Kevin Stewart-Panko

The latest entry into the world of scathing, screamy, melodic hardcore is Chicago-centric Multiple Truths. For the most part, the quintet, formed by guitarist Justin Wettstein, did and do things the old-school way: rehearsing regularly together, hanging out like a small gang of record collecting nerds and taking the time to find and refine their…

The news that rabid, unhinged, original wave thrashers, Soothsayer have returned may not mean much to anyone under the age of 35 who lived outside of southern Ontario or the band’s home province of Quebec, but they’re back and I for one am rather pleased at the news. Initially reconvening to play an old-school Quebec…

Hmm. How did we miss this one? Did we miss this one? Was it only I who wasn’t paying attention and missed it? Either way, Arizona’s North has a “new” album out. It’s a wall of crushing, psychedelia-tinged post-Neur-Isis mania entitled The Great Silence, though “new” is a bit of a misnomer as it was…

Remember this a couple weeks ago? Well, the horror lovin’, Satan strokin’ dudes in Seven Sisters of Sleep have studiously studied your entries and picked the winning winners. Grand prize goes to: Sam Pickering Three runner-up prizes go to: Mark Thistlewood, Nolan Reed and Xsimon stX Drop A389 head dude, Dom a line at [email protected]…

A few months ago, we (and know that when I say “we,” I mean “I”) favourably reviewed Matterhorn, the latest by Montreal’s the Great Sabatini. For those of you who didn’t bother to heed my word and at least check ’em out, here’s a sample of how they rock: In that review, in addition to…

There’s a lot of business and entertaining reading for y’all to get down to this week. You don’t need me gumming up the gears with my special brand of bullshit. Los Angeles-based servants of evil/slaves of Satan, Seven Sisters of Sleep have a new album at the ready. It’s called Opium Morals and it sounds…

If you’re a fan of Lightning Bolt’s immensely quirky, insanely loud, outsider extreme music, then the name Brian Chippendale is probably very familiar to you. He’s the dervish behind the drums, often seen wearing a sock on his head with a microphone sewn into it as he seemingly grows three extra arms so as to…

My blog post this week was supposed to feature an interview with…someone. Someone – well, more like some band – who bailed on my exquisite line of questioning at the last minute. Which is fine when compared to the other ass hats who agreed to take their place and assume their position in internet history…

First thing’s first, bands: if you’re going to get back together and don’t want to have photos from your embarassing past dug up, the very least you could do is provide us hacks with at least one (1) recent picture. Otherwise, well…here’s a look at what New York’s prog-thrash conceptualists Toxik used to look like…

Now that the puck has finally been dropped on a (truncated) hockey season, it looks like we’re going to have to sit and wait for the esteemed Keith Huckins – he of Rorschach, Deadguy and Kiss it Goodbye fame – to unglue his eyes from the bank of Center Ice Package-equipped widescreens mounted in his…

photo credit: Lou Strummer France’s grindcore miscreats, Nolentia has recently made their newest and second album available to the world’s general populace and specifically those of you who enjoy your Nasum and Pig Destroyer weirded up a notch. The album’s called May the Hand That Holds the Match That Will Set This World on Fire…

Mount Pleasant, Michigan’s Cloud Rat play grind and they play it really well. They have a new album in the holster and on the ready entitled Moksha, courtesy the fine folks at Halo of Flies. What follows is an interview with guitarist Rorik Brooks and some vids and crap I lifted from their website. Check…

Let’s face it: there are too many bands out there releasing too much music for any one magazine-blog-social media platform combo to cover it all adequately. Or at least cover it all to the adequate degree that all those bands and PR people would want to be covered. Stuff gets lost in the shuffle the…

We love us some Weekend Nachos ’round the hallowed corridors of the Decibel nerve centre and its various satellite offices. So, when WN vocalist John Hoffman emailed us earlier this week asking if we wanted to throw up the A-side of the band’s new 7″, the “DUH!” was positively Richter Scale-worthy. The track originally appeared…

The Lord Herself knows Zao has kept it super-low on the spotlight front since the release of 2006’s The Fear is What Keeps Us Here. The promotional push for Awake? was zilch and the only “concrete” mentions of this supposed new album they have waiting in the wings for 2013 comes via Wikipedia and hardcore…

