Interviews

Midnight is actually one man. Jamie Walters — a.k.a. Athenar — handles all instruments and vocals. Although the band has been around for more than a decade their profile has risen exponentially since the release of Satanic Royalty. Midnight will likely be lurking around some best of lists for the 2014 follow-up No Mercy For…

I’ve been going on about Amsterdam’s Kong for almost 25 years. The instrumental metal/electronic/dance-y/trance-y/industrial quartet show no sign of slowing down which, by default, means I’m not going to be able to slow down in my unwavering support for the band. And if they keep offering up killer albums like their recently released eighth album,…

As previously expressed in these pages, the concept behind the new Encoffination record is “the glorification of death: an offering to the embodiment of death’s creation, and to sing the wretched hymns of death’s omnipresence, to kneel to death’s crown as we all shall fall under death’s eventual grasp…If the last record were a tool…

“A lot has been written and said about me through the years — most of it bad, some of it untrue.” That’s the opening of the 2010 Paul Di’Anno biography The Beast, which reads more like a gritty LA noir novel than a musical memoir. If you were to read the book — a combination…

** Decibel Hall of Famers Sick of it All know what it’s like to persevere. They’ve been around longer than most of us have been alive, toiling in the unsteady waters of hardcore/punk like strongmen of the Five Burroughs. Well, the legends have returned in the shape of new album, Last Act Of Defiance. It…

Two years ago, Aussie weirdos King Parrot’s debut full-length, Bite Your Head Off, unloaded itself on that continent.  Candlelight Records then released the album Stateside late last year, and the band of screwy-grindy-thrash-loving dudes have been flapping back and forth between land masses to support their renewed new-act status. We had a chance to ask King…

Starting tomorrow, rejuvenated NWOBHM heroes, Satan make a return to North America for a series of tour dates that haphazardly criss-crosses the continent over the course of the next couple of weeks in support of their new live album, Live Sentence. Recorded on their first and only tour of the colonies last year in support…

When Obituary returned in 2005 with Frozen In Time–at that point, its first album in eight years–Decibel was still in its infancy. Fast forward to today, and we’re about to throw two tenth anniversary shows on Saturday night while the death metal legends are about to drop their ninth studio effort, the long-time coming Inked…

Here at the shredder’s studio we usually have one chair in the virtual office. Today, we need to pull up two. Nate Garnette and Scott Hedrick agreed to spend some time with us and walk us through their many influences. Please welcome the dual shredders of Skeletonwitch to the shredder’s studio, our 14th episode! Even…

Brazil’s Crucifixion BR recently signed a deal with Horror Pain Gore Death Productions to release their debut full-length Destroying the Fucking Disciples of Christ. The Deciblog emailed with drummer Juliana Novo (aka DarkMoon) and singer/guitarist Marcio Guterres (aka Lord Grave War) to learn about all things heavy south of the equator. Tell us a bit…

Next week, Magic Bullet Records will force-feed us new bone-scraping sludge from Wormwood, a project dredged from the minds of Doomriders vets Chris Pupecki and Chris Bevilacqua.  Born out of a need for yet-unexplored heaviness, Wormwood have retched out 20 minutes of crusty crush that are sure to nod some heads. Check out third track “I’d…

Around this time last year, we spoke to Godhunter guitarist/vocalist David Rodgers as he was in the process of putting together the second edition of Tucson, AZ’s Southwest Terrorfest (go here to read all about it). At the time, under the Deciblog’s interrogation hot lamps, Rodgers mentioned that one of the bands on his “booking…

When Revocation‘s David Davidson told me about his band’s upcoming album Chaos of Forms back in 2011, the guitarist/vocalist was pretty excited about using his past experience with horn and big band arrangements to compose a horn section for “The Watchers”. Between that and his focus on jazz while at the Berklee College of Music,…

For more than half of Decibel’s decade-long history Mark Rudolph has been a key component of what makes the magazine special. He illustrates the lead review in each issue and has designed covers for all of Decibel’s annual specials dating back to our 100 best death metal albums special. When he isn’t busy with the…

** Texas-based thrashers Rigor Mortis have returned. Sadly, minus guitarist Mike Scaccia, who died with his boots on while performing on stage in 2012. The Mortis aren’t letting their legacy (their self-titled debut is in the Hall of Fame) die lightly. They’re about to issue new album, Slaves to the Grave, through crowd-funded IndieGoGo and…

