Metal Blade

Mike Bishop sheds Blothar’s antlers and abdominal adornments to speak frankly with us about GWAR after Brockie.

Fall down The Rabbit Hole with The Great Dischord, featuring ex-Ghost drummer Aksel Holmgren.

Our resident birdbrains pecks on new releases from The Black Dahlia Murder, Primitive Man and Nudist.

Advance copies of Decibel issue #157 are available now in LIMITED quantities!

Interview tips from our resident birdbrains, plus pecking on Cemetery Urn, Tombs and Dying Fetus. 

By 1993, Cannibal Corpse was an interesting conundrum: When you have hammer-smashed every boundary of decency and good taste on your third album, where exactly do you go?

Our resident birdbrains pecks on new releases from Six Feet Under, Xibalba, and King Woman. 

The gods are pleased — Amon Amarth has completed an extensive European tour in support of their record Jomsviking. Check out this documentary through “Anchors to Asphalt” to learn about extensive touring, their live show and sacrifices for the gods. 

The Athenian quartet Ravencult‘s third LP cleans and polishes its blackened death thrash without blunting its serrated decimation. Axe demon Stefanos Fakatselis fielded our email.

The Whole of the Law
Total fucking destruction
dB rating: 8/10

2016 is the year progressive metal emerged from its long-standing shadow. The genre, long associated with haughtiness and a self-serving nature (music for musicians), is far more advanced now. So too are its audience and exposure points. This brings us to progressive metal stalwarts Redemption, a band that’s enthralled smart-minded music fans since its eponymous debut hit shelves (actual store shelves) in 2003.

Dead Revolution
Full of life
dB rating: 9/10

Ohio post-metal/rock outfit If These Trees Could Talk are the latest sensation on Metal Blade. A label normally known for its heavy metal, death metal is experiencing a growth spurt into other genres–not unlike its ventures into rock in the ’90s, with the Ohioans leading the charge. 

As grind-infused industrial black metal levelers Anaal Nathrakh put the finishing touches on the band’s as-yet-untitled ninth full-length — tentatively slated for an October release via Metal Blade — Decibel caught up with vocalist Dave Hunt for a illuminating chat.

Last October saw King Diamond’s glorious return to the lighted stages of North America after nearly a decade away. The shows were unanimously well-received—audiences throughout the land were captivated by the massive stage setup, delightful theatrics and spot-on set list. In fact, our #3 extreme vocalist of all time says everything went about as smoothly…

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…

We’re a little over a week out from the release of the new Visigoth record, The Revenant King, but we’ve got the exclusive premiere of the epic closer for you today…Enjoy! Check out another album cut over at…NPR.

Happy Thursday. For your viewing pleasure at the Deciblog today we have an exlusive premiere of the video of King of Asgard’s “The Runes of Hel.” The track is from their forthcoming album Karg, due from Metal Blade on July 22. Watch the video below and then learn more and preorder the album here.

For your streaming pleasure today we have a new/old track from Swedish death metal legends Entrails. “Voices” is from the upcoming Resurrected From The Grave demo collection, an 18-track compilation featuring Reborn and Human Decay. The material was never released and is finally coming out many years later. The album is due next week; preorder…

When they released the DVD Majesty five years ago The Black Dahlia Murder proved that not only did they understand their fans, they understood how to make a watchable documentary. On their second DVD Fool ‘Em All our tour co-headliners take it another step. Not only do they make you laugh, they make you care…

Re-Spect! Vogue! 

Dearest death-heads, please affix your finest gurn of appreciation as we welcome an exclusive stream of “King of All”, a real chunky piece of slo-mo O.S.D.M. chug taken from Demonical’s gnarly forthcoming Metal Blade LP, Darkness Unbound. As you would expect from Demonical, Darkness Unbound is one unsophisticated beast; Demonical, lest we forget, are graduates…

We have some streaming goodness available for the Deciblog faithful today. Please check out the new tune “The Apparition” from Pentagram (Chile) below. Frontman Anton Reisenegger said the following about the track: “‘The Apparition’ must be one of my favorite tracks on the album because it has this amazing early Slayer vibe. Haunting The Chapel…

We’re less than a month out now from the release of Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats’ sublime psychedelic doom n’ roll tour de force Mind Control, and, lord, does the tranquil-yet-oddly-sinister old school VHS clamshell-esque cover artwork suit the album’s messianic death cult lyrical theme and transcendentalist sonic vibe. “The whole album reeks of VHS…

We offer this as more of a geographic reference than a musical one, but if you’re curious about the origins of Troubled Horse, you need look no further than the the same Swedish town, Orebro, that spawned both Graveyard and Witchcraft, who coincidentally have new albums just out or on the way. The Witchcraft connection…

It’s competition time, folks, and courtesy of the good folk at Metal Blade we have a selection of swag to give away, on the condition that you A) answer the question correctly and B) are lucky enough to be drawn out of our moth-balled and dandruff-flecked Six Feet Under beanie. Now, we were going to…

Talk about a kick-ass way to start the week. Not only did we put the Big Easy’s finest purveyors of blackened thrash, Goatwhore, on the cover of our current issue, we managed to wrangle a new tune off their upcoming Metal Blade album, Blood For the Master. “When Steel and Bone Meet” is everything we…

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…

For whatever reason, when people talk about influential metal scenes of yore, the L.A.area  just doesn’t seem to get the credit it’s due. Sure, the whole Hollywood/Sunset Strip glam thing left its mark in the mid-’80s, but some of the world’s biggest and influential, ahem, “real” metal bands arose from the L.A. area much earlier…

Unearth and the generous folks at Metal Blade Records have provided us with a little swag to give away to celebrate the recent release of the band’s new album, Darkness in the Light, and their current stint on the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival tour making the rounds through the middle of August (see dates…