Forgive Yourself

Done

dB Rating: 8/10

This week, get a sneak peek (okay, a nine-minute stare) at one of the crushing hymns from Songs III, “Abandoned by the Light.”

Because one guitar neck just isn’t enough for proper shredding, noodling, crunching, and general rocking out.  

 Whiskey Ritual take the vices up a notch with the title track to their third album, Blow With the Devil.

Alright beak freaks, it’s that time again: time for me to spout a whole lot of horseshit about some upcoming releases that you fools should cram (or not) into your filthy ear holes soon.

Metal writers have so little time to devote to new music that you think you can win us over by playing up your lack of image, persona, willingness to be antisocial as a way of looking “dangerous” and “mysterious”? Come on.

But then you get one recording in your inbox that compels you to try it out, and lo and behold, it winds up being one of the biggest revelations of the year.

The average day at the office for David Karon in the laboratories of KHDK Electronics is, it would seem, not so average.

“Banshees and ghouls and demons,” he tells Decibel. “We pretty much knew from the start of this project we’d be rolling in that realm of evil.”

The effort in question is the Ghoul Screamer, a supercharged, lithe, insanely versatile, more sinister take on the classic tube screamer pedal painstakingly developed and perfected over a period of three years with company cofounder/Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett — and set to be unleashed, appropriately, on Halloween.  

While Junius prepares their way overdue full-length follow-up to 2011’s excellent Reports From the Threshold of Death, here’s a new band featuring two members… that sounds nothing like Junius.

A Metalhead’s SPOOKTACULAR Guide to the NFL.

Art-damaged French hardcore/punk envelope-pushers Birds in Row are ready to unveil their new album, Personal War.