Way out here in Western Canada KEN Mode is an institution, always good for a pair of shown in your city annually, having built up a loyal following over the past decade. It’s been rewarding to see the Matthewson brothers turn this little noise/metal hybrid into something Decibel readers have become fans of, indie scenesters…

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…

Okay, Perturbator’s Dangerous Days is obviously a retro 80s electro album, but it’s got a giant fuckoff pentagram on the cover and robots and a woman in a sexually compromised position, and that if that isn’t metal, what is? Besides, and this is the important thing, the vibe is metal. It may be synthesizer-based with…

Those who enjoy the antics of kaleidoscopic everything-and-the-kitchen-sink chaos metallers Look What I Did may or may not be aware of two things: 1) Zanzibar III: Analog Prison, the band’s long-gestating, much-anticipated rock opera follow-up to the straight-out awesome Atlas Drugged is “perilously close to having a release date” and 2) frontman Barry Donegan is…

When they released the DVD Majesty five years ago The Black Dahlia Murder proved that not only did they understand their fans, they understood how to make a watchable documentary. On their second DVD Fool ‘Em All our tour co-headliners take it another step. Not only do they make you laugh, they make you care…

** When I cornered Lantlôs braintrust Markus Siegenhort (aka Herbst), I didn’t expect him to be so un-German. Whatever that means. Like the meaning behind the word “lantlôs” Siegenhort is more like a global guy, his music unmoored from the traps of what has been and will continue to be German black metal. Not that…

Natten Med De Levande Finntroll, Finntroll’s new album, translates to “Night With The Living Finntroll”. It spans a massive 19 tracks across the group’s discography. Captured in 2008 at Amsterdam’s Melkweg Concert Hall, the Natten Med De Levande Finntroll show went down as one of the group’s best. It’s fitting then that Finntroll’s original three–Trollhorn,…

Because every day another band records another song.  Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck.  Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm.  Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…

So, this band from Vancouver called Expain (formerly known as The Almighty Excruciating Pain), who are as indebted to thrash as they are to quick-change jazz, Weired Al Yankovic’s discography and dusty recordings of the old Doctor Demento radio show, has a new album coming out. It’s self-released (well, sort of, as it was aided…

The Atlas Moth‘s new record is one of my favorites so far this year. But, as you’ve probably heard by now, the artwork and packaging–two things that some bands still care about–is something to admire in and of itself. So vocalist/guitarist Stavros Giannopoulos was kind enough to tell us about some other albums whose covers…