Interviews

We threw them a frickin’ bone a couple months ago, and now they’ve taken that bone and jumped eyebrows deep into the fray. Iowa’s Green Death is set to release a CD/DVD combo with the kicker being that they’re doing it all by their lonesome. Hell, at the time of the following interview with vocalist…

Last week, we brought you the first part of SubRosa’s playlist covering all things Salt Lake City. I could go on and on about how great their latest record, More Constant Than The Gods, is (one of the “exceptional candidates for the top spot” in this year’s top 40 according to the powers that be),…

Having been to hundreds of shows in my life, it’s pretty rare at this point that I get blown away by a totally unknown band – but that was exactly the case with Yidhra when I saw them play the Complex in Glendale, CA a few months back. On a great sound system, with Haxan:…

Germany’s Obelyskkh may have one of the oddest monikers in extreme music today, but just as their choice of band name tests all parts of your pronunciation apparatus, so does their music cover all bases in the world of psychedelic, stoner, sludge, doom rock and metal on new record, Hymn to Pan out on Exile…

I live a mere 2,200 miles due east of Salt Lake City, so needless to say I’m not too familiar with many musical happenings there (other than Gaza, RIP). Fortunately, Rebecca Vernon and the rest of SubRosa were more than happy to educate me about their hometown via the quintet’s SLC music playlist. I’ll let…

If you haven’t heard Earthless’s From the Ages yet, you are missing out on the best instrumental psych jam album of the year. These guys don’t NEED a vocalist; any singer would just get left behind, abandoned to float off in space forever. The members of the band were kind enough to give a track by…

We’re all listed out after totalling up the scores for the albums of the year and putting together our Top 100 Black Metal Albums of All Time special issue. But author Dayal Patterson, a man in league with unfathomable evil, kindly dipped into his wellspring of arcane ancient darkness to muster the energy to give…

** Hard to believe Jungle Rot’s been kicking death metal’s can since 1994. With seven full-lengths in their body bag—the most recent of which is this year’s Terror Regime—the Cheese Staters have written the book on Midwest death. We sit down with founding member Dave Matrise via the wonders of technology (that’s the Internet for…

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)…

** Katatonia recently ventured through the U.S. with Cult of Luna, Intronaut, and Anciients. I sat down with old buds Jonas Renkse & Anders Nyström to have a laugh, chat, talk about old shit (not transcribed), and highlight “experiment” album, Dethroned and Uncrowned. Read on Katacolyts! What was the motivation behind Dethroned and Uncrowned? Anders…

Given that fall is about halfway over and the weather, at least on the East Coast, is getting frigid, we thought it was a good time to present our second ever season-specific playlist. While Chris Alfieri’s “Song to Burn Leaves To: A New Englander’s Fall Music Companion” compliments Torche’s “Summer Fun” playlist quite nicely, Vattnet…

Lycus’ debut was one of the best doom albums to leak long-form misery over 2013. A disconsolate epic, Tempest is an album that was thrown up around the desolate heart of a funeral doom sound so dense that it has its own bleak gravity hauling influences from black and death metal, drone and krautrock into…

Oh, the power of an ‘e’. In 2011, a not-really-black metal band was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and called itself Noir.

** Today, November 1st, 2013, is an auspicious day. Decibel’s 100th Issue Show: The Movie DVD is out today, exclusively through Decibel’s kick-ass webstore (click HERE). To celebrate we’ve nailed down Handshake, Inc. proprietor David Hall. Who is Mr. Hall? He and crew were responsible for lensing the entire 100th Issue Show. So, let’s get…

The 8th FunFunFunFest kicks off next week in Austin and though it may not strictly be an extreme music fest along the lines of the usual multi-day extravaganzas featured in this space, it is one of the largest fests I’ll have the opportunity to write about and still offers a shit-ton of metal and hardcore…

