Chris Dick

Well-spoken, Morbid Angel’s David Vincent has labeled the group in 2011 as “spearheaders”, which is fine when you look at albums like Hall of Fame album Altars of Madness, Blessed Are the Sick, Covenant, Domination. etc. Morbid Angel were the creme de la creme. However, time marches on and it’s rarely kind. Certainly, Vincent is…

Finnish “heavy metallers” Lordi have gone 3-times Platinum (90,000 copies sold) in their native Finland, Gold (30,000 copies sold) in Sweden, Gold in Germany (100,000 copies sold) and have probably earned sales medals throughout Europe. Pretty neat considering Lordi are nothing but a bunch of fakers. Check out this clip from 2006. The horror-masked Finns…

Formed in 1991 in Ipswich, about 82 miles northeast of London, Cradle of Filth started out as, to quote frontman Dani Filth, a “gore-flecked death metal” band.

If you’re a Decibel subscriber, issue #82 [Scott Ian cartoon cover] should be arriving via angry postman shortly. In this month’s cover, longtime dude’s dude Nick Green detailed in fantastic fashion the link between comics and extreme music. With a (spoiler alert!) fold-out cover illustrator by Henry and Glenn inklord Tom Neely, issue #82 boldly…

So Hideous, My Love… may not have the best band name, but musically they’re the best post-insert-subgenre-here band since Arvo Pärt joined Burzum and the daring duo started covering Godspeed You! Black Emperor B-sides. Seriously though, Pärt hasn’t joined Varg in any capacity, but So Hideous, My Love… feels like the next step in whatever…

Some say the first wave of black metal started in England. We happen to be of the opinion — a silly one, mind you — that the first wave of black metal started, at least sonically, in America in 1969, with the release of New York-based Cromagnon’s sole album, Orgasm. We’re not the first ones…

5. MANAGERS: Self-managing a band is a load of work. Arch Enemy does it, actually. But unless you have a few A-types who actually know how things work, it’s probably a good idea to get a manager. Again, someone you can trust. Someone with a sterling reputation. Someone who manages other bands in good standing….

You picked Roy Z as a producer for Kairos. Why Roy?Andreas Kisser: Roy was a great choice for this album. He’s a very experienced produced, working with the best singers in metal. He’s a great guitar player. He’s a great musician, too. He more or less knows how to play his instruments. And he’s active…

It takes too long to go through every online distro, e-store, virtual shop to find the best prices on the latest…uh, precious metal titles. Want the new Arch Enemy Khaos Legions for less than $10? Try Amazon. Or Century Media’s CM Distro. Want the new Morbid Angel wooden box set for less than three Bens?…

Chicago-based metallic hardcore outfit Harm’s Way are right down the middle of our proverbial plate. That’s a baseball reference — made by a non-baseball fan — if you were thinking of fine china or the affordable stuff you get in boxes of 50 at Ikea. Seriously, hearing Harm’s Way’s new album Isolation immediately made us…

Let’s put this in perspective. I can’t recall — ever! — a band of Amon Amarth’s music style and profile doing a full U.S. tour without direct or local support. That includes every legend in the book. Entombed, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Vader, Carcass, Napalm Death, Obituary, etc. Sure, they may’ve done a string of…

In the ‘90s, the antics of Varg Vikernes and several others pushed black metal into an unwelcome, possibly unintended spotlight (though one can argue razing Stave churches was an attention-garnering move). But black metal, from a Norwegian perspective, is no longer musica non grata. Having witnessed in person Dimmu Borgir’s NRK-funded and sponsored (effectively the…

1. hol·o·caust [hol-uh-kawst, hoh-luh-]“a great or complete devastation or destruction, especially by fire.” — Immortal’s Abbath Doom Occulta would disagree with this definition, especially the “fire” bit. His definition of “holocaust” is 100 years of winter followed by 100 years of brutal rule by the autocratic dictators of the frost-bitten kingdom of Blashyrkh. 2. tox·ic…

Opinions on Illud Divinum Insanus have gone from applauded to appalling. Mostly appalling. Check out the 35 (and growing) reviews on Amazon. Thus quoteth some Amazon reviewers: “a Spinal Tap level embarrassment”, “Inexcusable”, “An eight year wait for an absolute train wreck”, “How the mighty have fallen!”, and (my favorite) “It’s not completly [sic] terrible……

Fuck Starbucks! While soccer moms and day traders sip delicately and importantly on iced caramel macchiatos and munch through $40 mini carrot cupcakes, we here at the dB HQ start our uliginous days off with a grisly jigsaw (breakfast) stew of flesh and bone. Munificent amounts of gore topped with good stone ground mustard, actually….

