Interviews

Well folks, my recent birthday has officially put me more than past the halfway point to the grave. You’ll be rid of me soon (“not soon enough,” I hear some of you screeching). Usually, people in my age bracket (but not tax bracket) pull up the parking brake on their listening habits and start grousing…

Back in October, we provided a glimpse into the making of the new Kowloon Walled City record Container Ships (check out part 1 and part 2). Now, to celebrate both its Tuesday release and the fact that it’s REALLY fucking good, the band was kind enough to send along a tour van mixtape full of…

What distinguishes Silverthorn from Poetry?Oliver Palotai: My intention behind Silverthorn was to bring more melodic elements back into our music. Poetry for the Poisoned is a good album, but at certain parts too dark and monotonous. I always ask myself how often I would listen myself to a CD I create or co-create. While Poetry…

Sweden’s Khoma is probably best known on this side of the Atlantic – assuming they’re known at all – for being the side project of Cult of Luna’s Johannes Persson and Fredrik Kihlberg. Au contraire. While they may not have been as on the radar of metalnerds as Cult of Luna, Khoma has existed in…

Since it’s getting near the end of the year, I figured I’d mix things up a little bit and fill a couple of these posts with some bands that I’ve been lucky enough to discover over the past 11 months or so. And since this quartet made one of the biggest impressions on me, with…

In 2010, one-man black metal outfit Xasthur released its final album, Portal of Sorrow. That it would be Xasthur’s swansong was announced in advance by its creator, Scott Conner, who abandoned his longtime alias “Malefic” and used his real name in the credits for the first time in a career that spanned 15 years and…

Fall has been kind to the mighty Incantation. They released their boss new album Vanquish In Vengeance (read more about the creation of the album in our new issue). And they charted like a Britney Spears single in our top 100 death metal albums of all time. One of the reasons they are shredding so…

We don’t talk about love a whole lot here at Decibel, and we don’t cover a lot of bands that take influence from Duran Duran. But if you’re tuned into the singularly unique world of Sacramento’s Deftones, you’ll understand that songs of love will be surrealistic, open to interpretation, and tempered with an undercurrent of…

On January 19th, Decibel will celebrate a century of extremely extreme issues at Philadelphia Union Transfer in exalted company: four-time cover stars Converge; swine-ablating grindhogs Pig Destroyer; crossover champs Municipal Waste; Repulsion (be still, beating heart); 2011’s AOTY artists Tombs; and funerealy epic doom titans Evoken. It’s the perfect Decibel storm, a line-up of bands…

A couple weeks back ANIMAL New York posted a brilliant video entitled PUG DESTROYER featuring pugs taking lead vox on a death metal track. That alone would have been awesome enough, but then along came the actual Pig Destroyer and, as is their wont, the band took things to the next level. The result? A…

Rabid death crew Wretched are on a rockin’ roll.  In March of this year they released their third full-length record in as many years, and they’ve been burning up the road with some seriously badass acts in the months since.  Right now they’re out with Six Feet Under, and they’ve got mucho dates scheduled for…

To celebrate the release of A Map Of All Our Failures, last week My Dying Bride vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe (that’s him in the middle) went through the first half of My Dying Bride’s discography to tell us about an album that he was listening to while writing/recording each LP. As he told us, “They have…

The phrases “Van Drunen” and “side project” will cause more than a little excitement in these parts. The death metal frontman handled vocals on two prestigious entries in Decibel’s Top 100 Death Metal Albums (available here). He also toured with the mighty Bolt Thrower and fronts war-themed badasses Hail Of Bullets. The dude is like…

On November 16th, Savannah sludge/metal/psych/punk/other band Kylesa will release From the Vaults Vol. 1 through Season of Mist. It’s been two years since the release of Spiral Shadow, and given you’ll will have to wait until the spring for a follow-up, those of you jonesing for a fix of heavy-and-trippy should check out this out….

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:…