Lists

We present the top five songs in which Raw Power discusses Raw Power.

Quantity isn’t quality. Here are five examples of how extreme metal is at its most potent when it doesn’t waste time.

Embark on “The 420th Crusade” with Cannabis Corpse before reading bassist/vocalist LandPhil’s ten favorite albums to smoke pot to.

Future noise rock royalty Plaque Marks discuss soaking up the dissonance at Philly heavy music oasis Kung Fu Necktie.

In which we consider the top 10 songs about a quintessential heavy metal topic: chains.

In the wake of the announcement of Trap Them‘s final shows, we consider ten essential tracks from the metallic hardcore outfit.

Certainly, lists polarize, but if anything’s accomplished from this piece it’s awareness of 5 top-level string-burners and their music. Time to thrash ’em all!

Wolves in the Throne Room is a band rooted in extremity yet bring something fresh to the genre; this month’s Decibel Meter follows suite.

We look at some of the best metal songs of all time… that have never been performed live.

Long-running industrial/crossover mainstays Prong released their twelfth full-length, Zero Days, today. To celebrate, Decibel asked frontman Tommy Victor — who ran sound at CBGB’s in the 80’s — to rank the five most insane sets he worked sound for. What follows were his answers; Victor has clearly witnessed and contributed to some legendary performances. Dark Angel (February 8,…

Last April we announced our partnership with f.y.e. for the Decibel Meter, a monthly collection featured both online and in store to make sure you don’t miss any of those essential headbanging, face-melting titles that make your collection extremely extreme. The issue currently on newsstands, which features Suffocation on the cover, declares 2017 THE YEAR…

There’s nothing cooler than a logo, a mark, an emblem. From extreme music’s inception, artists–thrash metal, grindcore, death metal, doom metal, black metal, etc.–have placed a heavy weight on their logos. Some are immediately recognizable (like Metallica, Death, Morbid Angel, Napalm Death, Cathedral), some aren’t so cleverly designed. Over the years, Decibel has top-listed logos for our most favorite of extremely extreme genres. Today, we dissect and pontificate on the Top 5 Grindcore Logos. Music isn’t considered as part of the findings, as that would unfairly settle the list. So, find out who tops our list. And argue about it.

We brought you the five sets you can’t miss at Chicago Open Air this weekend, and now we’re bringing you the five brews you can’t miss at the fest!

A galactic hunt for the best Star Wars-themed metal albums led us to this list.

Make sure you stop by the Decibel Headbanger’s Bier Hall after checking out these extremely extreme sets at Chicago Open Air next weekend!

Need some new music to get you out of that more-of-the-same rut? f.y.e. has got you covered with this month’s Decibel Meter.

Converge, Godflesh, Neurosis and more have immortalized their Roadburn performances as live albums.

Sacred cows have been slain before. They’ll be slain again. Today, we’re not butchering yet another divine bovine (not in total, we’d be nuts and in poor taste), but rather turning the tables on last week’s Bathory post, where we unsheath our Bathory collection (from 1984’s Bathory to 1988’s Blood Fire Death) listening for Quorthon’s sonic hell-born warts.

Lists polarize. There, we said it. We’re click-baiting just like the big guns. Other websites lede (yes, lede) with must-click, must-share titles like: “Killswitch Engage Caught On Tape Stealing Soilwork Roadmap” or “Burzum’s Varg Launches Role-Playing Game” (well, that actually happened) or “Ozzy’s Six-Decade Sex Addiction — All The Sordid Details Inside!” Here at Decibel, we care enough to bait you with things like The Top 5 Bathory Songs… After Twilight of the Gods.

There’s some great black metal album art. And there is some not-so-great black metal album art. Krieg‘s Neill Jameson focuses on the latter in the second part of this series.

Not all black metal cover art is terrible. But a lot of it is. And Krieg’s Neill Jameson has uncovered the worst of the worst. 

The scumdogs of the universe are ready to corrupt the world in another medium, as the GWAR: Orgasmageddon comic hits shelves. Here are the first issue’s 5 most insane panels.

Psycho Las Vegas is shaping up to have a big year. Check out some can’t miss bands playing, as well as individual day lineups!

As we remember the life of Chris Cornell, here are 10 heavy songs from his career that even extreme metalheads can get into.

In a rave review, Jonathan Horsley describes the sophomore full-length from Artificial Brain, Infrared Horizon, as an album which “envisions an extinct humanity, our place in the universe taken by robots and cyborgs, synthetics who believe they have naturally evolved from mankind, as though the species of Aristotle, Einstein, da Vinci was only ever primordial goo,” adding that vocalist Will Smith’s lyrics “read like Mr. Spock took a word cloud of Skynet’s internet search history and made beat poetry of it.” Combined with the decidedly sci-fi imagery the Long Island quintet employs for both album artwork and tour posters, it seemed apropos to reach out the the band for a list of their literary influences.

Rising metalhead horror author John Boden peppered his recent haunting, lyrical coming-of-age novella Jedi Summer With The Magnetic Kid with a slew of knowing nods to eighties heavy metal and hard rock. And he’s cited such distorted-yet-diverse bands as Masters of Reality and the Pixies as influences on his delightfully demented post-apocalyptic children’s book Dominoes. So it seemed apropos to hit the eloquent Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based world-builder up for a few recommendations on where those looking to blend their loves of reading n’ riffage.

Throughout rock ‘n’ roll history (we’re talking proto-metal here), J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have influenced heavily. Whether it’s lyrical references or inspiration — such as Led Zeppelin‘s “The Battle of Evermore” and “Ramble On” or Rush‘s “The Necromancer” and Rivendell” or Black Sabbath‘s “The Wizard” — or bands taking Tolkien-named places, things, persons to call their own, rock, metal, and all their relevant sub-genres owe much to Tolkien. Death metal and black metal, of course, are no exception.

A year is just a year. But oh what a year it was: Death, Napalm Death, Mayhem, Bathory, Sodom, Anthrax and more!

The subject header from Albert read: “top 5 idea”. The body read: “The greatest death metal albums marred by terrible production.” He then presents three albums, Reek of Putrefaction,  The Red in the Sky is Ours, and Breeding the Spawn. Immediately, I recognized a gold post idea if there ever was one.

You can read the story behind the #1 entry in Decibel’s Top 100 Metal Tours of All Time Special Issue. For the other 99 tours, you’ll need copy of this limited edition Special Issue.