When you take a step back and consider that yellow-and-blue flag waving Swedish death metal as pumped through the (real or imagined) Boss HM-2 pedal is almost a genre onto itself, it’s perplexed me since 2011, when they released their self-titled debut, that Gothenburg’s Miasmal hasn’t been a name on more lips and tongues.

“The diversity of this record is the fundamental concept behind Imperial Triumphant. The band from New York City must sound like New York City. And there’s no place on earth more culturally diverse than here”

Fire Work With Me collects graphic artist extraordinaire Valnoir’s most beguiling, uncompromising pieces from his storied fifteen year run at his Paris-based Metastazis studio in one lush 276 page full-color volume which former Morbid Angel frontman David Vincent calls “insightful and inciting” and Watain head priest Erik Danielsson promises will be “relevant to all who crave the sublimity of the extremes.”

This month, we wrangled the prolific East Coast trio Horrendous from their jobs holding down every recent Decibel event to discuss their contribution to the series.

Originally printed in our April 2016 issue, get acquainted with death ahead of the big event (Choosing Death Fest, that is). 

** Neo-classical outfit Amber Asylum have never been an easy sell. From debut Frozen in Amber to new album Sin Eater, the Californians, helmed by instrumentalist Kris Force, have composed and released music for darker minds and uneasy souls. There’s tradition at hand, but there’s also exploration, in tone, in repetition, in atmosphere, in tolerance, in chaos. The result is an undulating set of emotions that conflict and blend to their music. To wit, Amber Asylum is music of dreams and nightmares, spun wistfully and painfully by Force and company to the delight of the other. Music of this quality was never meant for the masses anyway. Read on as Decibel and Kris find our inners.

We continue our periodic look at the East Bay metal scene with Tristin Campbell of Control. Campbell is a needed throwback to the do-it-yourself ethos that made Northern California so rich musically.

“Des Siecles a décimer” calls for immediate headbanging promptly followed by a horror film of the utmost goriness. 

End your week with some Irish/Native American/psychedelic/Krautrock folk metal. Come on, if Friday isn’t for flutes, what day is?

By the time 1983 rolled around, those bands participating within the loose construct known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal had become well aware that there was more to their scene and sound than playing time-tested and amped-up blues-based riffs in the back rooms of pubs or moldy rehearsal rooms.