Heavy Metal

Hyborian‘s first record will tell the story of an intergalactic traveller. You can hear the first part of the tale now. 

The New Wave of British Heavy Metal wasn’t a movement. Until it was a movement. Early on, bands—mostly categorized as hard rock—merely created music the only way they knew how.

For Saxon’s Wheels of Steel [February 2017, #148] interviews, we were able to gather all five original members. As required by Hall of Fame edict #1. The current and former members of Britain’s heavy metal legends couldn’t have been nicer and more talkative. Graham, Steve, Biff, Pete, and Paul spun all kinds of fun and interesting stories about the events leading up to landmark album Wheels of Steel and what happened shortly thereafter.

Tony Reed of Mos Generator counts down his favorite hard rock/heavy metal albums.

In which I discuss heavy metal, Sword & Sorcery fic, Manilla Road, the modern hardcore scene, and much more with Jason Tarpey, vocalist of Texas’ toughest epic heavy metal band, Eternal Champion.

Saxon have enjoyed a prolific career, with a multitude of live albums. Inspired by their upcoming vinyl box set, The Vinyl Hoard, Season of Mist’s Greg Karlowitsch ranks Saxon’s already released live albums from worst to best.

Evil Invaders‘ “Raising Hell” is a speed-drenched, retro tune. 

Wretch
A master’s return
dB rating: 8/10

The ‘Witch is Back! And The Apothic Gloom four-track EP features the best material of Skeletonwitch‘s career. Hear it now.

Flashback 1982. Hollywood, California. The various members of newly formed W.A.S.P., still high on George Miller’s Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior aesthetic, are in a friend’s metal shop.

Necromancing the Stone has an all-star lineup and an upcoming record offering a new take on traditional heavy metal. 

Dead Revolution
Full of life
dB rating: 9/10

You probably didn’t hear traditional metal powerhouse Damien Black in 1992, so, here’s a second chance.

Diamond Head
>Heady Topper
dB rating: 8/10

Close out this week with your palms skyward via new trad metal from Canada’s Spell.

30 years of epicus doomicus metallicus means new EP(icus). 

By the time 1983 rolled around, those bands participating within the loose construct known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal had become well aware that there was more to their scene and sound than playing time-tested and amped-up blues-based riffs in the back rooms of pubs or moldy rehearsal rooms.

Fates Warning leader, guitarist and chief songwriter Jim Matheos will be living parallel lives in 2016. He’s helming the writing and recording of the band’s 12th album with the current lineup, and will concurrently assemble a lineup from the band’s distant past, including guitarist Frank “X” Aresti plus co-founders John Arch (vocals), Joe DiBiase (bass) and Steve Zimmerman (drums).

There will be shred. 

Journey Blind
Mob rulers
dB Rating: 8/10

It’s that time of year again! Decibel has been banging our heads overtime to concoct our annual special issue with 100 percent never-before-seen content. Slip on your old studded vest and behold The Top 100 Old-School Metal Albums of All Time!

Before checking out for the long weekend, enter for a chance to win three new CDs of doom, occult, heaviness, kings, hammers, and more kings, courtesy of Cruz Del Sur.

I blame every sobering statistic regarding global literacy on the fact that until now the world didn’t have Heavy Metal Movies, the twisted tome cataloging Mike “McBeardo” McPadden’s infatuation with extremely extreme music and film. With 666+ reviews of headbang-friendly films, McBeardo is your personal Virgil leading you into the underworld of metallic cinema treasures….

We asked Toronto’s premiere purveyors of “true, unadulterated heavy metal” Cauldron to keep tabs on the havoc and devastation left behind in the wake of the band’s epic America’s Lost tour and dudes did not disappoint with the diary below. Remaining tour dates are listed at post’s end. Purchase Cauldron’s excellent Tomorrow’s Lost here. David…

Partying, camping by the beach, hiking, fishing, smoking weed in graveyards, jamming King Diamond and Manilla Road: Natur had the sort of gnarly Rhode Island upbringing that all us city-bred shmucks can only envy. But it’s not only a healthy way to spend your adolescence, as Natur’s sticksman and designated spokesman, Tooth, can attest to,…

Orange Goblin’s appetite for ale is the stuff of legend. When the Deciblog caught up with them prior to the long-awaited release of Eulogy for the Damned, frontman Ben Ward, bassist Martyn Millard, drummer Christ Turner and guitarist Joe Hoare were piecing together the making of an album that was recorded over nine weekend sessions….

Oh praise be! The most miserable month of the year is all but over and it’s the weekend. This has been such a dry-mouthed hump of a month, but when Red Fang released their video for their super-catchy loose-minded stoner jam “Hank is Dead” the Deciblog made like Barney Gumble with the non-alcoholic champagne and…

According to the wholly democratic, incorruptible and failsafe Decibel End of Year Poll, In Solitude’s superlative The World. The Flesh. The Devil. was officially the fourth-best album of 2011. (Yeah, in reality it was probably like the third best, but that doesn’t matter, not really. The thing is not to sleep on it.) The coltish…

Sure, ripping the annual Grammy nominations (and then later the inevitable head-scratching winner, see above) is like shooting fish in a barrel, but we must point out that to be so utterly clueless about a major part of the music business (metal) for so long really does take some effort. At this point we can’t…

Hammers of Misfortune are one of the most slept-on bands to be offering hauté metal compositions that’d sate vinyl gourmands’ appetite for a more adult alternative to power metal and something a bit more compositionally sophisticated than NWOBHM’s greasy denim bark. Like something that’s got all metal’s histrionic chutzpah but doesn’t require an ad hoc…