Chris Dick

French/Finnish combo Deathspell Omega have taken black metal to its most mystical extreme. They decline interviews (only handful since forming in 1998), are extraordinarily camera shy, and wouldn’t be caught metaphysically dead performing live in front of an audience. Now, most of this is conjecture. They may do interviews—with each other—and they may have a…

“We want to get out there and pretty much destroy,” says Six Feet Under vocalist Chris Barnes in a Metal Blade press release. “We want to play to as many people as possible, and show all of the fans out there the new songs, and leave nothing but a trail of blood in our wake….

Revered Swedish death metal producer Tomas Skogsberg once claimed Borås-based Evocation were better than Stockholm’s best sliced bread. This was back in the early ’90s too, when Stockholm greats were on their respective—much beloved—second albums. At the time, Evocation never got to recording a full-length—despite being courted by a few “notable” labels of the day—due…

You stepped up with more songs on Torture than on previous albums. Why is that?Rob Barrett: The original plan was that each of us to write four or five songs, but we decided to stop writing several weeks before going into the studio to concentrate on the 12 songs that were already written. I was…

Grindcore legends Phobia may not be the most prolific full-length writers—six of ’em in 22 years—but what they lack in Genesis-like concept albums or MacGrubergrind throwback scene points, they make up for in sheer volcanic terror. If that sounds like journalistic exaggeration, well, it kind of is, but what band outside Napalm Death, Rotten Sound,…

Firewind guitarist…er, guitar god Gus G. is a bit of a celebrity over in Europe. Here in the states the Greek six-stringer’s exploits are, for all intents and purposes, largely under the proverbial metallic radar. He was in Swedish power metal outfit Dream Evil, but they sold about 4 copies between coasts. He floated for…

What do Vinny Appice, Rex Brown, Mark Zavon, and Jason ‘Dewey’ Bragg have in common? Initial thinking is they all own homes in coastal North Carolina. Or, that they’re really big fans of old English slang for sugarcane-based swill. But really the four heavy metallers have hard rocking as a share point. Vinny needs no…

What’s the meaning behind Alpha Noir and Omega White? Other than beginning/end and black/white or evil/good.Fernando Ribeiro: If we chose to ignore the detail who runs mankind and the world since the dawn of knowledge and conscience, birth and death, solar/lunar, dare to know/ignorance is bliss, the best thing I have to offer is that…

Of the few rules instructing the Hall of Fame interview process is all members—there’s been one exception in Decibel #16—that appeared on the recording must be interviewed. For a full set of rules, click here, but they’re boring. So, venturing on, there have been numerous and potentially earth-shattering Hall of Fame inductions that never got…

It’s no hard sight to see that today the world we operate in is fucked. Elitist just has a knack at pointing that finger right back at the butchers of modern times. Not only do we execute it with extreme hostility and prejudice for ‘the man’, but have disgust for the belief systems that have…

OK, we’ve just unveiled our first ever Paradise Lost cover story [Decibel #92] and exclusive Paradise Lost B-side flexi disc—which we’re super-chuffed about—but to say that we’ve been sleeping on one of the UK’s most important heavy acts of all time is all kinds of hyperbole. See, at Camp Decibel, Paradise Lost is given “special…

The last time we had direct contact with Brazilian death metallers Krisiun was way back in October 2011, where the terrible trio blogged a killer (literally!) Top 5 for us. Not that we don’t like a daily dose of Krisiun — new album The Great Execution is quality when not compared to, say, Apocalyptic Revelation…

Unless you live in Sweden and can subscribe to Sweden Rock Magazine for less than $132.77 per year (that’s the rate to America), chances of owning a physical CD slice of Marduk’s new “Souls for Belial” single are slim at best — pretty much up to eBay and/or those of you lucky enough to have…

What is the Deathhammer? Bob Bagchus: Deathhammer represents the book of death metal. Our view on real death metal. It’s like the rules of what real death metal was supposed to be. Death metal was supposed to be hard, raw, dirty, creepy, dark and brutal to the bone. Music to be scared of. Just listen…

Extreme music from Italy is usually coifed with keyboards, frilly shirts or over-songwriting. Sure, there are exceptions–as always–but few truly brutal Italian bands take it to the listener direct-like. Of course, Cripple Bastards, arguably the country’s most infamous (all the adjectives that go with infamous like “controversial,” “disgusting,” “revolting,” “uncouth,” etc.) grindcore outfit, have been…

