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I could have done this forever. This is maybe the fifth band photo I’ve reviewed, and looking back they are not getting any less dumb. But this is my final review because, honestly, most people dealing with band photos are damned from the beginning.

It’s taken UK apocalyptic funeral-black metallers Lychgate two years to follow-up lauded debut Lychgate. In the years between the Brits have delved into the darkest recesses of funeral doom and black metal’s psyche, employing church organs in full effect to turn what is traditionally a Christian instrument against itself. Furthermore, Lychgate have gotten stranger, more decadent. The progressive underpinnings of Lychgate recall vintage Genesis, but don’t let the reference sway you in any direction. This is evil, uncompromising and uncomfortable music, the likes of which normally emanate in strange waves from Norway. This time it’s from the bowels of historic London. To make matters worse (or better) Esoteric’s Greg Chandler is on vocals.

“When you grow up Middle East, war is not another fantasy movie – but a reality,” says Hammercult to Decibel. “A reality driven by greed, economical, and political agendas, powered by a religious leaders to blind the masses. It doesn’t matter in which country you live in – your government wants you to fear, obey, follow blindly and swallow their lies – so that they could collect the Spoils Of War while you remain blind, deaf and dumb. Fight it back! Let’s take back our spoils of war. Our rights! Our freedom! This is the only war worth fighting for!”

To celebrate/wallow in the misery of our exclusive, not-on-any-album My Dying Bride flexi track, as well as their new album Feel the Misery, we would like to revisit a Decibrity playlist from their despair-mongering vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe.

Though Jonathan Dennison is best known for churning out righteous riffs and leveling breakdowns with a series of highly influential hardcore bands — The Promise, Another Victim, Path of Resistance, Unholy — the songwriter has taken a sharp turn into the macabre with Cadabra Records, the idiosyncratic label he founded to “exhume the works of influential horror genre icons in a spoken word style.” 

Four demos from four new bands to satisfy your itch for something strange. 

Okay, so get this — I had already decided to review this photo, right there sitting in the queue, and then I see him — I see former Queensryche/current be-haircutted frontman of Operation: Mindcrime Geoff Tate crossing the street in downtown Seattle. 

Of thrash’s three faces–sociopolitico, violent, comical–Atlanta’s Sadistic Ritual embody the aggro. They aren’t singing about saving whales and the injustice of corporate profits. Nor are they singing about keg parties and barf consistency in DayGlo Bermuda shorts. No, Sadistic Ritual, as the name implies, is about riots of violence, the realities of getting bombed–as in the thermobaric kind–and showing no mercy.

With the dual purpose of introducing the Die My Will dark sonic alchemy to new listeners and perhaps — dare we dream! — nudging a reunion into being and/or dragging that unreleased material into the light, we called upon members of Trap Them, Author & Punisher, Backstabbers, Inc, and others to testify to the band’s power and glory in between sick salvos mined from YouTube.

Sure, Jake E. Lee may have served with distinction during his tumultuous five-year tour of duty under General Sharon, summoning forth a mind-boggling cascade of super-solid riffage and shredding through the tears when he got fucked out of lucrative Bark at the Moon (1983) writing credits, but the guitarist nevertheless gets about as much love from the Osbourne camp as a circa-1982 bat.

In the July 2013 Decibel, Justin Norton interviewed Patricia Rosa, mother of Joe and Mario Duplantier of Gojira for our recurring “Metal Muthas” column. Patricia passed away two days ago, so to honor her, we’re reprinting that interview. Our condolences to the Duplantiers.

There are some diverse affectations in this photo; let’s talk about them. 

It’s nice to know the Author & Punisher mastermind has a sense of humor, and it’s on full display in this extremely fucking weird, occasionally hilarious video.

“Monday Is Here is about something that happened in my childhood that effects how I still perceive things,” says lead dreamweaver Mike VanPortfleet.

As Superjoint Ritual prepares to tour for the first time in ten years, Decibel caught up with legendary frontman Philip H. Anselmo — a top five extreme metal vocalist, by our estimation — for a chat about resurrecting dormant bands, the bittersweet upcoming third Housecore Horror Film Festival, the late, great Corey Mitchell, and the state of that long gestating autobiography.

In the event you are enjoying summer too thoroughly, Orchestrated Misery is giving away five copies of Crushed by the Wheels of Progress, the second full-length by Indiana sludge trio Yellowtooth, in order to remind you why everything is terrible. 

I was planning on only reviewing this band’s photo, but the image came with the rest of that nonsense on the side, and I can’t just move on without saying a little about the moniker Cry Excess. 

