News

Last week LA Weekly used an article on “identity, music and sexual attraction” from the journal Psychology of Music as a jumping off point for a round-up of various congruous research under the header “Can Bad Taste in Music Ruin a Relationship?” The material is mostly pretty thin gruel. (Not to mention manifestly debunked by our…

That’s “underworld,” not “underpants.” Moving on. We got wind of an upcoming National Geographic special called Snake Underworld hosted by Henry Rollins. According to reports, “Rollins spent about a week in Florida swamps exploring the fringe of America’s secret snake subculture: snake smugglers, snake breeders, and even those who ‘self-envenomate.’” We were kinda hoping for…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG-RNq7oRUM I had a whole stream of bile directed towards everyone’s favorite load of pre-teen pandering, Attack Attack!, when I realized their latest record actually came out like six months ago. I assumed an album was on the horizon and I typed out all these dire predictions about its quality. And a quick Googling showed…

Ukraine has had a tough go of it of late. The glow of the 2004 Orange Revolution has dimmed significantly, one of the nation’s most celebrated playwrights, The Pagans author Anna Yablonskaya, was killed in yesterday’s Moscow airport suicide bombing, and amidst these woes the international press seems predominantly interested in a human chain of…

All, well most, metal writers are members of or ghost message boards. You know, places where like-minded folk with very niche-musical tastes congregate. In fact, Decibel has a forum. You should join and sling your David-sized opinions against dB forum goliaths! Anyway, it’s where we digitally travel to pontificate (very important), research (not very important),…

Scion A/V announced the partial line-up for the 2011 Scion Rock Fest. It was ridiculous! But it just got even more ridiculous! So much so, Scion A/V proposed to fly Decibot from his digital hovel to Pomona, CA to witness the awesomeness, but Decibot declined because the new Rev Theory album is imminent. OK, so…

Stoner Noise. Is that a genre? Well it is now thanks to Shroud Eater. The Miami three-piece are riding dirty with granitic riffs, heaving basslines and suckerpunch rhythms. Also, vocalist/guitarist Jeannie Saiz’s bellow is monstrous, like screams through a throat made of industrial bong glass. They’ve released a new record, a turbulent full-length called ThunderNoise,…

Twenty-five years into a career of contemporary “murder metal,” the band that penned “Albert was Worse than Any Fish in the Sea,” “What the Heck Richard Speck (Eight Nurses You Wrecked)”, The Unabomber EP, and a twenty-six track 2000 concept record exploring the life of Jeffery Dahmer (sample chapters: “Drill Bit Lobotomy,” “McDahmers,” “Into the Toilet with You”) has…

We spoke recently about metal being appropriated by the masses and the sorrow that ensues. To help prevent such misdeeds, the Internut needs an enema. Badly. One of the first fecal bombs to be detonated would be this instructional video of two lunkheads in Mexican wrestler masks teaching viewrs how to headbang to a crab-core…

Scion A/V just announced the line-up for the 2011 Scion Rock Fest. Uh, it’s ridiculous! Morbid Angel, Obituary, Death Angel, Municipal Waste, Agalloch, Integrity, Bastard Noise… Well, you can just read the handbill for the rest. This looks to be an awesome ear-destroying fest. And it’s fucking free (if you RSVP)! Also, Decibel are co-sponsors….

Ehow.com, the chubby small town second cousin of Wikipedia has an article on “How to Write Death Metal.” I’m sure there are many of you who hang around here waiting for another Cee Lo posting but would like to see how you can get involved in this exciting and ever-changing genre. Well let’s see what…

The man responsible for bringing up the butt-end of every issue of Decibel, John Darnielle, is currently being courted (no pun intended) for a guest-spot on “Law & Order SVU.” Kinda. Technically, he’s being pimped out to the L&O powers that be by his fans—Darnielle’s that dude in that band the Mountain Goats, but that’s…

Well, metal dudes and dudettes, a new beginning is here. Envy-inspiring label Seventh Rule Recordings is taking it up a whole nother level by, well, check it: “Seventh Rule has started a BANDCAMP page and will eventually offer all our releases through it for digital streaming and downloads.While we are not going to sit here…

Any Decibel readers out there been feeling a strange, niggling affinity for the Son of Man this week? Do you suddenly empathize with that robed, bearded dirty hippie antagonist of early Slayer records? Is holy water no longer singeing your skin? Are you finally able to consume garlic? Fear not, friends, these are not signs…

Chris Bruni talks about discovering new music growing up from Scion A/V on Vimeo. To celebrate living to see another weekend, here’s a second preview video from Scion A/V’s Music(less) Conference from this past summer. Scion produced videos from all the panels they did at the conference and are launching them on a dedicated site…

Sorry kids, Dani Filth will not be appearing on a postage stamp or sculpted from a five foot chunk of marble in the center of Suffolk.

