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You know, it wasn’t just me that went apeshit over Septicflesh’s previous album, Communion. Yes, I thought Sumerian Demons sucked, so going from suck-a-puck (it’s hockey playoff time) to rule-the-school (it’s exam time) is quite an accomplishment for the longstanding Greeks. Decibel contributor, The Mountain Goats mainman, and Stephen Colbert-approved John Darnielle also felt the…

The retro metal thing hasn’t played itself out quite yet. Sweden’s In Solitude (interviewed in the upcoming dB #80) are, perhaps like countrymen Ghost and Enforcer, on the forefront of the throwback-yet-modern sound emanating from the greatest metal country on planet Earth (my determination; feel free to dispute). Sure, the name In Solitude sounds like…

OK, I’ve never owned a vest. Not sure why. When I was young, I remember older kids around the neighborhood (we’re talking Flint, Michigan here) would sport denim vests proudly over the top of name-a-‘80s-metal-band-or-cola-here t-shirt. It was their uniform. Even in mid-August, they’d walk around in their denim vests (hair picks in the back…

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 for students of extreme metal that you may not have ever heard of.  Stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  This…

Recently retired closer Trevor Hoffman has a clear shot at the Baseball Hall of Fame, courtesy of his gaudy career saves total. He also had one of the greatest intro songs ever as a member of the San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers bullpens—AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells.” As Andrew Bonazelli’s Q&A with former Minnesota Twins/current Padres…

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, every Wednesday morning, a Decibel staffer or special guest will take to the Deciblog to bitch and moan at length as to why everybody’s full of shit and said dud is, in fact, The…

No secret to anyone familiar with Decibel, its fearless editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian, or the magazine’s highly-trained metal taskforce that “seminal” (their words not ours) Florida outfit Morbid Angel are crucial the existence of proficiently extreme, Lovecraft-informed death metal. Countless—as a quick test of our quantitative use of “countless”, ask your fav band if Morbid Angel…

5. DawnSlaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy) (1998) A barely known album. This time not via No Fashion Records. Necropolis Records from the U.S. took care to bring this release to life. Unfortunately, no tour, proper promotion or distribution supported this third album of the band, so maybe a few diehard fans will remember the group….

I’m not going to add much to this incredible, truly incredible, Vice article on Botswana’s “Metalhead Cowboys” but I will implore you to read it and check out the wealth of photos. I mean this… this is some fucking shit. A country you couldn’t find on a map for a thousand dollars has an oddly…

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, every Wednesday morning, a Decibel staffer or special guest will take to the Deciblog to bitch and moan at length as to why everybody’s full of shit and said dud is, in fact, The…

Greek grape-leaf dolmas rule. So too does Greek black metal. Stretching as far back as Rotting Christ, Varathron, Necromantia, Zemial, Thou Art Lord, Greece’s storied black metal history rivals the Norwegians. In fact, the Norwegians were heavily informed by the extreme sounds of the Mediterranean. Not to dwell on the past too much, we’ve brought…

Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm is your fifth record. How do you feel it compares, artistically speaking, to its predecessors?Dagon: Artistically and technically, it’s the best album Inquisition has done in every sense. The performance is tight, the production is clear and very organic, the riffs are rich and more on the attack…

On March 1st, we streamed new Vicious Rumors tune, “Razorback Blade”. It ruled. Yeah, we’re sure you said, “Vicious Who”? They’re ’80s. Not as in nu-’80s, but ’80s. They were there when riffs were fast (as a shark, possibly?), aggression was the primary emotion, and white Reebok hightops (the ones with the big, floppy tongues)…

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 for students of extreme metal that you may not have ever heard of.  Stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  This…

Now no one is disagreeing that Despise You being back together is fucking awesome. And the chance to hear their first new tracks of drive-by power violence in almost ten years is going to be fucking awesome. But honestly, the real treat for me is the Agoraphobic Nosebleed side. Yes, the And On And On……

