Justify Your Shitty Taste: Mayhem’s “Grand Declaration of War”

April 27, 2011

Tracklist:1. “A Grand Declaration of War”
2. “In the Lies Where Upon You Lay”
3. “A Time to Die”
4. “View from Nihil (Part I of II)”
5. “View from Nihil (Part II of II)”
6. “A Bloodsword and a Colder Sun (Part I of II)”
7. “A Bloodsword and a Colder Sun (Part II of II)”
8. “Crystalized Pain in Deconstruction”
9. “Completion in Science of Agony (Part I of II)”
10. “To Daimonion (Part I of III)”
11. “To Daimonion (Part II of III)”
12. “To Daimonion (Part III of III)”
13. “Completion in Science of Agony (Part II of II)”

James Kelly (Altar of Plagues) interviewed

April 26, 2011

At what point to you feel a song has been completed? I typically ask this question of bands who write long songs to see if there’s a threshold and if there is when to they feel it’s been reached.James Kelly: For us, it is when it has climaxed in terms of the energy we intend…

Hail James Parker!

April 26, 2011

Leave Zakk Wylde alone. He’s getting exposure for metal and that’s a good thing. Such was the gist of a surprising number of reader responses to my post last week poking fun at the Black Label Society guitarist for appearing with that metallic theater arts goofball on American Idol. (Alas, these missives remained but a…

Buzrum – “Filosofem”

April 25, 2011

In 1993, Burzum mastermind and sole member Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes both embodied Norwegian black metal’s violent strain of pagan nihilism and sought to defy the genre’s increasingly stultifying conventions.

COVER ART: The Making of Horseback’s “The Gorgon Tongue”

April 25, 2011

“Γοργόνειον III”, the front cover painting commissioned by Relapse Records for Horseback’s double album “The Gorgon Tongue” has quite a bit of history behind it.

Exclusive- Olde Growth: “The Grand Illusion”

April 25, 2011

I’m not a big proponent of hyping a band based upon how few members they have. What I mean is I don’t love descriptors like “power trio” because so what if three guys can make as much noise as four or five. That doesn’t make a song inherently better. But with all of that said,…

Heavy Classically: One And The Same

April 22, 2011

The disconnect between classical music (all types) and heavy metal (all types) is probably less to do with musical form (although blues-based heavy metal is obviously divergent) than class. See, people into classical music are largely of a different economic, educational, and social background from dudes who headbang and play air guitar to “Fucked with…

For Those About to Squawk: Waldo’s Pecks of the Week

April 22, 2011

Every other Friday, Waldo the African Grey Parrot, frontbird of thrash-grind immortals Hatebeak, will get you caught up on the week’s latest “extreme” releases. Waldo here, and while there’s PLENTY of new metal releases to hate on coming up in the next few weeks, your old feathered friend is going to turn DOWN the hate…

Bye-Bye K.K.

April 21, 2011

Anyone want to add a circle and line over my man K.K. Downing because he has left Judas Priest before their fake farewell tour. One of the band’s founding members has decided to hang up his flying V after 40 goddamn years, citing internal problems with “elements of the band” and management. I’m not sure…

STREAMING: Hate Eternal “Lake Ablaze”

April 21, 2011

Discovery Channel has Shark Week. Decibel Magazine has Stream Week. We’ve ‘streamiered’ (copyright, please) Septicflesh’s “A Great Mass of Death” (Season of Mist), In Solitude’s “Serpents Are Rising” (Metal Blade), and now we’re saving the best — Decibel Editor-in-Chief Albert Mudrian has officially screamed the following platitude while standing on his desk both hands outstretched…