It’s now the summer season, where half of you will make some joke that wasn’t funny the last seven years you told it about being a vampire that burns in the sun. It’s also festival season, where a majority of you go out to various places in packs and get shit-house drunk while not paying attention to any of the bands you claimed you wanted to see, yet be fully prepared to complain about the bands you didn’t like.

They count James Hetfield, Phil Anselmo, Fenriz and Nergal among their fans. No pressure, right? Not for cloaked Swedish occultists Ghost, who should only expand their global dominance with third album Meliora. 

Weekend Nachos are nice after a hangover, but face it: they’re not a full meal. You’re lazy and bloated; might as well order P-John’s or Dominos, right? Minneapolis thrash-core merrymakers In Defence say fuck no to that. 

Peroria’s atmosph-sludge-tribal-psych-rock heroes and denizens of long form song structures, Minsk returned to active duty this last April with their fourth full-length, The Crash and the Draw. Christopher Bennett and Timothy Mead cover all bases thoroughly and definitively in the interview that follows. 

The uber-prolific Dutchman Mories’ one-man nightmare generator is back at it, ripping “Through Flesh,” the second track on forthcoming full-length Abyss of Longing Throats

With the dual purpose of introducing the Die My Will dark sonic alchemy to new listeners and perhaps — dare we dream! — nudging a reunion into being and/or dragging that unreleased material into the light, we called upon members of Trap Them, Author & Punisher, Backstabbers, Inc, and others to testify to the band’s power and glory in between sick salvos mined from YouTube.

Brisbane despondence-dealers Hope Drone have emerged from the underground fully-formed with epic full-length debut Cloak of Ash.

Force Rise the Sun
Black hole fun
dB Rating: 8/10

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.