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)…

We’ve been lucky enough to have the likes of Shane Embury, Greg Mackintosh and Anders Nyström tell us about records that related in some way to each of their bands’ studio albums. This time around, Aaron Stainthorpe (that’s him on the far right) combed through My Dying Bride’s discography (including the quintet’s eleventh and latest,…

How instrumental was the faux-documentary/film The Hellstrom Chronicle to the making of Insects?v.03/170: The film wasn’t that essential on our musical concept, but it surely influenced the overall lyrical concept on Insects. Its abysmal mood and the menacing close-ups of actually small creatures give a special kind of impression which helped to form pictures in…

The Slovenly Swiss sludge slatterns better known as Abraham were brought to my attention courtesy their label boss, Robin Staps. You may recognise Robin’s name as he’s the driving engine behind The Ocean and, because he seems to think that the seven or eight hours of sleep he gets each month is a luxury, he…

Two years after the tragic death of Makh Daniels, Early Graves triumphantly returned with a new record this week (Justin M. Norton put it much more eloquently in his review in our December issue). Instead of putting together a typical playlist to celebrate Red Horse, the quintet decided to go all multimedia with its theme:…

Originally, this frickin’ boner was supposed to go out to the tragically unsigned Secrets of the Sky, an Oakland, CA collective who specialize in black-splashed prog-n-doom awesomeness.  Now that Secrets of the Sky are untragically signed to Gravedancer Records, you’re hopefully going to hear a lot more about them in the coming months and years. …

When word arrived that the Darkness would be rolling through L.A. again on their way to meet up with Lady Gaga in South America, we told J. Bennett to grease up his tits for a pre-show rematch with frontman Justin Hawkins. The following conversation took place on Tuesday, October 23, the night before the band’s…

Since All That Remains released its debut a decade ago, the band has been a model of consistency in terms of the album cycle. In fact, it has dropped a new record like clockwork every two years since 2002, meaning no one should be surprised that full-length number six is set to drop on November…

Venomous Maximus isn’t a cover band that does a cool version of “Witching Hour.” This Houston band likes riffs, penned a song that’s an indirect ode to King Diamond (see below) and has earned comparisons to Pentagram and Electric Wizard. We’ll gladly take that over a Cronos impersonation. For your exclusive streaming pleasure, Venomous Maximus…

Thirty years. What does that mean for Sodom to have been doing extreme metal for three decades? That’s a long time for any career let alone a metal band. Tom Angelripper: Yes, I can’t believe that we are still around with touring, recording, and all the activities. When we formed the band in ’82 we…

Golden Void is a band that I stumbled across thanks to the fine fuckers over at Thrill Jockey who pimped them as an outfit inspired by “Sabbath, Hawkwind and rounded out by Robert Fripp, Jimi Hendrix, and even some Can in there as well.” Those of you familiar with the instrumental, psychedelic, Fat Albert-ness (yeah,…

In anticipation of next week’s release of his band’s fourth record Lovelessness, Bison B.C. guitarist/vocalist James Farwell penned one of the most introspective and honest playlists we’ve ever run. He also sent over the following introduction, which is fortunate because we could not have put it any better. Listen along to his picks here. “Here…

Finland’s Behexen have the good taste to traffic in occult black blasphemies, and the good sense not to bludgeon their audience, um, senseless.  Christian-slaughtering speeds certainly take their due, but Behexen take the time to smell the burnt-offering entrails, too.  The year 2012 finds the occult Scandinavian crew unleashing its fourth full-length recording in its…

If you mention “gallery” and “death metal” in the same sentence we’re probably going to think Gallery of Suicide. Maybe this is a sign of the yawning chasm that exists between extreme metal and art/gallery culture, or maybe it’s just a deeply concerning hardwired word association. But, if you think about it, aside from the…

When the idea was pitched for a Decibel exclusive oral history of Brujeria (November 2012, Issue #97), it seemed straight forward enough:  Get the maniacs behind one of the world’s worst-kept-secret bands to dish out a chronological breakdown of the life and times of White Cali’s most feared sonic terrorists.  The reality of weaving such…