UFN 24: Quick Thoughts • Antonio Rogerio Nogueira: “I will let Phil choose how he wants to lose this fight.” That has got to be the best quote I’ve heard all year! • There’s only one Mr. Wonderful, and his name is Paul Orndorff (a pro wrestler who is most famous for feuding with Hulk…

Labias and genitals, welcome back to the Deciblog’s Study Hall of Fame wherein albums from our hallowed hall are viewed through the eyes and ears of my eight-year-old son. It’s been a long time since young Sam opined the belief that Sepultura were singing in a made-up language called ‘fuckowackopeas’ and here he offers his…

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, every Wednesday morning—in this case, Thursday, and former invisible orange-man Cosmo Lee would like to offer you a personal apology for the delay—a Decibel staffer or special guest will take to the Deciblog to…

Brooklyn organ twisters Batillus will be releasing their debut album Furnace on Seventh Rule April 19th and there’s no doubt that this fearsome slab of noise-doom will be a favorite around my office (the closet I type in). As the band recently headed to SXSW, they created 55 silk-screened tour copies for ultimate ruling and…

Just because some bands grind, contorting and torturing their fingers and ligaments for the sake of a tune that has an average running time of 45 seconds, it doesn’t mean they enjoy doing anything else that fast. Actually Finnish grinders Rotten Sound might try and practice the extreme opposite when it comes to daily life….

What’s the difference between American Heritage (MySpace link) and American “Fucking” Heritage?Scott Shellhamer: One has more fucking than the other. Adamn Norden: Regular American Heritage will act like it wants to get to know you first. Your primary influences—if we’re using food ingredient methodology to determine most to least—are “masturbatory fantasies of middle-aged bureaucrats”. Can…

You know that always-entertaining column at the front of the magazine called Cry Now, Cry Later? The one written by that incredibly tall, incredibly handsome genius who also wrote this month’s Pentagram cover story?  Fuuuuck, that dude rules so hard it’s amazing that he can even walk down the street without being mobbed by the…

As an ex-Hoosier, it’s always nice to highlight bands who are thriving in Indiana. The colossal crew Gates of Slumber are one of those bands dedicated to old school metal that is only concerned with riffs the size of whale bones. Below is “Coven of Cain,” the first eruption from forthcoming album The Wretch, slated…

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, every Wednesday morning, a Decibel staffer or special guest will take to the Deciblog to bitch and moan at length as to why everybody’s full of shit and said dud is, in fact, The…

It’s no secret Decibel and Napalm Death aren’t just Facebook friends but bestest pals. We’re the beat to their blast, so to speak. Decibel editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian’s favorite band is, well, Napalm Death. The Brummies (that’d be folk from Birmingham, England) were well chronicled in Mudrian’s Choosing Death book, were cover stars for dB #53,…

Obliterating everyone in attendance at this year’s Scion Rock festival in Pomona, California, British black metallers Anaal Nathrakh appear poised for extreme metal dominance. Though the group’s history takes them back to 1998 (debut album, The Codex Necro, landed in 2001), it’s the recent output, namely 2009’s In the Constellation of the Black Widow, that’s…

Hello All! Dorian Rainwater and Thomas Romero of Noisear here. We have been asked to give a Top 5 feature by the amazing people at Decibel Magazine. We have chosen to give our main influences in the extreme metal/grindcore genre, which have had a huge impact on us and serve as a key element to…

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 for students of extreme metal that you may not have ever heard of.  Stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  Actually,…

Our first entry for this darkened covenant is The Moon Tonight Feels My Revenge by Matthew Simmons. It’s a fifty-page novella, short enough for even the busiest corpse-painter in the land, and intersperses schizophrenic tales of having fists for fingers and trips to Mars with the author’s imaginings of the lives of black metal musicians…

ZUFFA PURCHASES STRIKEFORCE: Drunken Hallucination or Impossible Reality? When I first read the news about this unexpected deal, I couldn’t believe my eyes! I was at an after party here in Göteborg (HammerFall had just had a listening session for our new album with journalists from all over Europe) and I was just checking the…