Paul “Hammy” Halmshaw released some of the best extreme metal of the past three decades via Peaceville Records. Now he delivers a blow-by-blow account of how it happened in his first book.
Legendary Peaceville founder Hammy diagnosed with hereditary dilated cardiomyopathy. Here’s how you can help.
After the dust settled and forty records were assigned a place on Decibel’s vaunted list, five remained that probably could have swapped places with anything else on the list without causing any greater/lesser irritation than lists like this already stir up. Why should they get left out? Here are the five records that tied for #41 on our Top 40 Albums of 2016.
A nice crash-course in the classics.
Among 2015’s other contenders, five curried nearly enough votes to make it onto our list… but only nearly. Does that mean we shouldn’t spill some love-ink for them? Hell no! Here’s the five records that tied for #41 on our Top 40 Albums of 2015.
“. . . tapes mean less risk, warm sound and affordability.” This installment of Through a Speaker Rumbly features a Q&A with Caligari Records owner, Hansel Merchor. Merchor has been running Caligari Records for about two years now and, in that short amount of time, besides having accumulated hundreds of my own hard-earned dollars, Merchor…
Relapse could probably have found a stronger name for their 2013 autumn/winter sampler than, uhh, Relapse Sampler 2013. Cast your mind back when Earache were releasing their Grindcrusher sampler series, and Peaceville had the enigmatically titled Under the Sign of the Sacred Star; that was how you named a sampler. But that was back then,…
This piece is a long lost companion section to Decibel #92 cover story Paradise Lost. It explores and debunks the myth of the Peaceville Three—Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, and Anathema—connecting and riffing off one another in the early to mid-’90s. Think of it as an updated version of fellow Decibel contributor Greg Moffitt’s UK…
California fangers New Skeletal Faces premiere their shimmering, sanguine new track, “Until the Night,” at Decibel. Out November on Peaceville Records.
Act fast of you want a copy of this deluxe 2xLP reissue of Opeth‘s classic Still Life in celebration of its 25th anniversary!
Morta Skuld guitarist/vocalist Dave Gregor about the band’s latest album, Creation Undone. We unpack the record, the process, and how it feels to finally get some recognition.
Opeth reveal how their groundbreaking fourth LP, Still Life, was nearly their last in this month’s Decibel Hall of Fame induction.
Swedish melodic death metal legends At the Gates walk through the hallowed gates of our Hall of Fame for the third time via Terminal Spirit Disease.
The Sigh mastermind lends his voice to the popular horror game Dead By Daylight, as well as shares what’s in store for the avant garde black metal institution.
In this exclusive Doom Lexicanum II book excerpt, co-founding frontman Aaron Stainthorpe explains how the original My Dying Bride lineup first met.
On the 30th anniversary of Paradise Lost‘s death/doom landmark Gothic LP, we unearth our long lost
It’s okay to celebrate the release day of No Celebration: The Official Story of Paradise Lost with this exclusive excerpt from Decibel‘s limited edition hardcover book.
Carlo Regadas (Monstrance, ex-Carcass, ex-Devoid) survives necroticized organs and returns to playing music.
British extreme metal experimentalists Akercocke speak about comeback record Renaissance in Extremis and more in an extended interview.
** Dødheimsgard’s new album, A Umbra Omega, is no joke (see mental strongman Vicotnik’s argument at the very bottom). It’s a vicious mind-warp of an album, aggressive in its obtuseness and adventurous in its boundlessness. It’s at once black metal (free think!) and not at all (non-conformist!). A Umbra Omega riffs on, then destroys said riffs on, previous albums 666 International and Supervillain Outcast. This is Dødheimsgard. Extra-dimensional black from the deepest, darkest pits of space and time. A Umbra Omega is ritualistic in its abrasiveness, religious in the outcome of surviving its completeness.
From 666 International forward, Dødheimsgard has imbibed in the weird, the strange, and the obtuse. I figured you would’ve tried to pull the opposite of what you’re known for on A Umbra Omega. Maybe that’s too predictable too. So, you opted to stay weird. Was that kind of the idea?
