Interviews

OK, so there is a cynical body of thought that might consider black metal as a live performance artform and argue that the genre is best served by careful cellaring. Like it’s a take-home experience, one to be kept in the studio/bedroom, only ever to be enjoyed on record. Of course when we say “enjoyed”…

To celebrate Tuesday’s release of Utilitarian (the fourteenth (!) Napalm Death full-length), we asked longtime bassist Shane Embury to a pick a non-ND record that related in some way to each of the fourteen full-length ND records (including a covers album) that he’s played on over the last 24+ years. Last week, Shane’s entries took…

Recently Anthropic Records — purveyors of excellence and, in their own apt formulation, “heart-breaking, chest-crushing noise and doomed psychic soundscapes” — unleashed Anthrosphere III, yet another fantastic (and free!) compilation of the latest gnashing and wailing coming out of the Philadelphia metal underground. To mark the occasion we invited Anthropic proprietress Shannon Marie to share…

Before getting round to talking about the imminent reissue of Napalm Death’s now 25-year-old [iconic/seminal/etc.] debut Scum, the Deciblog is engaging Mick Harris in a discussion about his favorite fish—the barbel. You see, Napalm Death’s drummer from the years between ’85 and ’91 has long since put his sticks down, and—in his words—has dropped out…

In the preface to his interview with Napalm Death frontman Barney Greenway in Issue #89, J. Bennett wrote that “[t]here are few bands you can rely upon to deliver the fucking goods on their 14th album. Or to even make it that far in the first place. The number of grind outfits that have accomplished…

Click Here To Watch The Video Who came up with this? Was it a band effort or was there one lone genius amongst you? I don’t remember how it came up, all I know is that it’s been an idea for as long as we’ve been a band. How did you pick the videos? Were…

Each Gehenna album had different sonic attributes. From the eerie black metal of The First Spell through the death metal disposition of Murder and then back to brutal black hybrid on WW. Do you recall wanting each album to be singular, regardless of genre?Dolgar: We always try not to make the same album twice of…

Decibel‘s NYC bureau had a tough decision to make last Thursday. Should we head on up to the west side for a classy evening amongst Lincoln Center elite to catch a special performance by This Will Destroy You? Or leave Manhattan (perish the thought!) for a night of PBRs amongst our metal brethren to get…

For a dude who has built a revered legacy on the back of playing big biker doom riffs and wailing with Saint Vitus, Scott “Wino” Weinrich’s recent output has been super-mellow. There was 2010 acoustic solo record, Adrift, then a Latitudes session recorded in London with German singer/songwriter Conny Ochs, before the pair got together…

Decibel illustrator and layout guru Bruno Guerreiro is curating his first art show in Philadelphia. Huzzah! Held at Kung Fu Necktie, a neighborhood-centric watering hole/club, Guerreiro is aiming for the highest highs, displaying his illustrations to a backdrop of outer space heavy — in the form of local astro rockers Rosetta and Restorations, Brooklyn-based doom…

The phone just kept ringing out and going to Tony Foresta’s voicemail. We tried a few times, on each occasion considering leaving a “horny message” at the beep, as requested by the Municipal Waste frontman. It feels now like an opportunity missed. Ach, no matter, it was all cool. Foresta wasn’t dogging the call, obviously,…

Currently tearing across the States with fellow thrash vets Anthrax and Death Angel, Testament will be releasing their tenth album in spring. Entitled The Dark Roots of Earth, Testament frontman Chuck Billy has intimated that it’ll go atomic in the pit much in the same fashion as 2008’s The Formation of Damnation did. Hmm… Good…

Get ready to put whatever trivial bullshit you were planning to bitch and moan over today on hold: The upcoming documentary Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet is imbued with the kind of uplifting against all odds triumph and spellbinding never-say-die persistence that reorients perspective in a serious way. After making a name for himself in…

The band’s name may not be familiar to the majority of you and their moniker isn’t going to help them stand out from the crowd, but Toronto’s Nephelium is bound to garner interest solely based on the fact that they originally called Dubai home. And not the “new” Dubai where everything seems like it prolapsed…

How does the commentary track thing work? Are you talking over the music in real-time or is the commentary track spliced in after it’s finalized? Fenriz: Lord have mercy! Just listening to Viking’s Do or Die album from ‘87 on vinyl and starting the interview. Well, it works like a commentary track on a movie—I…

