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“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…

What with the recent killer Owen Hart and Graf Orlock albums — not to mention those imminent Ghostlimb jams! — Vitriol Records has been on quite a tear of late, but even those crazy bastards have realized the only way to truly put a cherry on top of this nasty buzzsaw sundae is by offering…

In the canon of manly (or womanly, thank you very much) things, three drinks reign supreme: beer, whiskey, and coffee. Or so we’ve been told. Wanna really and truly send a rush of blood to your bits? Drink some fuckin’ tea. I’ve been saying for years that tea is the most bitchin’ beverage, but it’s…

We all know Amebix is back and that Sonic Mass, their first album in 24 goddamn years, is dropping 9/20/11. But for those of you who are curious as to how the crust trailblazers have been faring in the studio, here is a taste of the band at Lodge Recording Studios in Northampton, laying down…

Lord, maybe it’s because the video is a cross between Shaun of the Dead and Spinal Tap or perhaps because the song is such an awesome, intricate, swirling mass of NWOBHM riffage, but I can’t get enough of the spectacle that is HELL’s new video for “On Earth As It Is In Hell”: HELL has…

After Matisyahu went all hip-hop hasidic, it was time to highlight orthodox Jews who covered some genres that can’t be used for a Sprint commercial. An article entitled “The Secret History of Jewish Metal” from newspaper Forward interviews some bands that are trying to combine discussions of their jewish faith with the heaviest shit you’ve…

While my last brief obituary concerned the untimely death of a legendary musician, this one is unfortunately a little more timely and much less legendary.

As a jaded old man who still buys CDs, I’ve never thought much about how the youth of today kill time while ripping digital files off the information superdriveway. Well, some days you really do actually learn something new and thanks to a bit pulled together by the crack investigative journalism team over at Nerve…

I’m jet lagged and red-eyed to the tits right now, so apologies in advance if this post is incomprehensible. The photo above was taken last night by moi aboard a Virgin America airplane. Instead of having a steward or stewardess go through the whole “what to do in case of an emergency and a dude…

Time for another assemblage of random links that I have dutifully stolen from other much more responsible blogs and nice people. 1. The_Network doing an incredible cover of Deadguy’s “Pins and Needles.” http://www.pinsandneedleszine.com/DL/97N/netp&n.mp3 2. A not yet finished rerecording of a track from Polonium, the band the Austerity Program was before they were the Austerity…

So, alright, the G.G. Allin “throbblehead” was cool.

Perhaps Dlisted.com said it best with the headline And Satan Just Became Celibate. Taylor Momsen, she of The Grinch that Stole Christmas, Gossip Girl, and The Pretty Reckless, um, fame, performed over the weekend in Toronto in an I Fuck For Satan shirt. We’re pretty sure Satan doesn’t want anything to do with Little Miss…

By now you’re probably aware that Phil Vane of Extreme Noise Terror has passed away at 46. An official statement past the above has yet to be released and fans and friends are still reeling from the news. But if the internet is good for anything, it allows us to honor a musician in the…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhGZw_wQVg There is nothing really new here. We know that. We know Apocalyptica releases a record in Finland every fifteen minutes. But for the sheer audacity and artistic license from some nutjob named Joey Molinaro, we have to direct your attention to this violin cover of eight Discordance Axis songs off The Inalienable Dreamless. From…