By Ashmedi (Melechesh) The first column for 2011. And it’s number 16. For a person who used to hate writing I find this quite the accomplishment.  2010 was very productive year. It is the year The Epigenesis was recorded and not long ago released, so I felt a sense of accomplishment and relief. We are…

Many of us spend our lives making fun of music. We hate country or deathcore or smooth jazz; we talk shit about Limp Bizkit and Ke$ha and Suicide Silence. But for the most part, we have to admit that these musicians and genres contain a modicum of ability. While people who like the String Cheese…

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, every Wednesday morning, a Decibel staffer or special guest will take to the Deciblog to bitch and moan at length as to why everybody’s full of shit and said dud is, in fact, The…

DOGS:For Sly FaFara and Lord Bacchus FaFara “Ya like DOGS?” Brad Pitt asked in the movie Snatch. Dogs . Yes! I love ‘em. I’m a loner. Don’t do well in crowd. Don’t do the backstage thing. Humans just make me uncomfortable. They all want something from you. But Dogs!?!? When I’m home, it’s me and…

Last week LA Weekly used an article on “identity, music and sexual attraction” from the journal Psychology of Music as a jumping off point for a round-up of various congruous research under the header “Can Bad Taste in Music Ruin a Relationship?” The material is mostly pretty thin gruel. (Not to mention manifestly debunked by our…

First off, let me introduce myself: my name is Oscar Dronjak, and I play guitar in the Swedish heavy metal band HammerFall. But that’s not what this blog is going to be about. I’ve been asked to write a weekly column on my number one favorite passions outside of music: MMA in general and the…

Every Friday (or, um, Monday), Waldo the African Grey Parrot, frontbird of thrash-grind immortals Hatebeak, will get you caught up on the week’s latest “extreme” releases. What’s up beak geeks? The new year brings a lot of things, and one of those things is Ulcerate’s The Destroyers of All. These kiwis really know how to…

That’s “underworld,” not “underpants.” Moving on. We got wind of an upcoming National Geographic special called Snake Underworld hosted by Henry Rollins. According to reports, “Rollins spent about a week in Florida swamps exploring the fringe of America’s secret snake subculture: snake smugglers, snake breeders, and even those who ‘self-envenomate.’” We were kinda hoping for…

In the run leading up to 1991’s Goat, “Tight N Shiny”—a corrosive instrumental from the band’s transitional LP Head—offered a regular excuse for Yow to take a much-needed smoke break and introduce the unsuspecting audience to the art of genital origami.

To date, Swedish progressive metallers Evergrey haven’t had much Decibel ‘presence’. Maybe a review here, a review there over the course of our six now-infamous years on this silly planet. Will that change? Only Pontificator-in-Chief Albert Mudrian knows for certain. But that hasn’t stopped Evergrey from infiltrating the Deciblog, where, like dreams, all things are…