Live Review

Festival Preview: Grim Reefer Fest

March 1, 2023

Achieve your higher form after inhaling our favorite tracks from Grim Reefer Fest’s stacked doom lineup. Baltimore gets vaporized on 4/29.

“Live” Review: Behemoth’s ‘In Absentia Dei’

September 16, 2020

Behemoth‘s production heavy In Absentia Dei is a game-changer for concert livestreams. 

Live Review: Baroness Paints Indianapolis Gold & Grey

July 31, 2019

Decibel found shelter from storm clouds in a Baroness concert on the Indianapolis stop of their Gold & Grey tour.

Live/Film Review: ‘Industrial Accident: The Story of Wax Trax! Records’

April 25, 2019

The “Experience” run of dates will have wrapped up two days before the time you read this, but if you come across Industrial Accident, it’s very worthy of your viewing time.

Live Review: Ufomammut and White Hills (June 18th @ Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia)

June 20, 2018

Italian doom rockers Ufomammut and NYC psych deconstructionists White Hills descend from space to entertain us here on Earth.

Live Review: Days of Darkness, Part 2 (Sunday, October 29 @ Rams Head Live in Baltimore)

November 14, 2017

Days of Darkness lasted two days. So does our coverage. Come on in for a glance at the damp-weather-enforced second round of doom, etc.

Live Review: Days of Darkness, Part 1 (Saturday, October 28 @ Rams Head Live in Baltimore)

November 7, 2017

Neurosis make an East Coast appearance. Dälek joins. Manilla Road and Perturbator show up to make their own noise. We try to keep our heads from exploding.

The Top Five Sick Sets the Dudes From Plaque Marks Have Seen Working at Philly Venue Kung Fu Necktie

August 30, 2017

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

Live Review, Family Edition: Galactic Empire, Dangerkids, Master Sword and Aeoxis @ Ottobar in Baltimore, 7/12/17

August 1, 2017

As a way to introduce younglings to metal (as well as excite the Obi-waning among us), Galactic Empire are starkillin’ it.

Evil Riffs, Bad Omens, Broken Vans: A Conversation with Beastmaker

May 24, 2017

Trevor William Church of doom rockers Beastmaker talks touring, bad omens, and Vincent Price.

LIVE REVIEW: Udo Dirkschneider, Live at the Trocadero 2/4/2017

February 6, 2017

Udo Dirkschneider will be 65-years old this year. 65. Undoubtedly, Udo is part of the golden generation. At his age, he should be enjoying a fine brew with his mates while savoring the warm breeze of Wuppertal nights. But, no, he’s not. He’s hitting the road

Live Review: Gorguts, Intronaut, Brain Tentacles and Horrendous @ Metro Gallery in Baltimore, October 28, 2016

November 1, 2016

Amid the noise of a dozen gnarly fall tours this year, Gorguts and friends stand out as a must-see bill with zero filler.

Live Review: Drive Thru Doppelgangers Mac Sabbath

September 9, 2016

If something smelled like “Sweet Beef” in Philly, it was “Drive Thru Metal” concept band Mac Sabbath.

LIVE REVIEW: One Foot in the Grave Tour Buries Philadelphia

August 4, 2016

Carcass. Crowbar. Ghoul. Night Demon. A basement filled with rowdy Philadelphians. Who will survive and what will be left of them?

Seeing Priest With My Dad

October 29, 2014

“Oh, watch the lightning strike Feel the powers of the hammer’s pounding on Take it to your heart and understand What must live on from father to son” -“Father to Son” by Quorthon/Bathory One thing my family always jokes about is how my dad was caught crying at the end of The Last Unicorn. It’s…

All Murder, All Guts: Samhain Live

September 22, 2014

Glenn Danzig’s fame has never waned. But in today’s constantly connected world he’s stayed famous for the wrong reasons: getting very publicly knocked out after a backstage argument in 2004; suing his former bandmates and buying cat litter at the wrong place. It’s easy to forget why people cared in the first place: Danzig wrote…

Blood/Fire/Death: Watain douses Brooklyn

June 18, 2014

Brooklyn Night Bazaar – June 15th, 2014 Photography by Rodrigo Fredes of PhotoTerco It was Father’s Day, so I arrived early and called my pops outside the venue. I informed him I was seeing a Swedish metal band named Watain shortly, who would likely spit animal blood at the audience. “Well have fun, enjoy your…

My Scion Rockfest 2014 Experience in Shitty iPhone Photos

May 27, 2014

While everyone else is reporting from that East Coast festival this week, we here at Decibel’s Los Angeles Bureau are lazy and don’t like to go further than 43.5 miles from our home base. Fortunately, on May 17, Scion held their annual Rockfest in Pomona, which is exactly that distance. Sweet! I was there, and…

Soul Survivors: Saint Vitus play Born Too Late in its entirety

May 15, 2014

Saint Vitus @ The Echoplex, Los Angeles, May 13, 2014 “This is a lot different for us than it was in L.A. 35 years ago.” So says Saint Vitus guitarist and mastermind Dave Chandler from the stage at the Echoplex, where several hundred headbangers, burnouts and biker types have gathered to suck on Bud tallboys…

VEMOD GIVES NEW MEANING TO THE WORD “RITUAL” IN A NORWEGIAN MAUSOLEUM

April 28, 2014

Rituals are a dime a dozen. Any greasy-haired jabroni with a couple half-baked tremolo riffs and a motheaten cloak can stage a ritual; extra points if he cops a wood-burning kit for Christmas and goes to town on some dirt from outside his grandma’s prayer meeting to accent the seven copies of his upteenth Garageband…

Back From the Dead: Motörhead and Graveyard Live at Club Nokia

April 15, 2014

After getting sick and cancelling tours and being nearly 70 years old and generally scaring the piss out of fans everywhere, Lemmy finally emerged from his West Hollywood meth lair/Nazi shrine to play the first Motörhead show since last summer’s appearance at Wacken, when severe back pain and oppressive heat forced him to walk off…

Live Review: …AYWKUBTTOD

April 3, 2014

I was a wee freshman in college when Source Tags & Codes, the third full-length from …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, dropped in the winter of 2002.

LIVE REVIEW: Failure at the El Rey 2/11/14

February 19, 2014

What a difference 16 years can make; there were probably more people at Failure’s first reunion show than bought their last album, 1997’s Fantastic Planet. The (mostly white male) fans packed into the El Rey Theater in their hometown of Los Angeles last Thursday night, February 11, for an evening with the heavy rock heroes….

LIVE REVIEW: Skeletonwitch, Enslaved, Amon Amarth (Theatre of Living Arts)

February 7, 2014

Monday night. Hours after a severe weather incident. In most cases, a metal show in Philadelphia on such a weeknight after such a crippling storm would’ve kept longhairs and horn throwers home. A venue vacant, save its sadluck staff. Tonight, however, Philadelphians surprised. They came out in droves not just for the headliner, Amon Amarth,…

Live Review: Floor

February 4, 2014

In the liner notes to 2010’s Below & Beyond collection, Floor co-founder Anthony Vialon recalled that while his band had played together off and on for 12 years before seemingly dissolving for keeps in 2003, he and his cohorts hadn’t even managed to play a hundred shows.

Live Review: Clutch

January 16, 2014

The latest Clutch album may be the band’s best since 2005’s Robot Hive/Exodus, but the live setting is where these Marylanders have built their name over the years. So it was fitting that the quartet opened up its recent set in Port Chester, NY with “Earth Rocker”, a tune that in many ways sets forth…