Dustin Boltjes has a lot of reasons to be pumped right now. His band Skeletonwitch released its fifth (and possibly best) full-length, Serpents Unleashed, on Tuesday (probably the most important item on this list). The Ohio quintet just kicked off a string of tourdates alongside The Black Dahlia Murder. Oh, and he and bandmate Chance…

** We make it no secret we’re fans of My Dying Bride. From their Hall of Fame induction to innumerable citations in pages and blogs, My Dying Bride has appealed to our inner and outer miser for an age or two. Well, this session was originally sent off to My Dying Bride in June, hoping…

We always enjoy finding cool new sound-sculptors out in the cyber world, especially when we can use this blog forum to turn other people on to some under-the-radar artists.  We love it even more when those artists’ musical ventures make progress beyond their own self-run webpages. Earlier this year, we featured Ukrainian drone-doomers Nonsun as…

Tokyo’s Melt-Banana has been airing their newfound status as a two-piece for the first time in North America for about a week now with about three more weeks to go. It’s been a tumultuous term for vocalist Yasuko “Yako” Onuki and guitarist Ichiro Agata that’s seen them embrace life as a duo (and almost break…

Ihsahn–a man who needs no introduction around these parts–has certainly not been bereft of musical ideas lately. He dropped his fifth solo album (coming a mere 16 months after its predecessor) earlier this week and is already talking about its follow-up. To celebrate the release of Das Seelenbrechen, which Adrien Begrand described in our latest…

Even though they are just off the red-eye after spending 30 days playing 30 shows across Europe with Black Tusk, there is plenty juice left in Fight Amp. New Jersey/Philly’s undisputed heavyweight noise rock/HC/punk/sludge/OTHER champs have one show left on the calendar, but Mike McGinnis just wants to keep on going. The Deciblog caught up…

** Decibel caught up with Anathema guitarist/vocalist Vincent Cavanagh on the group’s first headline tour of North America. Since we’ve been into the Liverpudlians before they had a full-length [many thanks to tape-traders and Witchhunt Records], we jumped at the chance to talk to Cavanagh, who was clearly having moments of his life while on…

Too many approval-stampers are content to shovel anything slow, synth-shrouded and packed with molasses-dark death growls into a funeral doom-shaped hole in the earth.  One self-important windbag (the one in charge of this Deciblog post) would suggest that “funeral doom” must actually beckon from the grave and whisper oh-so-reasonably that bathing with sharp objects is…

Dear Brent Burton or Scott Seward (I honestly can’t remember which one of you it was): Thank you for introducing me to Earthless all those years ago, back when our magazine still had its original logo. Not only have I been able to spend the intervening time enjoying the trio’s first two full-lengths and various…

Stick around long enough and you might get the things you always wanted. For some kids that’s a medical degree or a wedding fit for Disney. What I wanted was to hang out with Tesco Vee, the imposing frontman of The Meatmen who made me laugh on a daily basis with juvenile sexual ripostes on…

Back at the end of July, the Canadian government quietly enacted a piece of legislative shit that, essentially overnight, made it exponentially (and in most cases, prohibitively) more expensive for bands to tour our country. Basically, where once a band consisting of anywhere between three and fourteen members would have had to collectively pay $450…

It’s been more than 22 years since the UK hardcore act Satanic Malfunctions has released any music (Disgrace To Humanity, 1990). Decibel is proud to present a full album stream of the comeback Them, released by Selfmadegod and available for purchase here. After the stream check a quick q and a with drummer Ade. It’s…

** The following five questions with the legendary King Diamond were part of a series of interviews I set up for the XXX: Three Decades of Roadrunner Records [click HERE for more info] boxset, for which I wrote the liner notes. Former Roadrunner Records Senior VP A&R Monte Conner facilitated the initial exchange with King…

** Back in August, Decibel premiered new Twilight of the Gods tune, “Destiny Forged in Blood.” Click HERE to listen. Since then, we’ve imbibed heavily on debut album, Fire on the Mountain, which is the product of guys and ex-guys from Dimmu Borgir, Einherjer, Thyrfing, and, of course, Primordial saluting age-old heavy metal with a…