A Life Once Lost’s fifth full-length has been a long time coming. Not only has it been five years since our hometown favorites put out Iron Gag, but when we last spoke to Doug Sabolick back in January 2011 (you know, back when there was hope for the Phightins), the band had already been writing…

Manetheren’s Time is about as casual an experience as the sprawling dozen-plus-tome story that gives the band its name.  (Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series became so outrageously complex that now, even five years after Jordan’s death, a secondary author is still finishing the three books needed to complete the tale.)  Don’t belly up to…

Usually, when some public relations goomba contacts me, spouting off about how I’m guaranteed to love whatever new band they’re promoting, I go out of my way to hate that band. I used to do it subconsciously (probably) and don’t mean it as a slight to whatever band is in question, but as I’ve gotten…

Odds are that pretty much anything we cover would be the last thing anybody waking up from a long night of debauchery would want to hear. Just because your head feels like it might explode, however, doesn’t mean that comfort cannot be found via some quality tuneage. Just ask bassist/vocalist Jon DeHart of West Deptford,…

Of all the bands to crawl back from the metal abyss here’s something we never expected. VON is releasing a new album at the end of October and dB got an exclusive stream of “Jesus Stain” from Satanic Blood. The band expects to play a limited run of shows. Take a listen below and then…

Decibel knows you’ve got a metal wishlist 23 albums long and five gigabytes of Profound Lore records you still haven’t heard all the way through, but each week we like to give you the opportunity to tune in to a project that isn’t backed by anybody’s hype machine.  Because music is universal, expression is boundless,…

To celebrate the release of Legend, last week we brought you Witchcraft bassist Ola Henriksson’s playlist of weightlifting songs. We’d wager that this week’s entry, however, marks the first time any of the artists below have been, and likely will be, mentioned around these parts (other than this apparently). Not only did frontman and founder…

How do you separate the debut and Ariettes Oubliées… as musical entities?Fursy Teyssier: I’d say that Ariettes Oubliées… is a much more dense and solid album than Septembre… as the concept of Les Discrets became more precise in my head, so I knew exactly which atmospheres I wanted to create and what the album needed…

Bands like Gojira and Godflesh might be major brand names ‘round these parts, but mention them to your average Metallica-loving broseph and you’re likely to get a squinty-eyed, the-fuck-you-say? half-nod. But Decibel just won’t quit. We dig deeper, danker, darker and dirtier (though rarely fitter or happier) to turn up a few otherwise overlooked gems….

Hands up those of you who remember Wales trio Taint? Aside from having our man Bonazelli throw down as the band’s biggest supporter to the tune of given up first born and oaths taken on the graves of dead relatives, the trio gave the world three unfuckwithable albums (All Bees to the Sea, Secrets and…

As detailed in our November issue, we’ve had to wait a good while between Witchcraft albums. When news of the band’s new record finally hit this May, the press release also nonchalantly dropped a couple of bombshells about the group’s lineup. Despite the changes, however, two pillars continue to be frontman/founder Magnus Pelander and bassist…

Only a short introduction is needed here. This gentleman played on Hall Of Fame certified None So Vile, not to mention the inimitiable Blasphemy Made Flesh. He’s back in Cryptopsy and a big reason their eponymous new album rules. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re proud to welcome Jon Levasseur to the shredder’s studio this week. Hey…

When through the magic of Facebook we recently learned that a twenty-five year-old aspiring solar panel technician and diehard thrash metal maniac from Calexico, California had tattooed the epic artwork from the poster of the inaugural Decibel tour onto his right forearm, it was pretty much inevitable we’d reach out. Turns out Papu Martinez is…

“Epic’s in my nature,” says Mark “the Shark” Shelton. “That’s all there is to it. It’s all about the telling of a good story.” He’s talking about his writing style and ethos for Manilla Road and new side-project with Manilla Road bassist Ernie Cunningham Hellwell, but such a declaration applies equally to Shelton’s expansive conversation…

Bands like Gojira and Godflesh might be major brand names ‘round these parts, but mention them to your average Metallica-loving broseph and you’re likely to get a squinty-eyed, the-fuck-you-say? half-nod. But Decibel just won’t quit. We dig deeper, danker, darker and dirtier (though rarely fitter or happier) to turn up a few otherwise overlooked gems….