We’d like to say that we were overwhelmed with video responses paying tribute to Oderus. Actually, it’s probably appropriate that too many people were busy partying this summer to record an ode. But one proud blog reader stands out: Mr. Kyle Messick. True to our word we are sharing his video entry with the world…

My ears are ringing like mad. Last night at the Metro Gallery in Baltimore, I caught Mutilation Rites play a ripping set that could be called loud in the same understated way that a Boeing 747 landing on your face could be called loud.  Fuck.  Ing.  Loud.  The performance was enveloping, engulfing, overwhelming, and it…

Every metalhead has a few skeletons in their respective closet. And by skeletons, we mean musical skeletons not anything particularly untoward or, possibly, illegal. Growing up first on pop music, then on cock rock, and then with thrash, death, black, and every fucking sub-genre (and sub-sub-genre) offshoot, it’s pretty easy to see and hear where…

Not a huge fan of live records? Me either. But Twitching Tongues actually kill it on World War LIVE, a venture into the format that serves the band’s roiling, infectious Integrity-meets-old-school-Life-of-Agony sound shockingly well. Here’s the cutesy official explanation… Recorded live in the Van Nuys stadium called THE PIT in front of twenty screaming fans,…

** The original interview with Theologian’s Lee M. Bartow is featured in our stupendously awesome, but-not-so-metal “noise issue” (HERE). So moved by Bartow’s answers to our questions, we felt compelled to post the entire transcript while, as the saying goes, the iron is hot. Bartow’s not one to joy around and his music–self-admitted as “industrial…

Three years ago, the Portland, OR foursome known as Elitist floored us with a gritty, hateful debut full-length called Fear in a Handful of Dust.  To nix any confusion about whether or not they played sweet-cheeked djent (as another band named Elitist was doing), the band re-antichristened themselves Bastard Feast, and next week marks the release…

Not that this has anything to do with that, but ever since I was a kid, one of my favourite songs has been Pete Townshend’s “Rough Boys” from his 1980 solo effort, Empty Glass. And despite the fact I can usually feel vast numbers of my brain cells begging for mercy before committing honourable hari-kari,…

As psyched as we were for the last year’s new Pelican album, we were just as excited to see the band in the live setting again after a long six year wait. Now those worlds are set to collide soon when the Chicagoans drop Arktika, a nine song 2013 live set recorded in Russia. The…

Ricktor Ravensbrück was one of the mainstays of The Electric Hellfire Club, a band that made all of the stuff mentioned in metal fun again on industrial albums like Calling Dr. Luv and Burn, Baby, Burn! Seeing EHC in their 90’s heyday was quite an experience. Ravensbrück is back and Decibel is excited to stream…

It’s been three long years since The Haunted dropped surprise album, Unseen, on metaldom. Peter Dolving is no longer part of the band. Ceremonious or not. Former throater Marco Aro has returned, and with him a viciousness not heard on Unseen or The Dead Eye. The Swedes, in effect, are back! While some of you…