black metal

While the weather outside is warm- everything here is so cold.

On this week’s Demo:listen, we bear the marks of New Hampshire’s Northern Curse.

Atlanta-based dark metal conspirators Cloak comb the blackest shadows of rock ‘n’ roll on the opening track off their eponymous EP.

The grandiose, striking and remarkable rush forth mere minutes into Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk’s prologue “Alsvartr (the Oath).” Nightmarish berceuses haunt mercilessly from the darkest corners of imagination, while frontman Ihsahn poetically invokes the illustrious nightspirit, as if there’s ordinary business in need of attending on the edge of town.

Temple Nightside welcome you to their “Fortress of Burden and Distress.” 

Emperor‘s Ihsahn, Ulver‘s Garm and Darkthrone’s Fenriz venture beyond the genre’s confines.

Take a little trip with “Eulogy” from the much anticipated debut LP from Shataan. 

Man-up with a new black metal burner from Norwegians Mistur.

Guitarist/vocalist Jason Mendonça is excited and filled with positivity. And you should be, too. 

Get the scoop the new Blekkmetal film and Enslaved‘s Ivar Bjørnson’s BardSpec project.

Black metal duo Inquisition deliver first new song in nearly three years, and Decibel‘s got it.

When I first saw extreme metal Brooklynites Kosmodemonic, they were killing it on a stage Watain doused with pig’s blood soon after.

Philip H Anselmo returns with black metal supergroup Scour. 

Home is where the (broken) heart is for Canadian black metallers.

** Twenty-two years. That’s how long Dark Funeral has been at it. It, being black metal. It, being the black metal lifestyle. It, being two EPs and six full-lengths, going back to 1994, when black metal wasn’t hip in your neck of the woods (unless it’s Olso, Bergen, or Stockholm). For the past seven years, the Swedes have been writing new album, Where Shadows Forever Reign. They’ve changed vocalists, with Emperor Magus Caligula exiting after 15 years of service to be replaced by Heljarmadr (Cursed 13). New drummer Dominator (The Wretched End) is an inspired blast machine. And bassist Natt (Angrepp) rumbles Lucifer’s great thunder. Reinforced with dark legions, Dark Funeral will take Where Shadows Forever Reign across the globe. Rise… Legions!

“Everything is permitted.” Considering that’s Norwegian experimental collective Ulver‘s genre description, hindsight confirms it’s no surprise they strayed so dramatically from the black metal that shaped their earliest albums. Following the release of their 13th LP, vocalist Kristoffer Rygg shares his thoughts on the band’s evolution and his own artistic journey.

New album, Bereft, turns all the black/death goodness up to (generating random and completely unexpected number) eleven, and we demanded an audience with Côté.  You might have read some of Côté’s thoughts in Issue #139 (May 2016, Amon Amarth cover), but now you can check out the rest of the interview and get a listen to this consistently powerful underground metal act.

Glorior Belli‘s flipped black metal’s atavistic script not once but six times since forming in 2002. Leader and intrepid boundary breaker Billy Bayou (notice it’s not stolen from Tolkien) has taken Glorior Belli into the bowels of Satan’s celestial abyss and back, with such notable releases as Manifesting the Raging Beast and The Great Southern Darkness serving as Bayou’s malign vehicle. Decibel is darkly pleased to present brand new Glorior Belli track, “Satanists Out Of Cosmic Jail”, from new album, Sundown (The Flock That Welcomes), along with a few Qs answered by Bayou from his throne atop the blackest black.

You’d be hard-pressed to describe Finland’s Moonsorrow without using some kind of synonym for “epic,” so the fact that their new LP, Jumalten Aika, out-epics anything they’ve done is nothing short of astounding. We caught up with guitarist/vocalist Mitja Harvilahti to discuss the musical, thematic and personal influences that helped bring this beast of an album to life.

Commencing with the ritualistic application of corpse paint, feature-length documentary Blackhearts shares the stories of three black metal bands from drastically different backgrounds visiting the genre’s birthplace in Norway.

“Only a handful of bands dare to leave the narrow(minded) frame which dictates what is so-called ‘true’ and what earns a negative connotation as ‘hip’. 95% of these traditionalist bands are the copycats of the copycats of the early 90ies Norwegian scene.”

Triangle by the numbers: 100+ minutes, third album, three parts, two visual artists, one video premiere. 

On this week’s Demo:listen, we drag the blade across our palms to pledge our devotion to Finland’s Blood Chalice.

Dublin-based band stabs into the murk with some of the most energized, bleak and ripping blackness we’ve heard in some time.  Hear the album, Heir to Scoria and Ash, here before its April 22 release, and learn more about the band directly in our interview with guitarist L.M.

Waldo goes talon-to-toe with the latest releases from Graves at Sea, Mantar, and Victims.

When it comes to heavy metal collectibles, it doesn’t get much bigger than Blood Music’s Emperor: The Complete Works box set. We caught up with label mastermind J to talk about the logistics of taking this monolith from concept to reality.

The Decibel Tour starts tomorrow. But you can indulge in a new Abbath video today.

Get down to earth and space out (at the same time!) with this song premiere from Woman is the Earth.

The ‘Witch is back! Jam the new Skeletonwitch track right now. 

Värähtelijä
Trance With the Devil
dB Rating: 9/10