If lazy journalism persists in music, it’d be easy to say Austrians Dragony are like the umpteenth band to use the word “dragon” as part of their moniker. Well, that’s just not true. Umpteenth implies like 1 in 5 bands use “dragon”. Like System of a Dragon, Dragon Corpse, Dragon of God, Dragonatonia, or My…

Harrowing, multi-dimensional enlightenment is a fickle beast.  You expect it in extreme locales under strikingly improbable circumstances, perhaps while ingesting mind-altering substances… not so much in a well-lit library crowded with suits, police officers, and raggedy internet-moochers.  Yet here I am getting a hit of pure dark French terror-bliss, and my mind can’t manage to…

Welcome to The Lazarus Pit, a biweekly look at should-be classic metal records that don’t get nearly enough love; stuff that’s essential listening that you’ve probably never heard of; stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  This week, Girlschool gets sent to the principal’s…

Out of New Mexico’s oft-speculated desert sky flies the darkly evocative Night Terrain. The band members describe their particular style of racket as “equal parts space rock, doom metal, and stoner rock… riffs go from slow, sludgy and droning to uplifting, manic…” On July 24th, Night Terrain self-released their debut album, American Dream, which manages…

Alright, doodz…get your flat-brimmed ball caps out and your buttoned-down plaid shirts to the ready

Formed out of teenage jitters, a can-/will-do work ethic and long-term (possibly unhealthy) exposure to Neurosis, Swans and the Melvins, Boston’s Isis were in many respects different from what the rest of New England had to offer in the late ’90s.

We’re all getting old. The bands we grew up idolizing are slowing down, retired or making geriatric mockeries of themselves. And sometimes we unfairly and harshly lash out at the newest crop of musicians for not being as heavy or “tough” as we were. I was one of those young, doe-eyed metal kids once, who…

** The original Decibel interview appeared in issue #58 (HERE), but since the Swedes are slower than Candlemass when issuing albums, we felt it was kinda cool to necro-post the full Unanimated interview. Also, Unanimated claims to be working on a new album without drummer Peter Stjärnvind, who left his stool post in February 2012,…

Of all the “traditional metal” albums that have come out in the past year, one that’s snuck up on a lot of us here at Decibel is Residual Alcatraz, the debut by Greensboro, North Carolina’s Dogbane. Not only did the album get a positive review recently, but also we were honored to profile the band…

The tribal beats, the crunching metal guitar and the half rap/half sung vocals of Chuck Mosley coalesced into something altogether original. You can unfortunately perhaps heap some blame for nu metal on these dudes, but what they created at the time was in fact revolutionary. It was like Killing Joke, Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers swapped members for a jam session and came up with a new genre.