Interviews

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…

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….

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…

OK, maybe not quite, though if you do this long enough chances are you’ll be on both ends of hellish interviews. Thankfully, the only thing really wrong with this particular chin wag with From Hell is that it’s been sitting on the back burner for a while, so it may seem more general and vague…

Romanian black metal trio Persekutor’s Angels of Meth was the best album nobody heard in 2006, an anger brownie with hatred frosting. Unfortunately, a protracted legal dispute between the band and its former label Thousand Year Reich over rights to the masters has cast an official stateside release in doubt, and the only official copy…

Metal has always been a global phenomenon. However, one of the communities we don’t hear too much about outside of some fine work by filmmaker Sam Dunn is India. Decibel wanted to get a closer look at what’s going on in India and how globalization and cultural shifts are shaping metal music there. We had…

Gorguts released its long-awaited fifth album today, the band’s first in over 12 years. To celebrate, vocalist/guitarist Luc Lemay decided to take a breather from death metal and reveal a little bit of his softer side, highlighting five songs/pieces of music that show the “beauty and poetry in music.” Once you’re done checking out Luc’s…

Check out all this sonic extremity that German label/distributor Iron Bonehead is trying to drill through your thick skull!  On Friday, we brought you a tasty helping of ugly old school death from Abyssous.  This morning (as some of us return to work from a sun-baked Labor Day weekend) we serve up an entire platter…

Welcome to Tales From the Metalnomicon, a column delving into the surprisingly vast world of heavy metal-tinged/inspired literature and metalhead authors… Bazillion Points Books boasts such an absurdly badass catalog it is difficult at times to believe the publishing house actually exists outside the fantasies of discerning connoisseurs and devotees of underground rock and metal….

We got an earful of Abyssous recently when we browsed through some recent promos for a bit of quick, juicy entertainment. Admittedly, it was the band name that drew us in… but it was the gristly death metal within that kept our attention pinned.

Matt Harvey is a fan of the San Francisco Giants. He shares the name of the NL East’s pitcher of the future (for the record, I wrote this before his injury and really meant it) who happens to play for a certain NY-based franchise. He also really likes Metallica. Some of us here may hold…

Sometimes a little cleaning can unearth big finds. During my latest attempt at restoring some order to the house of CDs I live in, I came across a stack of old CDR’s that contained the archives of my old radio show, Hellraiser’s Ball, at USC’s student run radio station, KSCR (1560 AM!). One of those…

by Kim Kelly Phil McSorley has no interest in talking about Cobalt, and would appreciate it if people would stop fucking asking him about their recording plans. His frustration is understandable, given that he’s just weeks away from the release of his pet project’s first demo and he’s still being bombarded by questions about his…

In recent years, Chicago has been home to all sorts of experimental and off-the-path metal. Lest you forget it’s also the hometown of Paul Speckmann of Master, scads of restaurants that serve large racks of meat and tons of old-school goodness. On that note, Decibel is happy to provide an exclusive stream of Scythe’s “Leather…

Florida’s Orbweaver just released one of those records that sounds just like its cover art.  Like, if Mastodon’s latest actually sounded like the roar of a multi-jawed bull with scales, or if mid-period Novembers Doom actually sounded good.  Copiously limbed, eye- and mouth-dominated monstrosities from space are climbing through razored tears in space-time to devour…

Before you jump all down my throat and get up in my grill, understand that not all metal festivals are on the same level as Wacken, MDF, Roadburn, Chaos in Tejas, Bloodstock, one of the annual Scion-sponsored shin-digs or even Hopscotch or FunFunFunFest. Not every fest has the ability to draw thousands or can be…

Given that Ulcerate is one of the more forward-thinking death metal bands around (as will again be evidenced on the trio’s upcoming album Vermis), it’s only fitting that drummer Jamie Saint Merat’s playlist fits his group’s modus operandi. As he explains, “Being a drummer, I figured it might be an idea to pick something that…

Wake are from Canada. They play grindcore. They seem generally unhappy about things. Here’s a description of the film that Handshake Inc. owner David Hall is making based on the album that sums up the general vibe better than I ever could (a NSFW segment of which can be found below). “False” is a film…

There has never been a shortage of bands in extreme music eager to wed horror cinema imagery to brutal riffage, but few have ever managed to do so with as much skill, class, or cleverness as avant grinders Corn on Macabre. A few months back the defunct band unleashed the towering, essential Discographic Violence retrospective…

In 1985, a kid by the name of Tommy Memzercardo released “The Innocent, The Forsaken, The Guilty”, an off-kilter fantasy/epic metal EP featuring Bill Ward on drums. Back then, the former Black Sabbath drummer couldn’t be credited for legal reasons, while Memzercardo was a mystery all of his own, calling himself The Mezmerist and playing…

** Originally slated for an early July release, Avichi’s new album, Catharsis Absolute, is now coming this October. If the stars align. Below is a conversation with Avichi mastermind Andrew ‘Aamonael’ Markuszewski about what separates Catharsis Absolute from its predecessor The Devil’s Fractal. We also explore the spiritual and personal concepts behind it. What is…

Catuvolcus, those purveyors of anthemic historical metal, have been waking ancient Gallic spirit from their home in Warwick for the past six years.  In that time, they’ve dropped an EP and two full-length records.  Decibel‘s only exposure to their sound has been through Gergovia, the band’s second album, and it’s a heavy-as-hell burner of a record….

One-time cover stars Pelican hail from Chicago, metropolis of the Great Lakes states. While last year saw the departure of guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec, new blood has brought new tunes beginning with the 7″ the band will drop next week. To celebrate, guitarists Trevor de Brauw and newcomer Dallas Thomas, bassist Bryan Herweg and drummer Larry…

Jack Grisham’s place in the world of punk and extreme music is secure. In the early 80s, he was the volatile frontman of T.S.O.L. (True Sounds Of Liberty), a band that along with Black Flag and the Circle Jerks defined southern California hardcore. He handled vocals on their debut EP and the eternal classic Dance…

by Kim Kelly Earlier this year, it seemed as though Canadian black/death Satanists Weapon were still at the top of their game. 2012 saw the release of Embers and Revelations, their most ambitious album to date and their debut for heavyweight label Relapse. They’d hit the road for a successful North American tour with Marduk…

 Last Friday, August 2nd, I spent most of the day in a Washington, DC suburb to take in one of the oddest summer festivals around: Summer Slaughter 2013. Past years have found this tour loaded with distinctively death metal acts, abounding with brutality and breakdowns. This year’s edition of the tour certainly included a fair bit of…

Thrill Jockey are known mostly for their weird post-rock and experimental psych acts like Trans Am, Barn Owl, Eternal Tapestry, and Tortoise. And that stuff is great, and we cover it, but it’s always a slightly uncomfortable match with the magazine. Recently, though, they’ve expanded into full-blown metal madness with Liturgy, the Body, and now…

Listen, we have seen Red Fang’s promo videos. We’ve witnessed their love of the grog. And at the risk of sounding guilty of cynical lifestyle profiling, surely asking Bryan Giles to compile a tour diary sounded overly optimistic. How reliable a witness could the Red Fang guitarist/vocalist be after being jammed on a van for…