Chances are you know about Scion’s involvement in the world of extreme music (as well as garage rock and electronic music scenes). Chances are some of you have even gone on online to whine about a huge corporation like Scion/Toyota digging their claws and worming their tentacles into our sacred little world… after picking up…

On the surface, the name Phil Lawvere might not mean a whole lot. But if you take a root around your record collection, the importance of Lawvere’s contribution to the world of metal becomes pretty evident, pretty quickly. As the man who painted the covers to such classics as Endless Pain, Pleasure to Kill, Terrible…

If you’re like me, chances are if the name “Ilsa” somehow comes up in conversation, thoughts immediately turn to the triptych of ridiculous 70s Nazi exploitation films Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS, Ilsa: Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks and Ilsa: the Tigress of Siberia. If you’re really down with your B-movie trivia and haven’t…

Well folks, my recent birthday has officially put me more than past the halfway point to the grave. You’ll be rid of me soon (“not soon enough,” I hear some of you screeching). Usually, people in my age bracket (but not tax bracket) pull up the parking brake on their listening habits and start grousing…

Sweden’s Khoma is probably best known on this side of the Atlantic – assuming they’re known at all – for being the side project of Cult of Luna’s Johannes Persson and Fredrik Kihlberg. Au contraire. While they may not have been as on the radar of metalnerds as Cult of Luna, Khoma has existed in…

Regents features current and ex-members of Sleepytime Trio, Maximillian Colby, Frodus, the Exploder, Battery, Combatwoundedveteran, Thursday, United Nations and Decahedron playing the sort of screwy and spazzy post-punk punk rock you’d expect a band featuring current and ex-members of Sleepytime Trio, Maximillian Colby, Frodus, the Exploder, Battery, Combatwoundedveteran, Thursday, United Nations and Decahedron to be…

In the boundless quest to distinguish one’s band from metal’s ever-growing pack, comes another new sub-genre, given birth by Vancouver’s Auroch. Referring to themselves as “Lovecraftian death metal,” the trio is set to release their debut full-length From Forgotten Worlds via Poland’s Hellthrasher Productions. The band’s debut, which follows a spate of five demos that…

The Slovenly Swiss sludge slatterns better known as Abraham were brought to my attention courtesy their label boss, Robin Staps. You may recognise Robin’s name as he’s the driving engine behind The Ocean and, because he seems to think that the seven or eight hours of sleep he gets each month is a luxury, he…

Ok motherfuckers, starting tomorrow, one of the most fun-filled touring adventures of the year kicks off in Springfield, Virginia. A co-heading run featuring grind grand pappies Napalm Death and the travelling bachelor party known as Municipal Waste with the reigning good-time guardians of gore grind, Exhumed offering direct support would normally be enough to top…

Golden Void is a band that I stumbled across thanks to the fine fuckers over at Thrill Jockey who pimped them as an outfit inspired by “Sabbath, Hawkwind and rounded out by Robert Fripp, Jimi Hendrix, and even some Can in there as well.” Those of you familiar with the instrumental, psychedelic, Fat Albert-ness (yeah,…

Having shows in one’s place of residence seems like such a big deal to most people. To an old fart like myself, going to see a band play in a basement or living room is as natural as going to see a band play at some place where overzealous security goons get way too familiar…

Usually, when some public relations goomba contacts me, spouting off about how I’m guaranteed to love whatever new band they’re promoting, I go out of my way to hate that band. I used to do it subconsciously (probably) and don’t mean it as a slight to whatever band is in question, but as I’ve gotten…

Eagle-eye devourerers of Decibel will likely recall my review of Montreal’s The Great Sabatini’s latest album, Matterhorn in a recent issue. In reviewing their new record, I made reference to Pig Destroyer, Kyuss, Blind and Deliverance-era Corrosion of Conformity and described the proceedings thusly: “…hails from further out in left-field with more peaks and valleys…

Hands up those of you who remember Wales trio Taint? Aside from having our man Bonazelli throw down as the band’s biggest supporter to the tune of given up first born and oaths taken on the graves of dead relatives, the trio gave the world three unfuckwithable albums (All Bees to the Sea, Secrets and…

Vancouver’s Scythia is a confusing bunch. Are they pirate metal? No, not really. Folk metal? Nah. They may have folk elements, but they’re not that dour. Yeah, you heard me. Battleshield metal? I made that up, but it makes them sound a lot tougher and more sinister than they actually are. Let’s go with what…