Interviews

Because every day another band records another song.  Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck.  Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm.  Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…

If you’ve been to shows around the NYC area–particularly at The Acheron or Saint Vitus Bar, both in Brooklyn–then chances are you’ve seen Frank Huang. More often than not, he’s armed with at least one video camera to capture that night’s show for everyone else’s viewing pleasure. After noticing him time after time at gigs,…

When the classic line-up of UK crossover heroes English Dogs reconvened for a raucous U.S. tour a few years back enthusiasm went straight through the squat roof. And yet a rumored new album, even the band’s most ardent fans would likely admit, seemed a much dicier prospect. After all, the 2011 jaunt focused on To…

Dan Greening — alias Lord Worm — is one of the few true mavericks in death metal. Worm is best known for his work with Cryptopsy; Decibel Hall Of Fame inductee None So Vile and potential inductee Blasphemy Made Flesh are genre classics. Worm’s work with Cryptopsy is inimitable; his lyrics are crazed poetry as…

Because every day another band records another song.  Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck.  Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm.  Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…

This almost didn’t happen. By ‘this,’ we mean the interview portion of our announcing the return-of-sorts of St. Louis’ Cross Examination to the world of playing crossover thrash while balancing tens of beers on their livers. The quintet, after about six years of silence, has a new 7″ out and available as of last month…

Despite teases here and there, it’s now been five long years since the last Irepress record (yes, I realize this is a Lazer/Wulf playlist–I’ll get there next sentence, I promise). Given that the group is one of my favorite acts around, it’s high praise that stumbling upon Lazer/Wulf has helped satiate my craving for new…

Since their debut When All Became None was released about four years ago critics have struggled to find a moniker that fits Coffinworm. Are they blackened crust? Doom punk? Blackened death? Blackened tilapia? After a while all of these phrases begin to sound a lot like the Applebee’s menu so we’ll settle with the trustworthy…

** Sólstafir have been roving the plains of Iceland for the better part of two decades. Though originally a black metal act, replete with corpsepaint, the Reykjavikians transformed into something else years later. We’re not entirely sure if Sólstafir are post-metal, post-rock, or post-themselves, but whatever genre of music they fall into, they’re entirely unique….

Because every day another band records another song.  Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck.  Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm.  Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…

In simplistic terms, I guess one would/could say USA Out of Vietnam is a space rock band. Actually, the Montreal outfit is a genre-defying entity that incorporates elements of everything from psychedelia, shoegaze and black metal to doom, noise rock and Angelo Badalamenti-sounding soundtrack stuff. The band has a new record out on New Damage…

Last week, we brought you the beginning of Evan Patterson’s “dark country and folk” playlist. In two-and-a-half years of doing these, it’s safe to say that his picks–most of which originated on 7″ singles–are some of the more obscure, yet fascinating, we’ve encountered. While Part 1 tackled tracks from 1956 to 1963 (don’t miss the…

Next Friday the 15th, the inaugural Don’t Call it a Fest slams into the Motor City with all the impact of a severely downgraded credit rating and an avalanche of housing foreclosures. Even during the best of times, Detroit has always had a negative air surrounding it; some of that civic black eye has been…

Given how well our last and only playlist from a Louisville native turned out courtesy of Coliseum’s Ryan Patterson, we had high hopes for one from his brother and fellow Derby City dweller Evan. While the former focused solely on Killing Joke and caused me to listen to “Total Invasion” on repeat for months, the…

Sometimes, the unhipness of a sound is a pretty good measure of a band’s dedication to their craft.  While some bands chase trends and recording perfection as if precise alignment will translate directly into merch sales and Facebook likes, other artists burrow their own tunnels, regardless of what they think will be hot this afternoon….