** Writer, director and videographer Jeff Speed discusses the finer aspects of Municipal Waste’s “Fatal Feast” video and his affinity for ’80s sci-horror. How did you find the location? It’s pretty unique to film a metal video on the set of an old television series, especially one as cult as Firefly. Jeff Speed: I’ve actually…

How would you separate [id] from Eclipse as a musical statement? Cut from the same cloth or something else entirely?Marc Okubo: I feel that Eclipse is our strongest release to date. We have matured with our songwriting and our performing. Periphery’s Misha Mansoor helped write and produce the album and I couldn’t be more excited…

Rust in Peace, as you will learn, wasn’t written in a day. It wasn’t even written in the studio—well, Dave Ellefson’s “Dawn Patrol” was birthed there—over many months, like so many records of the day were.

It ain’t often we here at the Deciblog get to premiere a 30-track album. That’s like reading a book for fuck’s sake. (I’m currently reading Holy Blood Holy Grail, and who knew the French were so important to history?) Anyway, General Surgery, as you may or may not know, are the first (and best) CarcassClone….

#5 – Sempiternal Deathreign – “Devastating Empire towards Humanity” The Spooky Gloom (1988) Sempi were the heaviest band at that time in the Netherlands. I still consider it as one of the best albums that ever came out of my own country. I luckily had the opportunity to see them live when we were doing…

** Fear Factory’s The Industrialist is out June 5, 2012 on Candlelight Records. We spoke to frontman Burton C. Bell about the record’s storyline. “I am a being… My existence has value… My purpose right now is to relate my witness, without any bitterness or partiality, the motives of my present reality.” We can only…

OK, Behemoth have the authoritative death-black hybrid thing perfected. Watain has done — via literal death garb and all sorts of illicit/disgusting ingestion stuff — for black metal what the Norwegians wanted to do. The Devil’s Blood has the whole occult folk-rock-doom triangle on lock, which corresponds somewhat nicely to Watain’s own occult aspirations/bloodlust. And…

If you were to ask us to describe Atlanta, Georgia’s Royal Thunder, we’d probably have to say, “Well, John, they sound a lot like getting your ass kicked by a ’70s-era Tony Iommi while he was a coke and HP Lovecraft bender.” If you were to ask us, “What the hell does that mean?” We’d…

If you’ve read Cry Now, Cry Later or one of J. Bennett’s many (read: nearly all of them) cover stories for Decibel, you’re probably familiar with the dude. He writes like he’s on some sort of drug, but actually it’s just the rarefied air he breathes. Unlike the rest of us hobbits (i.e., 6′ and…

We’ve had Jeff Loomis’ Midwestern back ever since he first debuted with Nevermore on the group’s self-titled debut LP. Over the years, he has transformed into a wonder axeman (or Guitar Hero, if you want to use contemporary video game parlance), lining up with such greats as Marty Friedman, George Lynch, and Alexi Laiho. Now…

Portland’s a sweet city. It’s got a well-titted public transportation system, a record store for every sub-sub genre (except for Mozambique deathfolk, which is unfortunate.), a zoo, and Powell’s City of Books. Of course, it has other things, too. Like guys with 18th century moustaches in little girl pants, but so too does every city…

Eleven full-lengths spanning two decades in the silly and oft-lethal record business requires a bit of fortitude and self-reinvention. Well, Unleashed — long known for pre-dating Super Wario Amon Amarth with their tales of Viking plunder and intrepidity — has fortitude in spades. Blonde-haired and Viking-large Johnny Hedlund’s been at the death metal game longer…

The last time we at the dB HQ heard Seattle’s Samothrace was, well, last week, but the last time the quartet made scene-like waves was way back in 2008, on the Life’s Trade LP. What has Samothrace been up to in the years between? Probably writing an epic of Grecian proportions. Actually, that’s exactly how…

Prog nerds rejoice! It’s the new OSI track “Cold Call”. Formed by Jim Matheos (Fates Warning, Arch/Matheos) and Kevin Moore (Chroma Key, ex-Dream Theater) and augmented by Porcupine Tree mind-blower Gavin Harrison, OSI, in its current iteration, is stripped down and ready global domination on the group’s fourth (first non-license for Metal Blade) full-length. OSI,…

Without spilling too much digital ink, we’d like say we’re pretty chuffed — as Mick Harris would say circa ’91 — to be premiering not one but two studio reports for beloved doom metal outfit Paradise Lost. The Yorkies — not the dog, natch — are preparing for the release of new album, Tragic Idol,…