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We already had occasion to cream our jeans a couple weeks back in anticipation of this awesome Toxic Holocaust/Municipal Waste split 12″ on Tankcrimes Records, but now we have the pleasure of tantalizing you with two(!) tracks from said four-song EP. This nut-busting coupling of two of our favorite thrashers comes in a number of…

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife is one thing, but a sexy little slip of tightly-grooved, undulating vinyl polymer? Altogether another. Or so we’ve surmised from the announcement that Divine Metal Distro — “the premier online source for Christian Hard Rock & Heavy Metal” — and Ultimatum — proud instigators of several crown of…

A meeting of minds between Opeth’s big chief Mikael Åkerfeldt and Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson, Storm Corrosion is a down-beat, atmospheric heavyweight that is the sort of Weird Science fantasy wet dream prog-heads have been jonesing for ever since Wilson took over production duties on Opeth’s groundbreaking Blackwater Park. Their eponymous debut eschews any of…

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….

We’re all about A389 Recordings ’round these parts. If it’s not the consistently awesome cover draping each and every release and their annual birthday bash show/extravaganza every January, it’s that they’re fellow proponents of the flexi-disc and that alongside every world-hatin’, religion-baitin’, humanity-despisin’ slice of holy terror hardcore they release, they go ahead and show…

Former Decibel cover stars Shadows Fall just released their seventh album, Fire From The Sky, on Tuesday. As Kirk Miller pointed out in giving the record his seal of approval in our June issue, the ten tracks have a little something for everyone, leading us to wonder what tunes these Massholes were blasting throughout the…

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…

Last month, Savannah psychedelic metal crew Kylesa put in some serious road miles in support of GWAR. Prosthetics, artificial blood and semen are not everyday items on the underground metal touring circuit, so we got Kylesa guitarist/vocalist Laura Pleasants to take some pics and notes. This is what went down. 04-13 San Antonio, TX |…

Back in April an itsy bitsy salmonella swaddled spicy tuna roll tried it’s damnedest to throw a monkey wrench into self-described “party death metal rockers” Attila’s latest North American tour — prophetically dubbed “The Sick Tour” — but stricken frontman Chris Fronzak refused to sis out, instead performing through what he describes as “gut wrenching…

It’s competition time, folks, and courtesy of the good folk at Metal Blade we have a selection of swag to give away, on the condition that you A) answer the question correctly and B) are lucky enough to be drawn out of our moth-balled and dandruff-flecked Six Feet Under beanie. Now, we were going to…

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…

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 jump off a cliff into…

UK-based death-heads, consider this your rallying cry for what will not only be one of the summer’s most gnarly nights of death metal, but a crucial fundraiser for former Decapitated vocalist, Adrian “Covan” Kowanek. Decapitated, Hades Lab, Dead Beyond Buried and Ted Maul tear up the Camden Underworld’s dilapidated bowel on 29 June 2012. Doors…

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,…

In honor of Mother’s Day, Decibel is exclusively premiering the song “Mother” from Lita Ford’s new album Living Like a Runaway

Bathory’s Under the Sign of the Black Mark turns a whopping 25 years old today. To honor the landmark, Swedish Death Metal author Daniel Ekeroth parallels his adolescence with the band’s inimitable path. TO GROW UP WITH BATHORY by Daniel Ekeroth As a young teen, I could probably have been caught up in any kind…

Pick Your Side is a new hardcore band based out of Hamilton, Ontario (and Buffalo, New York) which features ex-and-present members of Haymaker, Fuck the Facts, Psyopus amongst others. They’ve just released their full-length debut, Let Me Show You How Democracy Works courtesy of A389 Records and played a hometown show last weekend and as…

Last week, The Space—a “freely-available digital arts service developed by Arts Council England in partnership with the BBC”—unveiled the first part of its massive John Peel project. Peel, who passed away in 2004 and whom you may know from his legendary Peel Sessions, early support of Napalm Death or writing the introduction to a book…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUi1yf97paw The biggest metal band in Israel, Orphaned Land, is being highlighted as a viable bridge between headbanging Muslims and Jews as their apolitical, peace-promoting power metal seems to only have extreme views when it comes to wearing scarves on stage. While this kind of music is definitely not the thing that blows my gentile…

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…

Unlike some of our previous “premieres,” this one is timed just perfectly. Chicago trad-metal quartet, Bible of the Devil, will be releasing their sixth full-length album, For The Love Of Thugs And Fools, today, May, 8 via Cruz Del Sur Music. It’s their first full-length, since 2008’s Freedom Metal and it’s just the kind of…

Calling the split “amicable but lamentable to say the least,” Averse Sefira have sadly called it a day. The long-running Austin black metallers are survived by a stellar discography — see Advent Parallax or Tetragrammatical Astygmata for the incontrovertible evidence — as well as a very entertaining, sporadically updated blog that explored the band’s occult…

You’re going to have to wait until June 5 before you can order Watain’s 13th anniversary DVD Opus Diaboli in the States. It has all the blood and fire of the Watain live show, but with none of the controversial aroma associated with having a stage show that’s been ceremonially doused with rancid animal blood….

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…

Wow, there’s not a lot that’s good this week, but there CERTAINLY is enough for me to spray my birdshit all over.

Watain’s arrival in the US might be bad news to priggish guardians of Christian morality but it’s good news for butchers who have ordinarily found animal’s blood harder to shift than the flesh. Watain require a lot of blood, and it doesn’t have to be fresh. It’s better if it isn’t. We can only presume…

In case you haven’t noticed, a third of 2012 has somehow already come and gone. Not only has this year already seen a bunch of great records hit shelves, but there are plenty more on the horizon. And what better way to kick off the remaining 66.7% of 2k12 than with Tuesday’s release of the…

All it takes is a minute and sixteen seconds for Toronto’s Greys to get your attention by effortlessly sliding a punk rock shiv into your nether regions and then clicking off another song. The Canadian trio releases EP Easy Listening on May 22, and “Post-American” is the lead-off track, a dissonant, malformed anthem that finds…

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…