Studio Tour: Colin Marston – Scion Music(less) Music Conference from Scion A/V on Vimeo. The folks at Scion A/V have once again generously blessed the Deciblog with an exclusive video for your viewing pleasure. In this clip, part of their Music(less) Conference series, guitar/bass/recording maestro Colin Marston of Behold…The Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, Krallice, and Gorguts takes…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWnJfLFmqmg It’s time to ring in the new year with another hall of fame video, this one directed by Rob Zombie. Okay, wait, I seem to have gotten my wires crossed here. This is Jon Zombie, a man who… come on, seriously? Jon Zombie? Is that really the best you could do? But anyways, let’s…

A sequel to Lords of Chaos this surely ain’t: According to a recent AFP article (which reads more like one of John Darnielle’s “South Pole Dispatch” satires than a legit news story), Armenian police have began cracking down on “emo” rock fans: Officers have visited schools, searched pupils whose distinctive clothing marks them out as…

Not a joke. The Icelandic death metal band inked a deal with a Japanese label that has a similar appreciation for lopping off body parts. In other news, Watain signed with Deplorable Man-Stank Records; Metallica signed with Save Our Dignity Records; GWAR signed with Please Don’t Point That Thing At Me Records; and Dimmu Borgir…

Even the grimmest of us enjoy an occasional birthday wish. That’s where Dark & Somber Greetings come in. As you can see above, various Trve cards have been created to cheer up your corpse-painted brethren or tell them to go back to hell where they once rose from into the darkest forests of Norway. Or…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0mTkZyNwuY Typically Dimmu Borgir get it right (OK, not right if you’re an BM elitist who mailorders and uses Money Orders instead of credit or Paypal to pay for the latest ‘diehard’ re-re-press of Asgardsrei) when they pick a video ‘single’. “Progenies Of The Great Apocalypse“? Yes. “The Serpentine Offering“? Yes. “The Chosen Legacy? Yes….

One of our favorite music sites (and not just because they point us straight to naked people music videos) is Stereogum and our most favorite nook is Brandon Stosuy’s column Haunting The Chapel. And now Mr. Stosuy has unveiled his top 50 records of 2010, crowning the best album as, drum ro… Oh, he picked…

I went into this piece only knowing three things about Ryan Adams: 1. He’s a 36-year old baby asshole. 2. He did the worst cover of Alice in Chains’ “Down in a Hole” that’s ever been recorded. 3. He’s married to Mandy Moore for some reason. Now while I like some Whiskeytown songs (oh yeah,…

In a strange bit of serendipity, I happened to finally get around to watching Behemoth’s excellent Evangelia Heretika DVD on the same day the New York Times ran a story headlined, “Poland, Bastion of Religion, Sees Rise in Secularism.” Thus, after being flabbergasted by a tour documentary wherein Catholic politicians collude with the police in…

San Antonio’s burliest NYHC-influenced face-stompers Bitter End will be on tour pretty much the entire winter. The boys will intermittently grace the Deciblog with sordid stories about the hawd koa kids today, workin’ out and opening/playing for living legends. December 9, 2010 Miami, FL Transcribed by Jacob Henderson About three winters ago, Bitter End slid…

We can already hear you bitching about how blasphemous the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame is and how it doesn’t mean anything, etc. Stop the billion dollar baby butt-hurt rant for two seconds, and throw some horns for Alice Cooper finally getting honored by the goddamn museum. Recognition is important, even if it comes…

Don’t you wish we did one of these? Cheat Sheet ARTIST OF THE YEAR: (write-in) Bruce Willis BEST NEW ARTIST: (write-in) GWAR BEST LIVE ARTIST: (write-in) Bruce Willis MOST WELCOME RETURN: (write-in) Bruce Willis BEST RAP/R&B ARTIST: (write-in) “Rap isn’t music” SEX GODDESS OF THE YEAR: (write-in) Hit Girl from Kick-Ass SEX GOD OF THE…

…and it’s a shiny, newly refurbished heart. Diamond’s wife Livia breaks news of the several heart attacks which culminated in the diabolical falsetto’s recent triple bypass open heart surgery in a fairly harrowing post on Coven Worldwide. Here’s an excerpt: “If you are interested in the details of how this surgery is performed, please look…

We have the biggest, frostiest, gluiest boner for the remarkably deranged dudes of Igloo Tornado, the hivemind that brought you the homotastic hardcore comic Henry & Glenn Forever. Just when we thought we couldn’t possibly love them any harder or faster, Igloo Tornado’s Tom Neely wrote, directed, and animated a goddamn CHRISTMAS CARTOON starring Henry…