In life, that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Back in 2013, Blaze of Perdition were traveling through Austria and were involved in a major car accident that left members severely injured and bassist Wojciech “Ikaroz” Janus dead. Uncertain whether to carry on, Blaze of Perdition invoked the power of the Elder Gods—both benign and malign—and asked them one question: should Blaze of Perdition continue to sing the praises of “Luciferian Illumination”? The weak-minded would’ve come away from the confrontation confused and bereft. Not Blaze of Perdition. They respectfully mourned the loss of Janus and vowed, with ensorcelled swords and overflowing blood chalices held high, to return to the lands of the blackest metal, spiritually and physically rejuvenated.

Last week the world lost Sir Christopher Lee, a ridiculous badass on and off screen, who also had a late-late career legit heavy metal detour which Fangoria Editor-in-Chief Chris Alexander aptly describes as “one of the most fascinating 11th hour career turns in pop culture history.” To honor our fallen fellow metal militiaman Decibel convened an all-star horror-metal panel to discuss Lee’s ascent from untouchable horror icon to extreme music frontman…

The dog days of summer don’t have to bite, thanks to your friends at Decibel. If you subscribe right now, we’ll send you five classic flexi discs for FREE.

New Hampshire’s Vattnet Viskar aren’t your typical black metal act. Actually, they’re not black metal at all, but they’re rather informed by the genre that pivots on darkness and evil. Listen to the riffs on debut album Sky Swallower and tell us you don’t hear shades of Burzum or Emperor. Listen to the repetition on new album Settler and tell us you don’t hear vintage Enslaved or Wolves in the Throne Room. Certainly, Vattnet Viskar revolve around a different, non-Satanic set of principles, the deepest of which can be heard and felt on Settler, with its hope-filled (but the light of inspiration dies) cover art. Let’s dig deep with Vattnet Viskar!

In New York’s flourishing metal scene the experimental death metal band Pyrrhon is a bit of an outlier. Formed when most of the band members were in college, Pyrrhon received widespread acclaim for their 2014 album The Mother Of Virtues, a blend of lyrical and instrumental virtuosity. Pyrrhon is fronted by Doug Moore, a onetime high school athlete and University Of Pennsylvania graduate who rejected conventional paths to success to pursue music. He talked to us about cross-state commutes to band practice and the end times.  

AJ Gregory knows his sharks. Whether he’s laying down monstrous prog/post-metal hymns with Bay Area mainstays Giant Squid (known for such fishy jams as “Sevengill,” “Revolution in the Water” and “Monster in the Creek”), bashing away with his Jaws-themed side project Squalus or slinging paleobiology-themed apparel through his Cotton Crustacean clothing line, the dude is fully immersed in the life aquatic. So, we asked AJ to crawl out of his diving bell and wax poetic about his five favorite shark movies.

Next week, Denver heavies Abrams crash any party worth a damn with their self-released debut Lust. Love. Loss.

I’ve never heard this band’s music. I don’t know when their record is coming out and I was able to even avoid their name. All I know about these fellas is that they chose to take this picture. This, out of everything they could have done, is what they decided on. 

Decibel recently had the pleasure of chatting with Ramon Martos about his lush, edifying, fascinating, surprising tour de force history of extreme metal album covers, …And Justice For Art. Check it out below:

If you are anywhere in the vicinity of Philadelphia and possess an affinity for plunging into surreal, beguiling, lush alternate universes, do yourself a solid and head over to Arch Enemy Arts for the epic, wondrous exhibit of hometown fine artist and designer Paul Romano — probably best known to extreme music fans for his work with Mastodon, The Red Chord, Hate Eternal, and a raft of others.

Abnormal Thought Patterns premiere a djent-y epic from aptly titled forthcoming third album Altered States of Consciousness

Untouchable. That’s Hate Eternal since 1999’s Conquering the Throne effort. It’s now 2015 and the Erik Rutan-led death metal powerhouse show zero signs that time is our most maligned enemy. In fact, Hate Eternal are more blistering now than they were when George W. Bush was leading the charge of a large-scale (and largely unjust) war in the Iraq. OK, so times don’t change too much, regardless of who is in charge. But Hate Eternal, regardless of release or year of release, continue to be relevant, vital, and crucial to all things extreme.

The late Robert Hazard had a stellar pop music career, even if he never became a household name. Perhaps his best known accomplishment was writing  Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”  But Hazard had a melancholy side, best evidenced by his 1982 song “Escalator Of Life.” The song — for all intents a dark wave tune despite modest chart success — was a critique of 80s consumerism. The New Jersey metal duo Stygian Depths recently reimagined the song.