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Manetheren’s Time is about as casual an experience as the sprawling dozen-plus-tome story that gives the band its name.  (Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series became so outrageously complex that now, even five years after Jordan’s death, a secondary author is still finishing the three books needed to complete the tale.)  Don’t belly up to…

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…

Odds are that pretty much anything we cover would be the last thing anybody waking up from a long night of debauchery would want to hear. Just because your head feels like it might explode, however, doesn’t mean that comfort cannot be found via some quality tuneage. Just ask bassist/vocalist Jon DeHart of West Deptford,…

Of all the bands to crawl back from the metal abyss here’s something we never expected. VON is releasing a new album at the end of October and dB got an exclusive stream of “Jesus Stain” from Satanic Blood. The band expects to play a limited run of shows. Take a listen below and then…

It ain’t often we say, “Hey, check out this black metal band with a great bass player!” Normally, bass players in black metal get the Jason Newsted treatment, but Borre-based Nidingr have two in guitarists Blargh and Teloch. Why have a full-time bass player when you have two guys with enough talent to sound like…

The craft beer world is still trying to undo the damage done by shitty pale American lagers to canned beer’s reputation. It’s a sad fact that most craft beer drinkers think that bottled beer is “better” than canned beer, when the exact opposite is actually the case. If we all agree that craft beer is…

When we interviewed metal iconoclast Vanessa Nocera back in August for the Women in Metal issue she cited the “poetic atmosphere” of surrealist horror films as an prime influence, so we are extremely pleased and honored the Wooden Stake frontwoman has graciously agreed to help us kick off our Halloween month coverage with a truly…

The concept of faith might be diametrically opposed to Marduk’s pitch-black worldview but the Swedish fundamentalists are worthy of yours. Of all the Second Wave black metal bands who still consider their iconoclastic craft a full-time concern, Marduk are the ones who always deliver. They could be accused of lacking a sense of adventure when…

by Ian Miller There’s nothing like hearing a good drummer play a good drum kit in a room designed expressly for the purpose. In this case, the drummer is recovering from a head injury, but who can tell? I’m Ian Miller. I play bass in Kowloon Walled City. We’re about to record our third record,…

Welcome to The Lazarus Pit, a biweekly look at should-be classic metal records that don’t get nearly enough love; stuff that’s essential listening that you’ve probably never heard of; stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  This week, we’re going on a 50 million…

Decibel knows you’ve got a metal wishlist 23 albums long and five gigabytes of Profound Lore records you still haven’t heard all the way through, but each week we like to give you the opportunity to tune in to a project that isn’t backed by anybody’s hype machine.  Because music is universal, expression is boundless,…

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…

To celebrate the release of Legend, last week we brought you Witchcraft bassist Ola Henriksson’s playlist of weightlifting songs. We’d wager that this week’s entry, however, marks the first time any of the artists below have been, and likely will be, mentioned around these parts (other than this apparently). Not only did frontman and founder…

Pentagram frontman Bobby Liebling has received much deserved attention for his comeback from a harrowing addiction and the revival of his musical career, not to mention late in life fatherhood. A few of his former bandmates might not have dealt with the same demons but they’ve had their share of tough times seeing their musical…

“I think ‘Doom-Jazz’ means playing heavy music, but not robotically,” said bassist Alexi Papadopoulos to Decibel when we were all much younger. “We like to give ourselves the elbow room for self expression. We are very scientific about our modes and time signatures and cues, but that’s what makes it fun.” That’s exactly the type…

We’re of the opinion that there can never be too much metal in the world. Thus, we greet the news of a new label, Mutants of the Monster—started by C.T. from Rwake and David Hall from Handshake, Inc.—with great expectations. And the best way we here at Decibel can to celebrate the debut of this…

We’re just about two weeks out from a new Malignancy record (!), and the Yonkers, New York tech-death grinders have graciously provided Decibel with an uber-sick opening salvo entitled, “Global Systemic Collapse” — which actually might be one of the more cheerily optimistic tracks off Eugenics. Here’s what the band has to say about the…

How do you separate the debut and Ariettes Oubliées… as musical entities?Fursy Teyssier: I’d say that Ariettes Oubliées… is a much more dense and solid album than Septembre… as the concept of Les Discrets became more precise in my head, so I knew exactly which atmospheres I wanted to create and what the album needed…

November 16th, 1981. Utter that date to any KISS fan and you’re going to get punched or hugged. Who knows, you may get nothing because maybe said KISS fan never did his homework. Either way, it doesn’t really matter because this is Justify Your Shitty Taste, and I’m talking Music from “The Elder” by KISS.

Bands like Gojira and Godflesh might be major brand names ‘round these parts, but mention them to your average Metallica-loving broseph and you’re likely to get a squinty-eyed, the-fuck-you-say? half-nod. But Decibel just won’t quit. We dig deeper, danker, darker and dirtier (though rarely fitter or happier) to turn up a few otherwise overlooked gems….

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…

As detailed in our November issue, we’ve had to wait a good while between Witchcraft albums. When news of the band’s new record finally hit this May, the press release also nonchalantly dropped a couple of bombshells about the group’s lineup. Despite the changes, however, two pillars continue to be frontman/founder Magnus Pelander and bassist…

Only a short introduction is needed here. This gentleman played on Hall Of Fame certified None So Vile, not to mention the inimitiable Blasphemy Made Flesh. He’s back in Cryptopsy and a big reason their eponymous new album rules. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re proud to welcome Jon Levasseur to the shredder’s studio this week. Hey…

It’s isn’t often the “extremely extreme” or the “new noise” transitions from death, black, doom, or whatever to punk rock, so on September 19th, 2012 the Deciblog puts on a pair of 20-year old Doc Martens, trades our jean jacket with the Kreator backpatch for a leather one with studs and self-painted logos, and defies…

Fucked Up, Rifflandia Festival, September 14, Victoria, BCRifflandia has one of the coolest names for a music festival. It seemed in past years when it was smaller that it was more about the “riff” than it is in its current iteration, where hip-hop, Americana, indie rock and, well, Fucked Up intermingle. For instance, we preceded…

When through the magic of Facebook we recently learned that a twenty-five year-old aspiring solar panel technician and diehard thrash metal maniac from Calexico, California had tattooed the epic artwork from the poster of the inaugural Decibel tour onto his right forearm, it was pretty much inevitable we’d reach out. Turns out Papu Martinez is…

“Epic’s in my nature,” says Mark “the Shark” Shelton. “That’s all there is to it. It’s all about the telling of a good story.” He’s talking about his writing style and ethos for Manilla Road and new side-project with Manilla Road bassist Ernie Cunningham Hellwell, but such a declaration applies equally to Shelton’s expansive conversation…

According to Russian linguistic experts, appending the suffix “ka” to the end of a word is to mean it’s little or so small it’s cute.

Bands like Gojira and Godflesh might be major brand names ‘round these parts, but mention them to your average Metallica-loving broseph and you’re likely to get a squinty-eyed, the-fuck-you-say? half-nod. But Decibel just won’t quit. We dig deeper, danker, darker and dirtier (though rarely fitter or happier) to turn up a few otherwise overlooked gems….

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…