride The Void even comes remotely close to…

And so begins the relentless stream of new metal releases of 2013. First out of the gate is some tried and true death metal courtesy of Germany’s Defeated Sanity. dB is streaming the second track “Naraka” off upcoming album Passages Into Deformity, due Feb. 5 and available for preorder from Willowtip. The band describes the…

Few metal bands of the world truly frighten. Whether it’s songs of Satan, ancient fjords, circumcised babies, or dismembered women (far more common than dismembered men, mind you), metal bands have covered it all ad nauseam. And we, as metal acolytes, have become accustomed to that which would normally repulse or scare. But, there are…

“The weak pale in the face of both baking and metal!” Metalcakes proprietor Kathy Bejma declares when asked how she first came to realize heavy metal and cupcakes belonged in the same mixing bowl. “Plus ovens are like little mini hells accepting your sacrifice of unborn chickens, butter, and sugar…Occasionally I’ll get the How dare…

Gorehounds, gut-sifters, and comic book ghouls will no doubt be aware that Bay Area death metal titans Autopsy have been immortalized in in Feast for a Funeral, a band-authorised comic by E-Comix. As you’d expect from Autopsy’s generously gruesome back catalogue, and gather from the promotional video trailer for the comic [below], Feast for a…

If you’re well-heeled in the arts of underground death metal—is there another kind, actually?—the name Mike Hrubovcak should ring a bell. Right. Hrubovcak, not to be confused with his brother J.J., is sort of a Renaissance Man. The frontman’s throated for Vile and Monstrosity, as well as his own weighty projects in Divine Rapture and…

Welcome to Tales From the Metalnomicon, a new twice-monthly column delving into the surprisingly vast world of heavy metal-tinged/inspired literature and metalhead authors… Gonzo dark fiction author, screenwriter, martial arts sensei, serious connoisseur of heavy metal and hardcore — there’s a lot thrown into the mix when it comes to the literary force of nature…

Coventry’s mighty Cathedral are retiring in style this spring, following the release of swansong The Last Spire. And your friends at Decibel have the first new music from Lee Dorrian’s doom institution in nearly three years, debuting via our Flexi Series! It’s unclear if “Vengeance of the Blind Dead” is a nod to the cult…

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)…

The Lord Herself knows Zao has kept it super-low on the spotlight front since the release of 2006’s The Fear is What Keeps Us Here. The promotional push for Awake? was zilch and the only “concrete” mentions of this supposed new album they have waiting in the wings for 2013 comes via Wikipedia and hardcore…

Not only does Rotten Sound have a new EP coming out later this month, but the Finnish quartet is also celebrating its vicennial. So when bassist Kristian Toivainen suggested putting together a playlist with picks from a certain year, it took us back to a feature we used to have in the magazine. Back in…

Since the New Year is the time of self-reimagination (or big promises that aren’t kept) it’s a good day to look back into the storied skeleton closet. While metal took over the planet in the 1980s via Metallica and Iron Maiden (after Black Sabbath set the stage for a decade) pop ruled the charts. You…

Often, there is a lot of left over content that doesn’t quite fit the narrative or direction of a story. Case in point #1: Converge for dB #96. Case in point #2: Throughout the interview process, the members of Converge had rad stories to tell, but somehow the quotes never quite made the cut. So,…

Anthrax main-man Scott Ian isn’t about to quit metal and hit the after-dinner speaking circuit or anything, at least not just yet. But following a successful one-off spoken word show in London last November he has booked a 16-date spoken word tour of the UK. He’s calling it Speaking Words, because a spoken word tour…

It is time to celebrate the death of 2012 with the Top 5 Funeral Doom Songs (of all time, perhaps). There is no rhyme or reason to this list, actually. Just five songs that always find their way home during the long cold nights of winter. If it’s not snowing or cold as a medieval…

Well boys and girls, we’ve survived the apocalypse, and there’s not much coming out soon, so I’ll review my best of this year. In case you missed my expertly honed reviews, you should check these out. I will put a caveat that these are in no particular order. Napalm Death, Utilitarian Grind, grind and more…

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)…

Chances are you know about Scion’s involvement in the world of extreme music (as well as garage rock and electronic music scenes). Chances are some of you have even gone on online to whine about a huge corporation like Scion/Toyota digging their claws and worming their tentacles into our sacred little world… after picking up…

To celebrate the Mayan apocalypse, last week Ancestors shared the first half of its end of the world playlist. Doomsday or not, we automatically scheduled the second half of the Los Angeles quintet’s picks to run this morning to help satiate this guy‘s voracious appetite for the written word. But, in the off-chance we manage…

Ah, to be a metalhead on the biggest holiday of the year. We’re imagining that you got a new fleece from Eddie Bauer instead of the rare Xasthur LP you hoped would end up under the tree. Your incontinent grandpa is still asleep on the couch. You are now hiding in your room scanning metal…

Deep in the heart of east central California—that’d be Mono County or to be more specific Mammoth Lakes—lies one of the most enigmatic black metal outfits this side of France. Although Valdur aren’t particularly coy about revealing where they’re from, they’re pretty tight on who they are. Formed in ’03 but fiercely independent—their close affiliation…

Welcome to Tales From the Metalnomicon, a new twice-monthly column delving into the surprisingly vast world of heavy metal-tinged/inspired literature and metalhead authors… “We have to raise hell, man,” Jake Hamer chides his wavering rock n’ roll brethren early on in John Skipp and Craig Spector’s 1988 let’s-give-the-fucking-PRMC-something-to-really-fear barnburner The Scream. “It’s our sacred duty….

Vit kill.  Probably not literally, but who knows?  Their brand of grueling harshitude is just about my favorite kind of ear-hate:  a doomy churn filled with motion and eventful anarchy, a corpse-painted wretch that forgoes all amusical mopiness in favor of mounting, forboding horror.  Fans of genre-shunting black mood enhancement take heed.  Vit are shuffling bleakly…

On the surface, the name Phil Lawvere might not mean a whole lot. But if you take a root around your record collection, the importance of Lawvere’s contribution to the world of metal becomes pretty evident, pretty quickly. As the man who painted the covers to such classics as Endless Pain, Pleasure to Kill, Terrible…

While New Years Eve has never been one of my favorite holidays, Ancestors’ most recent effort, In Dreams And Time, was one of my top records of 2012. The previous sentence made more sense when the band was putting together a NYE playlist for us. Nevertheless, the Los Angeles quintet has assembled something even better…

This is not Christmas music. Here at Decibel we’re always on the lookout for weird and unexpected shit for your listening pleasure. And the self-titled release from French/Norwegian outfit Stagnant Waters fits the bill. This band looks at the 12-bar structure like highly evolved aliens look at a toaster oven. We’re at a loss to…

Name: Saint Vitus Category: Venue Location: Brooklyn, NY Behind an unmarked black door on Manhattan Ave in Greenpoint lies America’s kvltest watering hole. “None More Black” doesn’t even begin to describe the interior of Saint Vitus; everything from the walls to the toilet seats are a bleak absence of light, the only respite being the…

It’s the holiday season, which means it’s time to celebrate the thinly veiled pagan tradition of your choosing! In the spirit of giving without having to actually give anything ourselves (other than some links on the Internet), here are some of the finest recent metal albums available for free download on Bandcamp (a few of…

“I’ve got a problem with bands that come from an area but don’t reflect where they’re from,” While She Sleeps vocalist Lawrence Taylor says toward the end of the press release accompanying This is the Six, the UK band’s latest hypercharged slab of frenetic metalcore. “I know a lot of bands that will sing with…