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Tell me, kids. What’s with the vocal covers? I can understand bands doing covers of their favorite tunes. Been happening since the dawn of music, in fact. But dudes (and the occasional dudette) hanging out in their bedrooms—with mic in hand and webcam turned on—attempting to best their favorite growler for the world to see,…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dYWof3QZbQ I don’t particularly like Fucked Up but I do respect them. Their move from hardcore punk to anthemic art rock has never seem strained and gimmicks like their twelve-hour show asked more of them than anyone else in attendance. And furthermore on the topic of live shows, they always come through, much to the…

Eligiendo Muerte, online clearinghouse for the Spanish translation of our fearless Editor-in-Chief’s landmark Choosing Death, is now hosting — in conjunction with Relapse Records and Bazillion Points — a stream of the nasty upcoming Haemorrhage full-length Hospital Carnage. Tumor donors, traumageddons, growls, blastbeats, breakdowns, flesh-devouring pandemia, splatter nurses — what are you waiting for?! And…

For aspiring young bands touring the U.S. isn’t a walk in the park. Now, bring those aspiring young bands over from Europe, where from what I can tell things are far more convenient and distances between points shorter, and nightly on-stage antics become not just a job but an ordeal. The Ocean evidently found out…

Hesher is a movie about Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, looking like a young, malnourished Phil Anselmo) who helps prepubescent T.J. endure the abject misery that is his life. Hesher does so by burning houses, walking around in his tighty-whiteys, and basically being a slovenly turd. “Cliff Burton was a big, big inspiration for my character,” Gordon-Levitt…

Photo: Tony Swatton Thor reigned supreme this weekend, earning $65.7 million with his bulbous hammer. No one was more amped than a sector of humanity known as the Norse Hollywood Dining Vikings. These Viking enthusiasts showed up for the movie at a theater in Glendale, California—a hotbed of Norse activity if ever there was one….

Goddamnit! Why didn’t we see this BEFORE Mother’s Day? Forget tulips or perfume or a framed picture of your dumb-ass face. Can you imagine the joy mom would have experienced when she unwrapped Devin Townsend’s spatula? (Er, umm.) And don’t think this is one of those fancy spatulas that’s reserved for holidays and special occasions….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgG-4VSnIPY I’ve never heard of Rasputin Music but I have to say, if you get a chance to stop by this Berkeley store, please fucking do. Trash Talk, who regardless of the quality of their music don’t take no shit from nobody when they step on stage, were brilliantly/foolishly asked to play an in-store. And…

The 28,000 power-walkers at San Antonio’s Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure last week received an unexpectedly muscular end of the trail send off from RockStar Riot, a fledgling band of civic-minded fifteen to seventeen year-olds metalheads who serenaded the crowd with impressively spot-on renditions of classic Judas Priest, Metallica, Saxon and Moxy songs…

Photo: Roderick Trestrail “Holdin On to Black Metal” is the latest song to be released from My Morning Jacket’s upcoming album Circuital. Surprise: It’s not black metal. It sounds like background music to a 70s swingers club. These Kentucky psych-hippies recorded the track in a church. Doubt they set fire to it. “Oh black metal,…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CvNR_TlaaI The legendary Pentagram is back in a big fucking way (if you haven’t noticed) so it’s the perfect time to crank out a dedication. D-beat lovers Hot Graves have actually slowed themselves down to pull off a faithful and killer cover of “Madman” from Pentagram’s Day of Reckoning. And they’ve gone further by releasing…

Here’s some useless hump-day crap: Nicolas Cage has a 20-year-old son named Weston (the chick on the right) who is in a metal band called Eyes of Noctum. Weston got married to the chick on the left. I read about this on a probably not-at-all-reputable site called Hot Momma Gossip. A little googling uncovered the…

Leave Zakk Wylde alone. He’s getting exposure for metal and that’s a good thing. Such was the gist of a surprising number of reader responses to my post last week poking fun at the Black Label Society guitarist for appearing with that metallic theater arts goofball on American Idol. (Alas, these missives remained but a…

“Γοργόνειον III”, the front cover painting commissioned by Relapse Records for Horseback’s double album “The Gorgon Tongue” has quite a bit of history behind it.