German forward-thinking metallers The Ocean give us Part 2 of their recent trouble-filled trek through the U.S. and Canada. What to expect? A pro-filmed video, a few different accents (British, German, Australian), quick shots of front row boobage, the realization that the Job for A Cowboy dudes pump iron like Stallone, the group’s driver disappearing…

OK, what is the central idea to Amplicon? I read bits of what sounded to be a neat concept.Runhild Gammelsaeter: In a bout of delusions of grandeur, I decided to make a soundtrack of the cycle of the universe, from its birth by the big bang to its collapse, the big crunch, or whatever the…

Most people are picking up on Lifelover at Konkurs due to the Prophecy re-issue. Is that a good starting point for people interested in Lifelover?Kim Carlsson: Definitely, even though any of our albums would be a good starting-point Konkurs involves many of our trademark elements, so if it’s followed by our current release Sjukdom the…

Here I am back after a long silence. What can I say?! I naively thought I could be writing while on tour… I was wrong. For one, I was sick as a dog during the majority of the European tour, so for the most part the routine was: from bed to stage to bed. Day…

Metal is pervasive. It has no geographic restrictions. There are few countries worldwide—at least according to Metal Archives—that don’t have a grimace-faced metal act waiting to bash heads in and rebel against the shit that gets ‘em down. Now, I’m sure you’ve heard of Italy’s Necrodeath at one point or another. In fact, you’ve probably…

Tell me, kids. What’s with the vocal covers? I can understand bands doing covers of their favorite tunes. Been happening since the dawn of music, in fact. But dudes (and the occasional dudette) hanging out in their bedrooms—with mic in hand and webcam turned on—attempting to best their favorite growler for the world to see,…

New York City-based Nader Sadek has finally made the transition from conceptual artist to full-fledged recording artist on new album In the Flesh. Joining Sadek on his Season of Mist debut are Cryptopsy drummer Flo Mounier, ex-Morbid Angel frontman Steve Tucker, ex-Mayhem guitarist Rune Eriksen, Mayhem frontman Attila Csihar, Cattle Decapitation vocalist Travis Ryan, ex-Monstrosity…

For aspiring young bands touring the U.S. isn’t a walk in the park. Now, bring those aspiring young bands over from Europe, where from what I can tell things are far more convenient and distances between points shorter, and nightly on-stage antics become not just a job but an ordeal. The Ocean evidently found out…

Over a plate of tasty three cheese (Manchego, sharp cheddar, and Paški sir) nachos, the braniacs at Decibel thought it’d be quite rad to hear what you guys—i.e., our readership, those that think we’re peaches, those that think we’re fuckwads, etc.—concoct when you’re feeling the need to mow down on a slab of cheesy, chippy…

What: The Zone – InfernoWhen: May 7th, 2011 Where: Lisebergshallen, Göteborg, Sweden The card was headlined with three title matches: Lightweight, Welterweight and Middleweight, but before we go to that, there were some great moments! Lots of submissions, a head kick knock out and a women’s match that made you cringe (in a good, violent…

Today is a good day for Enslaved nerds (I’m one of them!). Scion AV, yes the company responsible for free, rules-all concerts with dream-like line-ups, and Enslaved have teamed up for The Sleeping Gods EP, an offshoot release from last year’s dB-approved Axioma Ethica Odini full-length. Comprised of five tracks spanning 28 minutes, The Sleeping…

Anticipation is a strange thing, man. Since frontman David Vincent re-joined longstanding death metallers Morbid Angel in 2004, fans from Chicago to the outermost regions of space have looked forward to the follow-up to non-David Vincent fronted Heretic. Actually, not just looked forwarded to, but debated endlessly and heatedly on Internet forums, in livingrooms, and…

Yeah, even though we got Osama, there’s plenty of turmoil in the world to go around. Libya’s still a war-ravaged cesspool, the Midwest is experiencing Biblical-style flooding, Japan’s coping with the tsunami-related woes, the Ivory Coast has seen better days, and… and… I could go on forever. Well, there are two ways to handle the…

So, listening to the new Morbid Angel album got me thinking of Florida shock rock outfit Marilyn Manson. Don’t ask me why. You’ll understand on June 7th, 2011. Anyway, it was the first time I thought of Brian Hugh Warner and his band of post-apocalyptic gothic-industrial goons since, well, Mechanical Animals was the highest selling…

We often like to toot our own horn of death. Our horn of death is similar to the long horns Tibetans use to signal it’s time for morning meditation. Except our horns are made of flesh (goat, preferably) and bone (human, preferably) and when they resound down the vile streets of Philadelphia, the grotesque sound…