black metal
STREAMING: Mystifier “Wicca”
February 10, 2014 Jonathan Horsley
It’s time to go back, folks. It’s time to wade way, way back into the primordial ooze and sift out a hallowed blast from the past in this exclusive album stream of GreyHaze Records’ reissue of Mystifier’s Wicca. The Brazilian black metal legends released Wicca in 1992, and although it has been rereleased a handful…
STREAMING: Omnizide “Death Metal Holocaust”
February 3, 2014 Jonathan Horsley
Omnizide. What a name. Kinda makes you think of a market-leading bug spray. But their sound makes you think of, ooh, kinda old-school Darkthrone, and falls somewhere between the nexus of death metal and physically imposing Swedish black metal, bands such as Naglfar and Watain . . . And Craft. Definitely there’s some Craft. There’s…
Professor Death Metal Strikes Back
January 21, 2014 Shawn Macomber
Not long ago we introduced you to Concordia University professor/extreme music lifer Vivek Venkatesh. Today the man we affectionately call “Professor Death Metal” graciously gives us a sneak peak at “From Pride to Prejudice to Shame: Multiple Facets of the Black Metal Scene within and without Online Environments,” a chapter he co-authored with professor Jeff…
From the Shuman Vault: Sweden’s (defunct) Necroplasma
January 10, 2014 Daniel Lake
In the interest of spangling your frost-still hibernation cave with the bloodiest of icicles this winter, we bring your attention to yet another bleak polar vortex that should scratch your hate-itch just fine. Starting in 1996, Swedish spike-sporters Necroplasma vomited forth a steady stream of demos, splits and a pair of full-length records, all of…
From the Shuman Vault: Nosvrolok’s Maledictum Parasytus
December 20, 2013 Daniel Lake
Years ago, a former non-Decibel coworker caught wind that I was digging into the grimy corners of the blackened underground. This coworker – a Mr. Shuman – immediately targeted my mailbox for blast ‘n’ rasp overload. Data CDs loaded with entire discographies of 3rd tier blasphemers with photocopied cover art, cast-off compilations, and duplicate copies…
Episode DB005 – Neill Jameson of Twilight/Krieg
December 18, 2013 Jesse Chase
Prolific USBM artist Neill Jameson sits down with Albert and Andrew to discuss Krieg’s inclusion in the Top 100 Black Metal Albums of All Time special issue, the tumultuous new Twilight record and his bleak observations about life behind a record store counter in 2013. Featuring:Krieg “Fallen Princess of Sightless Visions…”Twilight “Lungs”Krieg “All Paths to…
Introducing Incandescence
December 6, 2013 Daniel Lake
It’s always nice to hear bands that not only rip shit up but can also find the time and talent to compose some serious songage. Last week, French-Canadians Incandescence dropped their debut album of rollicking black metal full of actual chops and interesting structures. After releasing a few songs on their La Valse des Ombres EP…
Enter the Temple of Baal
October 15, 2013 Shawn Macomber
This morning Decibel is proud to premiere an exquisite slab of blackened death metal off Verses of Fire, the barn burning fourth album from long-running French brutality merchants Temple of Baal. Another track from the album can be streamed after the jump.
Crucial Blast Fall Showcase
October 1, 2013 Shawn Macomber
We can make this introduction brief: Crucial Blast is hands down one of the most innovative, adventurous labels currently operating in the world of extreme music, specializing in capturing sounds from that nether region where ethereal beauty intermingles with disquieting darkness. As such, the first day of October seemed the perfect time to query label…
EXCLUSIVE STREAM: Craven Idol “Towards Eschaton”
September 30, 2013 Jonathan Horsley
Ladies and germs, pray silence please for Craven Idol’s Towards Eschaton. Pull up the easy chair, pull on the headphones; you’ll no doubt find the north Londoners’ debut long-player an extreme metal album of rare power. This here’s a bona fide contender for album of the year, a soundtrack for those evenings when your ouija…
Low Fidelity: The Reality Of The Record Business, circa 2013
August 7, 2013 Justin Norton
Neill Jameson is best known to readers as Imperial, frontman of the excellent USBM band Krieg. Along with Blake Judd, Wrest and Thurston Moore (!) he was also part of the black metal project Twilight. I got to know Neill during an interview about three years ago and we’ve kept in touch since. As our…
STREAMING: Pest “Faced Obscured By Death”
June 5, 2013 Chris Dick
I think I’ve said it before and I think I’ll have to say it again. Black metal, on the Deciblog, isn’t represented fairly.
Streaming: SLIDHR’s Deluge
May 24, 2013 Daniel Lake
Sometimes our love for quasi-musical extremes has a flattening effect on the diversity of material we hear. Dynamics traverse the vast range from loudest to loudest-er, wanton mayhem and terror begin to appear tame enough for family breakfast conversation. It can be refreshing to hear an album like Slidhr’s Deluge try to save black metal…
Cobalt Rising
May 21, 2013 Shawn Macomber
First-class “war metal” masters Cobalt are about to set out on a short (and, no doubt, highly volatile) east coast tour.
