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** Our February 2015 (HERE) issue features a fantastic expose on the upcoming releases of 2015. Here’s five crucial releases by killer bands that weren’t part of our list. 5. Hate – Crusade:Zero Hate are viewed as underlings to the kingdom Vader built, but over recent years the Warsaw-based trio have come into their own….

We’re a little over a week out from the release of the new Visigoth record, The Revenant King, but we’ve got the exclusive premiere of the epic closer for you today…Enjoy! Check out another album cut over at…NPR.

Happy New Year, you pecking geeks. There’s not much going on at the end of the year, and not much going on in the beginning of the year either. At least we’re out of the doldrums of the reissue cycle, although there have been some that are cool. Hailing from Portland, OR, LORD DYING release…

**Matt Olivo is the founding guitarist of extreme metal trailblazers Repulsion, whose Horrified LP ranks as Decibel’s #1 grindcore album of all time. Because we know that every reader ever plays guitar, we are bringing his print column to the Deciblog. In issue #121 Matt gave his feedback on Dunable custom guitars made by Sacha…

When the Devin Townsend Project played their string of dates with Animals As Leaders a month ago, it was clear the show was not the Hevy Devy indulge-fest that the band’s past headlining shows have been.  Conspicuously absent was the pre-show Ziltoid Radio craziness that have accompanied Townsend’s stage show for a few years.  Townsend worked hard…

R.I.P. Taylor Negron The Resurrection of Andrew Wood Growing up, I was a huge Andrew Wood fan. He was the singer of Mother Love Bone, which, all things considered, is the band that wrote the book on most of what came out of Seattle in the ’90s. Even though he grew up in Seattle, Wood was…

Liv Jagrell is at home in Stockholm when we call her on the Internet phone. Sister Sin’s athletic frontwoman has been promoting the shit out of her band’s latest album, Black Lotus, for weeks now. But she’s agreed to speak exclusively with Decibel about another type of public relations: her upcoming pictorial in Penthouse magazine….

I don’t know much about Calgary’s Arbitrator outside of the fact that they refer to themselves (or at least have been referred to) as “industrial death metal” and have existed in various line-up permutations over the course of four years of existence. They’ve existed as everything from full-on quartet to duo status to one-man on…

Yesterday was a big day for music nerds, especially critics. Even though we’re already two weeks into 2015, end of the year fever never really subsides until the Village Voice’s annual Pazz + Jop poll hits. Ever wanted to know what some of your favorite Decibel scribes enjoyed most during the year? Well, now you…

Let’s clear away any confusion at the outset: Mark SaFranko is not someone’s father who has decided to moonlight in a metal band or one of the few remaining music talent scouts. SaFranko is an American author based in New Jersey who, for more than three decades, has lived a writer’s life and all it…

You know how we at Decibel go all batshit for just about everything Baltimore label A389 releases?  The name Noisem mean anything to you?  Full of Hell?  Ilsa?  Yeah. Last year, we got our lazy asses out for the label’s 10th anniversary bash, including three days and multiple venues of high-quality mash-ups of death metal, doom,…

Chris Dodge and drummer-extraordinaire Dave Witte take on the Great American Beer Fest.

Every once in a while a young metal band will come along with a sound, a look, and an attitude that will just make any fan over the age of 35 beam. Despite boasting a band name that makes you think they’re a Steel Panther knock-off, German quintet Alpha Tiger has steadily become a very…

2014 was a year of major tumult for the music biz. CD and download sales took a beating as streaming continued to skyrocket; at the same time, streaming services took a beating from many quarters of the industry, and not a single one of them has proven profitable. U2 apologized for the biggest album release in history, and…

In the mood for a serious blastbeating? Sarpanitum have some serious black and death metal for your blasphemous enjoyment. Taking aim at the joys of religious warfare, this Birmingham-based trio brings long song titles and brutality to their death metal game. You can enjoy the beatdown below. ***Blessed Be My Brothers hits on February 17…

As Ottawa’s trad metal-tinged punk rock underground-superstars-in-the-making ZEX continue to build an increasingly strong head of fist-pumping, sneering, anthemic steam with the upcoming Magic Bullet re-release of the band’s barnburner debut Fight For Yourself, it is Decibel‘s pleasure to bring you the exclusive premiere of the uncensored “Wanderlust” video. Photo credit here. (I think!) Tour…

