Burzum

Extreme Reading: An Interview with Author Dean Swinford

August 14, 2017

Read an interview with extremely extreme author Dean Swinford on his new book, Death Metal Epic: Book II: Goat Song Sacrifice now!

Top 5 Metal Bands With Names Originating With Tolkien

April 10, 2017

Throughout rock ‘n’ roll history (we’re talking proto-metal here), J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have influenced heavily. Whether it’s lyrical references or inspiration — such as Led Zeppelin‘s “The Battle of Evermore” and “Ramble On” or Rush‘s “The Necromancer” and Rivendell” or Black Sabbath‘s “The Wizard” — or bands taking Tolkien-named places, things, persons to call their own, rock, metal, and all their relevant sub-genres owe much to Tolkien. Death metal and black metal, of course, are no exception.

Top 5 Old-School Underground Metal Fliers

July 25, 2016

From England to Florida, from Tokyo to Oslo, from Australia to San Francisco, postal workers were the bandwidth by which death metal, black metal, doom metal, and every other underground form of metal communicated. Open a letter and out poured legion! Here’s a tribute to Decibel‘s fave old-school fliers.

Dayal Patterson, author of Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult give us his Top 10 BM albums

November 11, 2013

We’re all listed out after totalling up the scores for the albums of the year and putting together our Top 100 Black Metal Albums of All Time special issue. But author Dayal Patterson, a man in league with unfathomable evil, kindly dipped into his wellspring of arcane ancient darkness to muster the energy to give…

BLACK METAL: EVOLUTION OF THE CULT AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER

April 29, 2013

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,…

Pilot Season

February 5, 2013

Right now, television networks are picking up a bunch of pilots to shove into our eyesockets come September. This year, though, there is a difference – a weirdly large number of metal-themed reality shows. I feel it is my duty to report on some of the more promising entries. Storage War Ensemble In this spinoff…

The Varg Vikernes Spring Collection is Here!

April 16, 2012

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…

CULTURE VULTURES, ASSEMBLE! … Presenting Neseblod Records’ norwegian black metal exhibition

March 23, 2012

We’re just not the types to go flocking to gallery openings and digest culture of a weekend but this is different. From 29th March to 29th April, the beyond-necro Neseblood Records are curating a black metal exhibition at Oslo’s Popsenteret, chronicling the history of black metal. Whether it is the extremity of the aesthetic or…

Buzrum – “Filosofem”

April 25, 2011

In 1993, Burzum mastermind and sole member Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes both embodied Norwegian black metal’s violent strain of pagan nihilism and sought to defy the genre’s increasingly stultifying conventions.

Varg Vikernes (Burzum) interviewed

March 15, 2011

Do you see much similarity—musically, thematically—between Belus and new album Fallen?Varg Vikernes: Yes I do. Musically because it’s still Burzum (…) and thematically because to some degree Fallen deals with the same subject, only it’s not in a mythological context, and on a personal level. I know you didn’t see Belus as black metal. But…