The disconnect between classical music (all types) and heavy metal (all types) is probably less to do with musical form (although blues-based heavy metal is obviously divergent) than class. See, people into classical music are largely of a different economic, educational, and social background from dudes who headbang and play air guitar to “Fucked with…

Anyone want to add a circle and line over my man K.K. Downing because he has left Judas Priest before their fake farewell tour. One of the band’s founding members has decided to hang up his flying V after 40 goddamn years, citing internal problems with “elements of the band” and management. I’m not sure…

You ever heard “Piano Metal”? No? Well it fucking sucks.

There are probably more than a few Decibel readers who, like me, have never seen an episode of American Idol. Just never got around to it, and it’s a good thing, too, because it saved us the trouble & heartbreak of boycotting the show when Steven Tyler, like, totally sold out, man and, perhaps tempted…

Photo: Andrew Savulich You’re probably already aware of the Decibel staff’s somewhat unnaturally obsessive love of baseball. On one side, you have Albert and the Phillies; on the other side, you have Andrew and the Mets. When these teams square off, run for cover. And don’t come out until the following day, when the victor…

Remember when you saw the cover of our issue with Watain and thought, “Holy shit that photo rules.”

Photo: Mike Ruiz-Unger To loosely quote Ice Cube, today is a good day. The Deciblog is proud to be the only site on the Internut streaming the new album from Miami, FL, hardcore melody makers Capsule. No Ghost is a deliciously dizzying slice of adrenalized pogo-ready jams. It gives you the illusion that your brain…

Ramming Speed’s 12″ split with Texas skate shredders A.N.S. is out today, and it finds the Boston DIY thrashers pushing further into the darker, more intriguing sonic territory hinted at a couple years back on the band’s memorable Candlelight debut Brainwreck — this vinyl slab is a true smorgasbord of raging riffs, driving beats, and…

Happy Monday everybody. To make it suck a little less, we present you with a Tumblr site that’s actually worth your time. Chicks With Steve Buscemi Eyes, chickswithstevebuscemeyes.tumblr.com, is one of those things that should have existed from the very beginning of the internet. Google, eBay, and Chicks With Steve Buscemi Eyes—they’re on the same…

Viewing ApparitionsBy Scott Koerber On Sunday night, NY Doom-Death progenitors Winter brought their hypnotic blend of Hellhammer-meets-Amebix-on-quallludes to a sold out crowd at Union Pool in Brooklyn, NY, the band’s first show in 20 years. In the years since their last live appearance (way back in 1991), the band has risen from obscurity to legend…

Philadelphia is a great place for birthing democracy, eating pretzels and setting up Ponzi schemes disguised as metal publications. What it’s not good for is parking. Grindcore disciples Wormrot blasted through a big chunk of the country without incident until their van disappeared in Philly. And who can be blamed? The man. The Singapore trio…

Woot, woot! This year’s Found Footage Festival is being headlined by the awesome cult documentary Heavy Metal Parking Lot! Dates here. Official trailer after the jump. Bonus: The Propagandhi song “Back to the Motor League” which always reminds me of a sneering, modern day take on this movie which includes the semi-unrelated/totally awesome line, “Lord,…

Legendary shredder Alex Skolnick may have reunited with his thrash metal brethren in Testament to form some damnation a few years back, but the guitarist’s longtime forward-thinking avant jazz group the Alex Skolnick Trio marches onward nonetheless. The band’s fourth album — the ebullient, beguiling, often-as-not mind-bending Veritas — drops today, and Skolnick was kind…

Every year — well, the last two for this writer — key parts of team Decibel travel from the City of Brotherly Death (i.e., Philadelphia) to Harm City (i.e., Baltimore) for the exalted festival extremely extreme music, Maryland Deathfest. Every year, Maryland Deathfest is an endurance test. How many kick-ass bands can one — or…

President Medvedev meets Deep Purple by tvnportal Well now here’s one we didn’t see coming. Apparently, it’s common knowledge that Russian president Dmitry Medvedev is a huge ‘banger who worships at the altar of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. And since the prepubescent age of 12, his numero uno band has been Deep Purple. Medvedev…

Do you know Tom Neely? Yes, you do. Not only has he created some incredible artwork for bands like Isis and Wolves in the Throne Room (plus did this fucking killer Moby Dick poster) but he also is the genius behind Henry & Glenn Forever, the beautiful dream of a comic where Danzig brings a…