It’s contest time, motherfuckers (no offense). Lesbian, the Seattle psych-metal maelstrom who write the kind of music Satan himself smokes weed to, have released their newest record, Stratospheria Cubensis (Important). It is an incredible leap from their Power Hor debut, both sonically technically, while still pushing their singular sound. Just look what our own Leah…

Former Arkansas governor, presidential candidate, and current Huckabee talk show host Mike Huckabee is Fox News Channel’s first (and possibly last) “Doom Metal Expert”. No shit! Decibel doesn’t even have a resident “Doom Metal Expert” — well, Scott Koerber and EIC Mr. Mudrian have the right credentials, but have never self-proclaimed “I am a Doom…

Nine years ago this month, author Steven Blush released the hardcore book-of-books, American Hardcore: A Tribal History. Because he’s a glutton for punishment, he updated the book to include a load of new material: The author has updated all of the chapters, added a new one titled “Destroy Babylon,” which explores the mutant forms of…

What is black metal?Carnifex: Nefarium’s (Myspace link) primary thought concerns the communicative aspect, with the idea that a black metal listener could understand a message of hate and anger towards those elements that can be [considered] personal. In an apathetic and driven world, powered by hypocrisy, we seek personal illumination to give the most adequate…

Ed Note: I don’t have the time (and perhaps not even the physical ability) to grow a Brian Wilson beard, as per my NLCS bet with Matt Harvey (plus, like you’re really gonna even remember this bet in the five weeks it would take to grow it), so just enjoy my concession speech. “In your…

For those of us who prefer our Halloween more Samhain than All Saints’ Day it isn’t always easy to wade through the morass of dark culture in search of the elusive story/record/film that is both sinister and smart. Disappointments abound. So when Decibel caught wind of a discerning metalhead launching his own upscale horror publication,…

If you’ve been following us here on the Deciblog for the last few months, you know that exactly every two weeks we post a flyer for something called Heavy Tuesday. We’re still not really sure what it is, but J. Bennett keeps insisting that it’s occasionally awesome. As far as we can tell, it’s this…

By Nate Hall (U.S. Christmas) I can’t say this is a “Top 5” list, because I couldn’t possibly rank Appalachian people on any kind of scale. Some of these are people I have known, others I never met. All of them are distinctly Appalachian. Popcorn Sutton — Maggie Valley, NC. The late great moonshiner Marvin…

By Road Chief Chris Coyle (Red Fang) What’s happened the first week of tour? Hmm… Man, nothing all that exciting. Kinda like every other tour going out there. You know, after the first show we swerved to miss a deer and rolled the van twice in the middle of I-5, walked away with only a…

When we’re not harpooning our ears with death (mostly), grind (somewhat mostly), doom (only Albert and Scott Koerber), and black metal (lately mostly Albert and Bruno Guerreiro), we’re rocking our argyle socks off to bands like Brain Banger. Featuring 2/3 of Young Widows, Louisville, Kentucky’s (un)fortunate sons have things tuned just right to treat —…