Because every day another band records another song.  Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck.  Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm.  Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…

New York-based experimental psychedelic stoner spacerockers White Hills has only been a band since ’round about 2005, yet they’ve already amassed the following discography: They’ve Got Blood Like We’ve Got Blood (Fuck Off And Di/Head Heritage, 2005) Koko (White Hills, 2006) Glitter Glamour Atrocity (White Hills, 2007) Abstractions and Mutations (White Hills, 2007/Thrill Jockey, 2009/Immune,…

Mutilation Rites’ last record, Empyrean, landed on our top 40 records of 2012. To these ears, however, the group’s new LP tops that effort and so we’ve been playing it on a near daily basis since it dropped last week (Daniel Lake also streamed the whole thing here earlier this month). Since the Brooklynites just…

** Hall of Famers Emperor are celebrating the 20th anniversary of black metal classic, In the Nightside Eclipse. As part of our journalistic duties, we couldn’t pass up a chance to talk to icon/good guy Ihsahn about two decades of black fucking metal and why this time Emperor are taking the stage with them to…

It’s been a good month for celebrating the noisier side of the extremely extreme.  All good things must end… though it’s hard to believe that we won’t be revisiting gritty, shadowy, unfettered sound in the future, if only here on the Deciblog. To round out the month of noise, we spoke to Virginia-based Christopher S….

In addition to holding the illustrious (or dubious) honour of being one of my personal favourite bands of all time, Italy’s Raw Power is undoubtedly one of the most enduring and consistent hardcore punk bands to emerge from the world of hardcore punk. They formed in 1981 (with roots going back to the late 70s),…

Misery Index is no stranger to these playlists. In fact, we were in the midst of winter 2013 when bassist/vocalist Jason Netherton regaled us with “bleak tunes that recall those snowbound blizzards from yesteryear.” This time around, guitarist Mark Kloeppel went in a totally different direction to get you in the know about “hard” jams….

Because Tombs frontman Mike Hill loves work and HATES sleep, he recently started his own company, Savage Gold Coffee, in an effort to completely eradicate the latter from everyone’s life. Their inaugural brew, Savage Gold Prime, is available for order here now. While presumably starin’ at the walls, Hill gave us the scoop. I’m guessing…

** Germany’s Dark Fortress have plied black metal’s murky, obsidian-colored waters for the better part of 20 years. In that time, they’ve crafted seven full-length, all of which have gone on to acclaim and recognition. Unlike most bands, Dark Fortress haven’t played it easy across their varied discography. They’ve experimented, tried new ways to mold…

A couple months ago, I introduced you to Winnipeg death metal outfit Psychotic Gardening here. In the search for additional and interesting content for this here spot on this here blog, I was altered to the fact that vocalist Chris “Gillishammer” Gillis’ dayjob was as a gravedigger! As soon as I heard that, I immediately…

For the past decade or so, Goatwhore has been one band that you can count on to put out quality release after quality release. The quartet’s latest LP is yet another um, merciless, entry in its oeuvre. So to celebrate both the recent release of Constricting Rage of the Merciless and the start of the…

To paraphrase the demon that once mauled Albert Brooks in his own car on the side of a darkened road back in ’83: Hey, d’ya you want to hear something really scary? Yeah? You sure? Alright, then, Fangoria Musick — the exquisitely eclectic, ceaselessly unsettling new digital download music label from the legendary flagship magazine…

My ears are ringing like mad. Last night at the Metro Gallery in Baltimore, I caught Mutilation Rites play a ripping set that could be called loud in the same understated way that a Boeing 747 landing on your face could be called loud.  Fuck.  Ing.  Loud.  The performance was enveloping, engulfing, overwhelming, and it…

** The original interview with Theologian’s Lee M. Bartow is featured in our stupendously awesome, but-not-so-metal “noise issue” (HERE). So moved by Bartow’s answers to our questions, we felt compelled to post the entire transcript while, as the saying goes, the iron is hot. Bartow’s not one to joy around and his music–self-admitted as “industrial…

Three years ago, the Portland, OR foursome known as Elitist floored us with a gritty, hateful debut full-length called Fear in a Handful of Dust.  To nix any confusion about whether or not they played sweet-cheeked djent (as another band named Elitist was doing), the band re-antichristened themselves Bastard Feast, and next week marks the release…