Interviews

Before Atonement Fever took hold, we received this, a re-recording of Immolation‘s first song ever, “Immolation,” in Issue #146 (December 2016, Phil Anselmo cover).  The song was special for the band back when it was first recorded, and its new rendition is significant for its own reasons…  See the included interview for details.

For the better part of the ’90s, Enslaved‘s debut album, Vikingligr Veldi, was considered (along with Frost, of course) a quintessential piece in any collection worth its weight in plastic and cardboard. Available only on CD (first without a barcode, then with) on Deathlike Silence Productions (then on Voices of Wonder), the pivotal non-black metal full-length transported listeners to fjords, snow-capped mountains, dense Nordic forests, and the worship of mythical gods.

Swedish doom trio Laser Dracul are the children of the night, and the music they make is LOUD.

A look into the world of custom-made amps and pedals from CT’s finest.

Zao dish the dirt on the making of their limited edition Decibel Flexi Series track. 

Hailing from Kentucky, Pissed On’s forthcoming The Hanged Man EP promises to be one of grindcore’s most jam-packed releases in 2017.

For Saxon’s Wheels of Steel [February 2017, #148] interviews, we were able to gather all five original members. As required by Hall of Fame edict #1. The current and former members of Britain’s heavy metal legends couldn’t have been nicer and more talkative. Graham, Steve, Biff, Pete, and Paul spun all kinds of fun and interesting stories about the events leading up to landmark album Wheels of Steel and what happened shortly thereafter.

In our Hall of Fame piece on 1992’s Neurosis‘ Souls at Zero, though, we had the unique opportunity to speak with former members Simon McIlroy (keyboards, samples, etc.) and Adam Kendall (film loops, color wheels, other visual elements), two super friendly guys with a lot to contribute.  Today, we offer the outtakes from our conversation with Mr. McIlroy. 

Meta is Car Bomb‘s second self-released record, and if you heard 2012’s cryptically titled w^w^^w^w then you probably know where this one is headed.  Spend a little time in Car Bomb’s headspace and you can be sure to either evolve or disintegrate into your very own pool of primordial goo.  And yes, both Joe Duplantier (of Gojira) and Frank Mullen (of Suffocation) lent their talents to parts of Meta.

There are few bands as intense as Nails. From a resource perspective–the group’s a trio–Nails make an incredible amount of noise and for all their aggressiveness they’re instantly relatable, like few bands in Nails’ proverbial sphere (and outside their sphere).

Class is in session, and old school death revivalists Sentient Horror are on the syllabus.

Here’s a near-full recounting of our conversation with drummer Tomas Haake (for the juiciest quotes, you’ll need to grab a copy of the magazine itself).  Here, he tells Decibel a bit more about the writing and recording process and describes some of the more technical aspects of touring and continuing to be relevant in 2016.

Decibel synch up with Dark Tranquillity vocalist Mike Stanne and guitarist Nik Sundin to discuss Atoma and the events that allowed it to be the great album it is.

The Athenian quartet Ravencult‘s third LP cleans and polishes its blackened death thrash without blunting its serrated decimation. Axe demon Stefanos Fakatselis fielded our email.

Recently the band has embarked on a Transylvanian trilogy, meant to explore the various elements of deep traditional life in the band’s homeland.  We asked main man Negru a few questions about the current state of the band and their direction.

Grave Digger aren’t the most celebrated of groups at Decibel. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know or understand the importance the Germans, who formed 36 years ago, played on (European) heavy metal. From debut, Heavy Metal Breakdown, to new album, Healed by Metal, Grave Digger embodies the spirit of the genre.

White Empress revamp after bout with boredom with extreme metal/horror short”Revenant.”

We had the opportunity to speak with Tucker before the release of The Grey Eminence.  Catch most of the conversation here, and if you haven’t done so yet, put your ears on the new record now.  Discover what is hidden.

Dead Kennedys guitarist East Bay Ray sat down for a rare interview with Decibel and discussed Trump, his inimitable guitar style and how the Internet breeds fascism. 

Devin Townsend needs no introduction. That being said, for sake of formality, we’re introducing Canada’s most inspiring musician as Canada’s most inspiring (and slightly off-kilter) musician. Townsend should’ve never created his newest album, Transcendence. He was already on to something else–namely Casualties of Cool–but then something ordered his brain in Townsend’s general disorder.

United by a desire for death metal.

Not only does Calgary’s Krepitus straddle the divide between death and thrash metal, but the quartet does so with an every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining thematic uniqueness. Sure, the world is fucked and we’re all fucked, but there’s no point in revelling in being bent over and reamed by the forces that be

An in-depth conversation with Québécois doom-death outfit Norilsk.

Deathblow Productions director/writer Ryan Oliver revels in B-movie bliss in Child Bite’s “Vermin Mentality” music video.

Gigfly.ca is a recently launched website designed to assist working members of the music community develop and maintain a more hands-on approach to business outside the rehearsal room.

“Longmont Potion Castle is a ritual shared by many a band out on the road, in shitty vans nationwide trying not to succumb to the sights and smells of America and choosing to end it all by going into oncoming traffic. It’s as if he’s a shadow member of some of these bands without ever even meeting them.”

Happy Halloween! Get in the spirit with an exhaustive Decibel oral history of The Electric Hellfire Club, the innovative 90s band that blended metal, industrial music, and Satanism. Burn, baby, burn!  

For the past four years, Tasmanian black metallers Ruins have been working on their fifth album, Undercurrent. Without the pressures of most bands–writing, recording, touring–frontman Alex Pope, drummer Dave Haley, guitarist Joe Haley, and bassist Kai Summers were afforded time and space to realize their latest black metal vision.

Matt Harvey joins forces with acclaimed artist Kelly Williams (The Cabinet, Eerie) for the deliciously demented banshee-centered graphic novel romp, Howl — and the velocity and transgressive brutality the Exhumed/Gruesome vocalist/guitarist delivers in this new realm is totally what horror-obsessed metalheads would hope for from the guy behind Gore Metal, Slaughtercult, and Necrocracy. 

Harvey was kind enough to give Decibel the inside scoop on the comic — the second volume in Williams’ multi-author series The Dark — out on Halloween via Alterna Comics.  

In which I discuss heavy metal, Sword & Sorcery fic, Manilla Road, the modern hardcore scene, and much more with Jason Tarpey, vocalist of Texas’ toughest epic heavy metal band, Eternal Champion.