The 7th, 8th and 9th of next month sees the ninth edition of FunFunFunFest, a ginormous three-day mixture of all sorts of extreme music, indie rock, electronica, hip-hop, comedians, extreme sports and air cannons that fire tacos into a crowd of thousands, take over the city of Austin, TX. Last year, I introduced you to…

Last week, we brought you the first part of Chris Naughton’s landscape themed playlist. While his first six picks covered some well traveled territory–Drudkh, Bathory and Ulver to name a few–the rest dive a little deeper underground. According to Winterfylleth‘s guitarist/vocalist, however, all “capture the very essence of their environment and their history through the…

Back in the day there were shiny things called songs. Albums were filled with good songs rather than two or three wankfests. Now, in the hands of the right band long songs can be potent (see: Sleep and YOB). But heavy songs that are infectious with less real estate are also a very good thing….

New Zealand trio Jakob have a strong release history behind them, but they have been largely absent over the past several years due to injuries that have kept them from playing and recording.  All that is done now, and the band unveils the video for “Blind Them With Science”, the lead-off track from their forthcoming…

So there’s a lot of depressing music out there, much of which we cover in this magazine, but very little of it was made by someone who had stage IV melanoma. Nevada Hill did, and along with Ryan Williams, John Teague, and David Saylor, created some pretty fucked up Harvey Milk-style noise rock inspired by…

Cemetery picnickers Encoffination rise again next month with their third full-length album, called III – Hear Me, O’ Death (Sing Thou Wretched Choirs).  Says vocalist/string-scather Ghoat of the forthcoming set of grueling, buzzing doom:  “The concept of this record is the glorification of death: an offering to the embodiment of death’s creation, and to sing the…

Instead of rambling on about how great the new Winterfylleth album is and coming up with some clever way to introduce what Chris Naughton decided to cover in his playlist (spoiler alert: it’s one of my favorites), we’ll just let the guitarist/vocalist handle the intro himself: “Considering topics that would make for an interesting playlist…

** U.S. black metallers Nightbringer are an entity unto themselves. The Colorado-based trio make music unlike any other. The group’s new album, Ego Dominus Tuus, is a haunting reality check of the darkness that is around us and the darkness that consumes us. Claustrophobic, uncompromisingly intense, and yet very musical (think Classical), Ego Dominus Tuus…

** Mysticum have mystified black metal purists for decades. The Norwegians’ debut album, In the Streams of Inferno, split black metal into tiny shards, its fans wondering what the fuck in its wake. Originally slated to be released on Euronymous’ Deathlike Silence Productions, the ground-breaking, genre-defying release found a home on American black metal label,…

New Jersey-based brazen black metallers Abazagorath have sprinkled the last six or seven years with splits and an EP, but October 7th of this year will see the release of their first album in ten years.  What does the band have in store for you on their nearly-dawned The Satanic Verses?  How do you feel about…

While the news has had time to sink in with the passing of time, it was a big ol’ shocker when Witch Mountain vocalist Uta Plotkin announced she was stepping away from her post after five years of fronting the Portland doom heroes. According to drummer Nathan Carson, he and the other members [guitarist Rob…

Our Managing Editor and I share a fondness for many bands, but if I’m remembering correctly, he was responsible for introducing me to one in particular via his review of The Ruin of Nová Roma way back in the day: Taint. While the trio broke up in 2010, guitarist/vocalist Jimbob Isaac has resurfaced in Hark….

We at Decibel Magazine wish to apologize for not doing enough to support the development and dissemination of grind.  By including occasional articles about other forms of heavy music, some of which include discernible tempos and recognizably human vocals, we have polluted the “scene” (which died 15 years ago, though our anger about it keeps…

Wolf = heavy metal. Leather, beer, whiskey, spikes, chainsaws, and greasy, long hair. Since the beginning of time Wolf has laid waste to posers (and poseurs) and pretenders, bands and forum-junkies too easy to extol the virtues of some C-level band no one has ever cared about except some A&R guy at CBS who is…

UK time travelers Deconstructing Sequence have recorded a new 2-song EP called Access Code, amounting to more than 16 minutes of new music.  Yeah, that doesn’t really sound like a lot, but the futuristic mech-out violence metes out a very high quality to make up for the relatively low quantity.  They pack as much music…