What do you make of Second Ring of Power after all these years? It’s getting a second chance at life, so to speak.Jan Kuhanen: All of our albums have been re-released, so Second… is in no way specific. Plus, we have some bonus stuff with all of them except with the first one. Ismo Toivonen:…

As far as back-together-for-the-first-time-since-’85 reunions go, we’ll take a newly reformed English Dogs—one of the UKs prime purveyors of crossover back in the day—over Van Halen any day. And lucky for us here in the U.S., three-fifths of the lineup that brought us the essential-listening thrash classic Forward Into Battle—drummer Andrew “Pinch” Pinching, lead guitarist…

You’ve got to love and admire the optimism of people in the UK. While limited releases are a staple practice in underground music, adding both that exclusivity/collector appeal and some fiscal security, British grind champs The Atrocity Exhibit took it to, uh, extremes and limited the supply of 2011 faceripper Grind Over Matter to a…

According to the wholly democratic, incorruptible and failsafe Decibel End of Year Poll, In Solitude’s superlative The World. The Flesh. The Devil. was officially the fourth-best album of 2011. (Yeah, in reality it was probably like the third best, but that doesn’t matter, not really. The thing is not to sleep on it.) The coltish…

Jeez, you do tend to reproach yourself when the wheels are set in motion and you’ve gone and booked Sunday evening interview time with a dude who shares his working hours between black metal kingpins Mayhem and the evocatively titled NunFuckRitual. Teloch came with the disclaimer that he has some pretty gritty stories to share….

Where do you see Heritage of Satan as a single album and as part of Root’s catalogBig Boss: This album fits perfectly into discography of Root. It is the symbolic ninth album, so this serial number really says something. [Smiles] I’m not sure how I feel about Heritage of Satan. It feels less complete than,…

“Rumpelstiltskin Grinder, by nature, is a band that goes a little too far and takes things a little over the top,” guitarist/vocalist Matt Moore tells Decibel. “And we are completely in touch with our core values on Ghostmaker.” The band is currently putting the final touches on the follow-up to 2009’s Living for Death, Destroying…

Becoming has a different feel compared to In the Absence of Light. What do you attribute that to?Ken Sorceron: Just looking back our catalog I would say each release has a different feel actually. I think we are proving to be one of those bands that recreates itself whenever and however we feel like it….

Encoffination do well to sound like they’ve been in the ground long before recording. A two-piece, drummer/duo located on opposite sides of the coast in Atlanta and San Diego respectively, their interpretation of death metal is begrudging of tempo and chokes the throat and nostrils with a real cloying miasmatic aesthetic. Guitarist/vocalist Ghoat insists it’s…

Just when Gojira were about to hunker down astride the globe and chew through metal’s leather hide, spitting out those esoteric yet moshable Meshuggah-esque rhythms, riffs and that crazy squawk guitar-noise their guitars make they just disappeared. It was a bit like the dinosaurs, posing the same question: how can something so gnarly and rad…

Morbid Angel recently invited Decibel to the set of the band’s upcoming video for “Existo Vulgore.” We didn’t spot any strange winged demonic creatures skulking about, alas, but it was a good time nonetheless and during the drive from Morbid HQ in Tampa to Seminole’s Studio 75 David Vincent graciously answered our questions, riffing on…

Clocking in at 13 minutes or so, Retox’s debut rager Ugly Animals only just falls into the LP category. But, shit, it packs enough aggression, energy and compositional cordite to compensate anybody who is bummed out from holding out for a longer running time. The San Diego quartet don’t fuck around—at least not with the…

It was the other week at Candlefest in London that reminded the Deciblog that Dave Hunt, vocalist and master of ceremonies for Birmingham/Orange County(!) duo Anaal Nathrakh, had dutifully filled an optional extra on an email interview. It was right around the time when Hunt was mooting the idea that the Deciblog had imbibed amphetamines—which…

What do you think separates One for Sorrow from Across the Dark?Niilo Sevänen: The core of the music is still the same, but we don’t want to repeat ourselves and make the same album again and again. I think we’ve always managed to evolve and bring some new twists to our music. This time the…

A couple of weeks ago we caught up with Melvins just before they played a sold-out show at the Electric Ballroom, London. They were traveling light, back to a three-piece for the night after auxiliary drummer Coady Willis called in sick (it was the runs, no one can play through the runs), but nevertheless in…