Grave Digger aren’t the most celebrated of groups at Decibel. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know or understand the importance the Germans, who formed 36 years ago, played on (European) heavy metal. From debut, Heavy Metal Breakdown, to new album, Healed by Metal, Grave Digger embodies the spirit of the genre.

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Hour of Penance continue their tradition of no-nonsense death metal as they prepare to Cast the First Stone. 

On this week’s Demo:listen, we look out at the wreck and the ruin, and rather than ask “why,” we just listen to Portland’s Maltheist.

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Waldo pecks on Metallica‘s Hardwired… To Self-Destruct.

WRVTH release an experimental music video to go with their song “Cease to Exist.” 

Hierophant are downers on their new album, so we picked their brain to get their fave party-poopin’ metal albums of all time.

Good goddamn is HÄXAN some dark, disquieting, creepy, heavy, seriously avant garde, Hellraiser-esque torment-is-delight nastiness! Composed to serve as a soundtrack for Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 witchcraft n’ Satan heavy silent film of the same title, the latest from EORÐESLAJYR — that’s “earth slayer,” if you dare call their name — has got a Scorn by way of Swans by way of circa Too Dark Park Skinny Puppy vibe and its textures and left turns will fuck with your head.

To celebrate the album’s release — pick up your copy here — we asked the to delve into a few specific moments of inspiration drawn from the film that went on to possess the music…