Any astute follower of metal in the past five years has likely noticed a huge uptick in the number of bands with a proto-70s sound and occult themes: The Devil’s Blood, Sabbath Assembly, Blood Ceremony and The Oath. A few of these bands have been on Decibel’s cover: In Solitude and Ghost B.C. (twice). While…

5. BaneOriginally from Serbia but now located in Canada, death/black metallers Bane (possible connection to album title Storm of the Light’s Bane, but none to the Massachusetts-based hardcore band of the same name) take only the fastest, brutalist, sickest moments in Dissection’s oeuvre for the The Acausal Fire album. Actually, that’s not true, Bane are…

Rage Against the Machine, Arizona Concert Watch, 2015 New Millennium Homes Our first game of the weekend takes place in the House of Pain of Football (hold the Everlast), Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. New England is the serious favorite to win it all. No one is taking Batlimore seriously this year except the cast of…

“We have unleashed our new video upon humanity,” says Incantation frontman/death metal legend John McEntee. “Brought to you by the tireless efforts of Black Arts Media and filmed at the Vermillion Haunted School House in Ohio. Many thanks for allowing us the use of your establishment. For it’s notable aggression and speed, amidst the albums…

Last month, Devin Townsend and his madcap Project went out on tour with Animals As Leaders and Monuments.  Decibel made sure to catch the show when it came to Baltimore, and we were not disappointed.  Long-lived set favorites like “Bad Devil” and “Regulator” stormed over the crowd, while much of the rest of the evening…

“Mexican-American death/grind bands, like to answer telephones and say hello to Decibel hacks on the other end…” It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Mexico’s Rottenness. Breaking up for a short spell during 2012 didn’t help their cause, but the band is back with a new line-up and album in the wings. Gone are…

Polish black-death stalwarts Hate are set to drop their latest album, Crusade: Zero, on a very suspecting public on February 10th, and today they show off their video for the song “Valley of Darkness” here at the Deciblog.  Religious iconography will burn.  Fire (and salvation) will be breathed.  Corpses will be painted.  Beats will blast.  Lenses…

Christmas Day 2014 brought Rosetta fans–and really to anyone who likes a good story–a special gift in the form of Rosetta: Audio/Visual. The 65 minute documentary not only delves into the Philadelphia quartet’s history, but happens to capture the group at its most critical juncture. At its heart, the doc is just a story about…

**Matt Olivo is the founding guitarist of extreme metal trailblazers Repulsion, whose Horrified LP ranks as Decibel’s #1 grindcore album of all time. Because we know that every reader ever plays guitar, we are bringing his print column to the Deciblog. In issue #124 Matt gave his feedback on the Peavey ReVavlver 4, which “promises…

Well this is a new one, and a great one at that. In this Tumblr era of clever and creative reinterpretations of metal album covers, from animated to absurdly funny, Rafael Melandi has come along and trounced them all with a new series of illustrations that take classic metal album art and re-imagine them through…

One of yours truly’s favorite musical discoveries of 2013, enigmatic Finland doom collective Mansion made an immediate impression on the debut EP We Shall Live, and turned in a stunning live performance at the Roadburn Festival last April. The band had been working on new material throughout 2014, and eight months after the seven-inch release…

Apparently a council of wolves only consists of three beasts (which is maybe why they aren’t considered a pack). This particular trio of wolves have instruments, and they seem really into the Melvins and Kyuss. That’s the best kind of lupine! Preview the first track from their upcoming self-titled album below. Don’t worry, you won’t…

If you thought the fourth annual Decibel Magazine Tour lineup was already unbearably intense, you may not be able to cope with this news. Joining the likes of living legends At the Gates and Converge and death/doom supergroup Vallenfyre are none other than our 2014 Album of the Year honorees, Pallbearer! The Little Rock quartet expanded the…

If any album boasting song titles like “Genital Tumor,” “Alcoholic Mosh,” and “Obscene Symphony” can be reasonably compared to a precious stone then, sure, Brazilian proto-blackened death metallers Sextrash’s raw, deliciously-nutty-meets-brutal-as-fuck 1990 full-length debut Sexual Carnage is one helluva singular hidden heavy metal gem. Put another way, when the band’s label calls the record —…