BLACK METAL: EVOLUTION OF THE CULT AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER
April 29, 2013 Jonathan Horsley
Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult is a 600-page book by UK author Dayal Patterson that delves deep into the history and development of black metal as an art form and a culture. It is released on November 13th, but is now available to pre-order from Amazon at a discounted price. Published via Feral House,…
Black Metal At The Pickle Barrel: A Night With Quorthon
April 17, 2013 Justin Norton
If you spend enough time on the Internet you begin to think that most readers visit sites just to stir the proverbial shit pot. But occasionally the Web will serve up something so delightful and unexpected that it validates the whole premise of connecting the world and equipping the population with tools to allow them…
VON Premiere: “Hands of Black Death”
February 26, 2013 Shawn Macomber
Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves — the first volume of VON‘s Dark Gods trilogy — is still a few weeks away from release, but for those wondering what the soundtrack is going to be like down in the sulphur mines, Decibel has an exclusive stream this morning of the seething, sinister track “Hands of Black…
STREAMING: VEX “Memorious”
February 4, 2013 Jonathan Horsley
A lot of people were digging Vex’s 2010 debut album, Thanatopsis but even though there was a buzz in the underground surrounding the Texan’s weird genre-splicing take on death metal Memorious still has the capacity to surprise. Looking at the bare facts is misleading; Horror Pain Gore Death Productions are writing the checks, Vex are…
STREAMING: Bastard Sapling’s “Cold Winds Howled Across The Desolation”
November 21, 2012 Justin Norton
Since the Decibel faithful are about to enter a restful trance of their own thanks to pounds of turkey, pumpkin pie and stuffing (or tofurkey for all our vegan readers) we thought it was the right time to introduce a new track from Bastard Sapling’s Dragged From Our Restless Trance. Streaming below is “Cold Winds…
EXCLUSIVE: New VON music — “Jesus Stain”
October 3, 2012 Justin Norton
Of all the bands to crawl back from the metal abyss here’s something we never expected. VON is releasing a new album at the end of October and dB got an exclusive stream of “Jesus Stain” from Satanic Blood. The band expects to play a limited run of shows. Take a listen below and then…
LIVE REVIEW: Marduk and Immolation – Underworld, London
October 1, 2012 Jonathan Horsley
The concept of faith might be diametrically opposed to Marduk’s pitch-black worldview but the Swedish fundamentalists are worthy of yours. Of all the Second Wave black metal bands who still consider their iconoclastic craft a full-time concern, Marduk are the ones who always deliver. They could be accused of lacking a sense of adventure when…
STREAMING: Nihill’s “Trauma: Crushing Serpens Mercuriales”
August 14, 2012 Adem Tepedelen
To paraphrase the almighty David Lee Roth, “Summertime’s here, babe, need something to keep you cool. Better look out now, Decibel‘s got somethin’ for you.” Some frozen fuckin’ Dutch black metal on stick, that’s what we’ve got. Minus the stick. But full-on frostbitten, we swear. This premiere is guaranteed to drop the ambient temperature in…
Interview: MARDUK’s Morgan “Evil” Håkansson on “Serpent Sermon” and jogging to black metal
July 23, 2012 Jonathan Horsley
Twelve albums in on a 22-year-old career and Swedish black metallers Marduk can still be relied upon 100 per cent to stick to the program and deliver a typically iconoclastic tour de force, touching upon all the genre essentials, anti-hymns to send toes curling in the Vatican and throughout Christendom. Serpent Sermon is pound for…
Transilvanian Hunger: Ptahil fan enjoys himself so much he eats a rat
June 18, 2012 Jonathan Horsley
Black metal fans have never been slow in exhibiting extreme behaviors to broadcast their devotion to the genre’s unholy cause.
Into the Depths: Marduk’s Morgan Håkansson
June 12, 2012 Shawn Macomber
Today, in honor of the recent release of the sublimely malevolent Serpent Sermon, Decibel presents an in depth interview with Marduk founding guitarist Morgan Håkansson delving into his roots as a musician as well as the past, present, and future of his much-revered black metal war machine. Last month Christ Dick streamed “Souls for Belial.”…
Beyond the Veil: Decibel Tour ’12
June 5, 2012 Shawn Macomber
Backstage at the Philadelphia stop of the inaugural Decibel Magazine Tour with Nergal from Behemoth. Plus Watain, The Devil’s Blood, In Solitude, some guy in the pit wearing a sombrero, etcetera… If you enjoy this, please check out previous Decibel video segments with Morbid Angel and Bonded by Blood.
Homecoming’s March: RIP Averse Sefira!
May 8, 2012 Shawn Macomber
Calling the split “amicable but lamentable to say the least,” Averse Sefira have sadly called it a day. The long-running Austin black metallers are survived by a stellar discography — see Advent Parallax or Tetragrammatical Astygmata for the incontrovertible evidence — as well as a very entertaining, sporadically updated blog that explored the band’s occult…
INTERVIEW: Watain check in from the Decibel Tour
May 4, 2012 Jonathan Horsley
Watain’s arrival in the US might be bad news to priggish guardians of Christian morality but it’s good news for butchers who have ordinarily found animal’s blood harder to shift than the flesh. Watain require a lot of blood, and it doesn’t have to be fresh. It’s better if it isn’t. We can only presume…
The Varg Vikernes Spring Collection is Here!
April 16, 2012 Shawn Macomber
Look, as regular viewers of Project Runway and The Rachel Zoe Project already well and truly understand, there is a fine line between embodying haute couture and becoming, in the immortal words of Tim Gunn, “a pterodactyl out of a gay Jurassic Park.” In Varg Vikernes’ promo shoot for the upcoming (actually quite excellent!) third…
GONE FISHING: Enslaved’s most extremely extreme sportfish
March 26, 2012 Jonathan Horsley
When ENSLAVED‘s Grutle Kjellsson and Cato Bekkevold go fishing they don’t fuck around. It’s really not like going down the pond chasing blue gills or Tommy cats; in Norway, even the trout are built super-hench. You might have caught some footage of them catching alligator gar in Texas a few years ago, but you’ll definitely…