It’s strange how the pieces have finally fallen into place for Behemoth. A decade after putting themselves on the extreme metal map with the revelatory Demigod, the Poles are poised for a different kind of breakthrough altogether, via extraordinary circumstances no one could possibly have written. Behemoth’s star has always been on the rise, but…

The last time death metal legends Massacre released an album, France was testing its last atomic bomb. Pretty amazing, to think of it. Fast forward a few years, and Rick Rozz (ex-Death), Terry Butler (ex-Death), Mike Mazzonetto (Pain Principle) and Edwin Webb (ex-Diabolic) emerge from the limestone graves of central Florida to release Back from…

I swear that I’m not deliberately scheduling streams this year of bands with names that are either difficult to pronounce or something you wouldn’t want to say out loud, but here we are in February and here I am with a track from a band called Omotai. If you don’t think Kylesa are shouty enough…

In the liner notes to 2010’s Below & Beyond collection, Floor co-founder Anthony Vialon recalled that while his band had played together off and on for 12 years before seemingly dissolving for keeps in 2003, he and his cohorts hadn’t even managed to play a hundred shows.

Omnizide. What a name. Kinda makes you think of a market-leading bug spray. But their sound makes you think of, ooh, kinda old-school Darkthrone, and falls somewhere between the nexus of death metal and physically imposing Swedish black metal, bands such as Naglfar and Watain . . . And Craft. Definitely there’s some Craft. There’s…

Symphonic death has enjoyed a fair bit of popularity over the years—largely in Europe—but Fleshgod Apocalypse might be one of the best bands of the style. Formed in 2007, the Italians have spent the last seven years refining bombast, adding bombast, and making bombast more, well, bombastic. The group’s latest long-player, Labyrinth, featured Fleshgod Apocalypse…

I am not nearly the wordsmith that John Darnielle is, so I will borrow a quote from a post he wrote about the band in question a few years back on his sadly defunct Last Plane to Jakarta blog: INTERLOCUTOR: My grandmother has asked for an excellent new death metal album for her birthday. I…

Agnostic Front’s Cause for Alarm is an atypical Hall of Fame induction. Most of the previous 100-plus albums that have graced these pages were created by bands that had a solid core and had been playing together (if not recording together) for years.

Due to an equipment failure at our flexi disc printer, we were unable to include a flexi in the March issue of Decibel. Since we never leave our loyal subscribers in the lurch, you’ll be chuffed to find not one, but two flexis in the April issue! Fire up those turntables, as Decibel Magazine Tour…

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)…