Vicotnik: It was no specific idea as such, but since I love music, it is natural for me to get inspired by other genres as well. There was really never any moment in my life, where I only listened to black metal. I am also product from that school of reasoning that was very much present in the early ‘90s scene, that plagiarism is the biggest sin of them all. So if you look at 95% of the bands from my era, they all (for good or for worse) evolved in some shape or form. The black metal sound of the ‘90s was in itself a little piece of sonic evolution, since early black metal records of the ‘90s did not really have any specific counterparts from the ‘80s. In addition, you had the x-factor in the ‘90s, because nobody knew what they were doing, and the engineers that were set to produce these records had no knowledge of how a record like this was supposed to sound like. I like the idea of pursuing the unknown factor, that sets the table for creativity. There are viable reasons for bands to produce their record over and over again. They may be based on some sort of ideal, or success-recipe. Inadvertently this also means that these bands, to some degree, have to abandon the creative process. Musically one could say that the main focus of this album is the feeling/atmosphere, while the tools rendered to achieve that sought after atmosphere varied through different creative approaches.
** Mysticum have mystified black metal purists for decades. The Norwegians’ debut album, In the Streams of Inferno, split black metal into tiny shards, its fans wondering what the fuck in its wake. Originally slated to be released on Euronymous’ Deathlike Silence Productions, the ground-breaking, genre-defying release found a home on American black metal label,…
** UK dark rockers Thine have a new full-length out. The Dead City Blueprint is probably an album not on your radar, unless you’ve followed the group since A Town like This back in the late ’90s. Should it be on your radar? Yes, if dark, melodic, melancholic, honest metal-infused rock is in your wheelhouse….
** Katatonia recently ventured through the U.S. with Cult of Luna, Intronaut, and Anciients. I sat down with old buds Jonas Renkse & Anders Nyström to have a laugh, chat, talk about old shit (not transcribed), and highlight “experiment” album, Dethroned and Uncrowned. Read on Katacolyts! What was the motivation behind Dethroned and Uncrowned? Anders…
** We make it no secret we’re fans of My Dying Bride. From their Hall of Fame induction to innumerable citations in pages and blogs, My Dying Bride has appealed to our inner and outer miser for an age or two. Well, this session was originally sent off to My Dying Bride in June, hoping…
Although our European brothers and sisters in despondent doom may’ve had the jump on Decibel this time around, it doesn’t deter our dismal displays of adoration—check out their Hall of Fame record example—for the venerated My Dying Bride. So much so, we’ve got four songs from the Brits’ latest long-player streaming. These tunes of torment…
Each Gehenna album had different sonic attributes. From the eerie black metal of The First Spell through the death metal disposition of Murder and then back to brutal black hybrid on WW. Do you recall wanting each album to be singular, regardless of genre?Dolgar: We always try not to make the same album twice of…
What do you make of Second Ring of Power after all these years? It’s getting a second chance at life, so to speak.Jan Kuhanen: All of our albums have been re-released, so Second… is in no way specific. Plus, we have some bonus stuff with all of them except with the first one. Ismo Toivonen:…
Amsterdam-based KONG has been one of my favourite bands for over twenty years. I remember coming across a half-page story about the band in an issue of Metal Forces like it was yesterday, except it was 1990. The piece was promoting this oddball Dutch instrumental band and their debut album, Mute Poet Vocalizer, claiming it…
Known for its cheese, beer, and baseball team the Brewers, Milwaukee is also home (rather was home) to some of America’s finest death metal. Yeah, Tampa had its rightful place on the throne in the late ’80s/early ’90s, but the former French Canadian trading post had Dr. Shrinker, Phantasm, Accidental Suicide, and the mighty Morta…
This September Mortiis performs his groundbreaking 1993 album, Født Til Å Herske, in its entirety on tour in the U.S. but today the dungeon synth progenitor took time to serenade us with 40—that’s right, 40—albums that shaped his musical trajectory.