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)…

January 19: a momentous day for America. In 1982, it gave its citizenry Jodie Sweetin, Full House’s preeminent meth fiend. In 2013, a slight upgrade: Decibel Magazine’s 100th Issue Show at Philadelphia’s Union Transfer, starring Converge, Pig Destroyer, Repulsion, Municipal Waste, Tombs, Evoken and a who’s-who of extreme music luminaries. We teamed up with director…

Tell your average schmoe on the street that you’re doing an interview with Matt Harvey and they’ll probably think the topics of conversation are set to include pitch selection, what it’s like having Andrew Bonazelli as a stalker and season ending surgery. What automatically comes to mind when you mention the name Matt Harvey to…

I assume there are some fans of guitar shred reading this, because this is a metal website on the Internet. Well, today’s your lucky day! Century Media gathered four pretty killer shredders with long, flowing locks at the Carvin store in Hollywood on August 26 to allow them to show off their skills, jam together,…

The last time we spoke to black metal pontificator Alexander von Meilenwald he had the following to say about The Ruins of Beverast’s origins: “I didn’t define any concrete goals in the beginning, to be honest. The Ruins Of Beverast were established rather spontaneously when I felt the need to express new musical urges that…

The dudes in Primitive Man spent much of the summer on the road in support of their debut, Scorn. Like any other touring band, the Denver trio–which features drummer Isidro “Spy” Soto, vocalist/guitarist Ethan Lee McCarthy and bassist Jonathan Campos–has a batch of go-to tunes when it comes time to traverse the good ol’ U.S….

So Randy Larsen and Bernie Romanowski from long-running noisecore antiheroes Cable launched a new project a little while back called Empty Flowers to explore 90s-style smart, seething gut-punch post-hardcore. And the mix actually works! Really fucking well! The band’s debut, Six, created some impressive atmospheres and undercurrents, but the sophomore release Five sees Empty Flowers…

If you were to ask Vulture Industries’ main-brain Bjørnar Nilsen where inspiration comes from, he’d probably say this: “We draw inspiration from all over but tend to give each part a good kick in the side to bend it a bit out of shape. If you draw a hexagon and put Tom Waits, Nick Cave,…

There are a lot of hooks on Surgical Steel, but that has always been the case with Carcass; no matter how brutal it gets, it’s always hummable. Has that been deliberate?“Well yeah, I’m glad you think that. Yes some of the music is difficult to the untrained listener but we do wanna have hooks; they…

** Niklas Sundin and I first interviewed back in ’93 after the release of Skydancer. Well, this year Skydancer, Dark Tranquillity’s stunning debut album, turns 20. To honor how time has been kind to this stellar release, Niklas agreed to answer a few nifty questions. More importantly, Dark Tranquillity have acquired the rights to both…