It’s hardly a news flash — particularly if you read Neill Jameson’s reports from his time as a record store clerk — but physical music is either in its death throes or experiencing a painful rebirth. Whether it’s A or B depends on who is involved in the conversation. Aqualamb Records is banking on the…

The upcoming self-titled full-length from Tasmanian tech-death wrecking crew Psycroptic really brings the band’s brand of manic, virtuoso brutality to another level. But don’t take our word for it — delve into the entire aural beast below. And then head over to Prosthetic to pre-order yourself a copy of this brain scrambler. Check out the…

Originally released in 2004, Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore is widely recognized as the definitive history of its titular extreme music subgenres. Eleven years later, author Albert Mudrian, editor-in-chief of Decibel Magazine, has chosen life after death in the form of a revised and expanded Choosing Death, which boasts a…

Eight years have passed since Greek black metallers Devathorn issued debut album, Diadema. Certainly, the trio were too busy channeling “Qliphotic” chaos to focus on music, but sometime in the last year or so they emerged from the abyss to write 11 hymns of hate. On new album, Vritra, Devathorn return! Recorded and mixed at…

**Matt Olivo is the founding guitarist of extreme metal trailblazers Repulsion, whose Horrified LP ranks as Decibel’s #1 grindcore album of all time. Because we know that every reader ever plays guitar, we brought his print column to the Deciblog. In issue #116 Matt spent some time “hammering on Brent Hinds’ bloody, thunderous new pickups”…

We’re your friend! We’re not one of them! Want proof? The latest installment in the Decibel Flexi Series is controversial March cover star Leviathan tackling Black Flag’s legendary “My War.” See? As always, we have your best, most demented interests at heart. The one-man U.S. black metal trailblazer known as Leviathan (a.k.a. Jef Whitehead) has struck…

OK, after about a month I’m back. Don’t worry, you haven’t missed too much. Thanks to my human counterparts at Decibel for letting me slip this long. This winter has been a trial for your tropical friend Waldo — too cold. Anyway, this is about that time of year where the releases actually start picking…

If you like your metal weird, ugly and awesome, please give it up for Odota, an Estonian one-man project that takes black metal and infests it with all sorts of uncomfortable sounds that will make the purists cry, “False!”  The new album Fever Marshal props up raw, blasting riffage against industrial and electronic detritus, offering a bracing…

This year, Relapse Records turns 25 years old. Jesus frickin’ fuck, where has the time gone?! It just seems like yesterday we were combing blurry ads and squinting our way through mail order reprints in fanzines for Suffocation and General Surgery EPs and Amorphis and Deceased full-lengths and here we are in 2015 with the…

There’s going to be a lot of alliteration today, faithful Deciblog readers. Sorcerer formed in Stockholm, Sweden in 1988 and was active until 1992. But, as we’ve seen many times, good metal bands never die — they just reunite. Sorcerer got back together for a one-off show at the Hammer Of Doom festival in Germany…