Tiamat

Wake up, people! Tiamat‘s 1997 departure A Deeper Kind of Slumber actually rules. Here’s why.

Twenty-two years later, Tiamat’s Wildhoney remains a marvel—a truly mighty bridge that countless bands have since crossed in an effort to meld the brutal with the otherworldly. We break down the 120th entry into our Hall of Fame over a big ol’ glass of Psilocybe tea.

Just in time for fall:  doom over the world… now available in ones and zeros. 

Right now you’re either praising the demigods that 2015’s first Snowpocalypse has confined you to your nice, warm couch, or cursing them for not dumping enough white stuff to keep you out of work. Either way, we’re sure nobody on your social media destination of choice has shut up about it, so Decibel has your kind…

After Tiamat crawled out of black metal nasties Treblinka in 1989, the main principals—namely Johan Edlund (previously known as Lucifer Hellslaughter)—likely had no idea they’d be writing an album as groundbreaking and mind-altering as Wildhoney five years later.

You’re on your 25th year, your tenth album and your fourth record label, at this point. What keeps Tiamat humming?Johan Edlund: That’s never been a problem. We’ve decided to allow ourselves complete artistic freedom. We don’t do this for the money nor for pleasing anybody else. We still love doing it because it still excites…

There are game changers and then there are game changers. I wouldn’t say Hard ‘N Heavy’s Grindcore Special Issue was a game changer in the same way Entombed, Paradise Lost, Napalm Deafth (phonetic spelling, natch), Bolt Thrower, Tiamat, and many others were in the dimmest part of the early ’90s, but it, unlike any Xeroxed…

By Johan Ericsson (Shadowgarden, Draconian, Doom:VS) 5. Bay Laurel – Where Pain Comes to Die (2000) This is a forgotten gem. I don’t know what the sales were for this album but I guess not many people have heard it. After releasing a couple of albums and EPs this came to be their final release….