Decibel friend Vivek Venkatesh is the curator of Grimposium, a conference that aims to get at the heart of what makes extreme metal special. We’re handing the blog over to him today to discuss his plans for the event next month, which will feature an appearance from our esteemed editor. 

This San Jose quintet is very correctly billed as technical death metal, but the  most prominent comparable I hear in WRVTH’s hypnotic video for “Malaise” is defunct anything-goes post-metallers Burst. 

In January of 2009 Decibel named Swedish Death Metal book of the year. Staff-writer Chris Dick contributed the following calculation: “2.6 pounds of 100% gold is worth $30,588. At the same weight, Swedish Death Metal is probably valued, for historial and personal reasons, at quite a bit more.” The new hardcover edition is even heavier, so (factoring in inflation) you have the chance to win quite a hefty sum of book with just a single email. 

Every so often, we take a little time on Mondays to pay tribute to the Muthas! That is, reprinting the adorable metal/maternal Q&As that run in the magazine. Today, enjoy Chris Dick’s chat with Cecilia Verstraelen, mutha of Soilwork’s Dirk Verbeuren. 

Six months ago, Google mandated that we remove the hate speech contained in comments for interviews that editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian and staffer Justin Norton conducted with (respectively) Inquisition (May 1, 2014) and Daniel Gallant (May 5, 2014). At the time, we were unable to delete those comments, so we simply took the interviews down. Now we’re able to better moderate the Deciblog, so here are the interviews as they were originally printed.

Six months ago, Google mandated that we remove the hate speech contained in comments for interviews that editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian and staffer Justin Norton conducted with (respectively) Inquisition (May 1, 2014) and Daniel Gallant (May 5, 2014). At the time, we were unable to delete those comments, so we simply took the interviews down. Now we’re able to better moderate the Deciblog, so here are the interviews as they were originally printed.

We’re pumped to bring you the video for “Aeon of Cold.” Don’t be fooled by that first uplifting 30 seconds. The vast majority of this rips, triumphantly.

Sure, Jake E. Lee may have served with distinction during his tumultuous five-year tour of duty under General Sharon, summoning forth a mind-boggling cascade of super-solid riffage and shredding through the tears when he got fucked out of lucrative Bark at the Moon (1983) writing credits, but the guitarist nevertheless gets about as much love from the Osbourne camp as a circa-1982 bat.

The Dinosaur Jr shredder and Witch founder was part of seminal proto-grind band Deep Wound, and in that a critical historical figure in Choosing Death.

If you’ve been paying any attention whatsoever to this magazine over the past 100+ issues, you know the Decibel staff unconditionally loves the shit out of two things: metal and cats. And we know we’re not the only ones.