If we could all stop worrying about World Downfall for a goddamn minute, we’d realize Terrorizer‘s output after it was really pretty awesome.

The Unknown
The assessment favorable
dB rating: 8/10

It’s weird to think of any Slayer album as “transitional,” as they all share the same basic sonic sensibilities (namely, the sound of your skin being flayed from your quaking bones), but if there’s any record that marks a clear turning point in their career, it’s 1988’s South of Heaven.

On July 15 New York City band Psalm Zero will release their second full-length Stranger to Violence on Profound Lore Records. If you’re not familiar already, we’re great admirers of singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Charlie Looker’s project, which beautifully blends the martial, industrial tones of Godflesh, the post-punk melancholy of Depeche Mode, and the rainy-day doom ‘n’ gloom of Katatonia.

Most Decibel readers likely know 6623 Press founder D.X. Ferris as one of the most incisive, dogged metal journalists around — the man who literally wrote the (absolutely indispensable) books on both Reign in Blood and Slayer’s “Jeff and Dave” years.  

British black metal blasphemers Cradle of Filth recently joined forces with Cacophonous Records to release the original recording of Dusk…and Her Embrace (called The Original Sin, out July 8th). To celebrate, Decibel revisits the first collaboration between the band and label: 1994’s sanguinary trailblazer The Principle of Evil Made Flesh.

Exposing the Haeresis Noviomagi, a Netherlands-based black metal cabal responsible for such acts as Lubbert Das, Turia and Iskandr. 

Hear “Of Hollow Judgement” from Colosso‘s forthcoming death metal steamroller Obnoxious.  (That’s the album title, not commentary on releasing new death metal steamrollers.)

After 21 years of housing some of the finest metal acts known to mankind, British label Music For Nations closed shop in 2004. The label was folded in Sony Entertainment’s Zomba Record Group and mothballed until last year when Sony rekindled the legendary label’s fire.  So, we’re celebrating with an essential Top 10. 

A loud, powerful blast of driving aggression that deals with themes of death and alienation.