We get a lot of music in these parts that doesn’t make you feel good. So dB will gladly accept sweet party anthems secure in the knowledge that many readers give ample spins to Appetite for Destruction when they are claiming to dissect some obscure 80-minute black metal opus. “War Woman” comes from Oakland’s Lecherous…

So, what happened with Slumber? I know there were record label complications, but I didn’t know there were member issues.Ehsan Kalantarpour: After the first and only album Fallout Slumber got locked in a doom/death style. We felt that the album set way too strict formula on what we could do next. We wanted something much…

By now you probably know that Decibel came into blood-splattered existence in October of 2004, but you may not know that Editor-in-Chief Albert Mudrian and Publisher Alex Mulcahy began collaborating on regional indie record shop in-store magazine Stereo-Type well beforehand. In light of today’s shitty announcement that Hydra Head Records will be closing shop, we…

Like London, Ontario and Paris, Texas there’s a city in the California Bay Area with the same name as one of the great metropolises of the world. Yep, Dublin, CA was named after Ireland’s capital, but this East Bay suburb is probably best known in the metal world for being the hometown of some heavy…

This morning Decibel has the pleasure of bringing you an appetizing little slice of “mile-high deathgrind” courtesy Denver’s own Enemy Reign. Culled from the super-solid, old-school-meets-new-school-and-for-once-they-actually-get-along upcoming full-length pummeller Between Hell and Oblivion, “Bathed in Flames,” guitarist Nick Guenther tells us, “puts everything we love about metal on display.” “Between the scorching blast beats, classic…

What else could New Mexico nerve-shredders Noisear have named their forthcoming album? Turbulent Resurgence kinda sums everything up nicely; in the year since the release of the near free-jazz grind lunacy of Subvert the Dominant Paradigm, the band have shed some serious personnel and had to regroup and re-focus. But despite the changing of the…

1. “Red All Over”Travis Ryan: Just a song about violence. Nice and simple… And bloody. Leon del Muerte: The fastest song I’ve ever written. This one and “Under the Weight…” were completed towards the end of the writing cycle, but I knew for sure that this would be the opener. That’s two-for-two on opening songs…

What’s up, Motherpeckers? It seems the fall is a little dry, at least this part anyway, so let’s plow through this. We’re going to start with the fucking evil HOODED MENACE, Effigies of Evil. This is old school death metal, and I mean old school. Slow, mean, nasty, heavy: These guys don’t need blasts to…

Bands like Gojira and Godflesh might be major brand names ‘round these parts, but mention them to your average Metallica-loving broseph and you’re likely to get a squinty-eyed, the-fuck-you-say? half-nod.  But Decibel just won’t quit.  We dig deeper, danker, darker and dirtier (though rarely fitter or happier) to turn up a few otherwise overlooked gems. …

According New Orleans-based sludge doom outfit haarp, their music is a weapon. Not the kind of weapon the U.S. government has in the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (H.A.A.R.P.), but more the ancient Celtic god kind; a weapon of enchantment. Though we really wouldn’t say our experience with haarp—stylized in all lowercase letters—is enchanting…