News

Bummer break-up news: German black metal institution Bethlehem are calling it quits… kind of. 

It only makes sense that a brutal death metal outfit called Dysentery would have an album called Internal Devastation. But that was four years ago. 

Hey, you got your Sabbath-y math rock in my Neurosis-esque epic doom-sludge!

Well, you got your Neurosis-esque epic doom-sludge in my Sabbath-y math rock!

Shades of the infamous walkman crash Reeses Peanut Butter Cups commercial of the 1980s, this is how I imagine the first encounter between members of The Ditch and the Delta must have gone down. 

On April 21, 2015, the Bay Area metal scene—and the underground metal scene as a whole—lost a prolific and talented artist named Drew Cook, guitarist for Oakland-based bands Dimesland and Wild Hunt.

King Parrot don’t care that you’re snappy dresser, or smart as a whip, or have enough money to buy pussy for an eternity. They’re a grindcore band—actually more than that—with an all-fun, no bullshit disposition.

Lucifer‘s debut album Lucifer I is a must-hear, and you’ll be the first to find out why.

Looking to combine his love of distortion and bug bites (and paintball!), is Alberta-based promoter Tyson Travnik, the mastermind behind Farmageddon Open Air, an annual gathering 45 miles outside of Edmonton, near Riley, Alberta. Two-thousand-fifteen will be the third year of his fest and it promises to be the biggest yet 

The metal fiends at independent film production company FreqsTV were cool enough to ask our editor-in-chief, Albert Mudrian, to participate in a pretty damn wide-reaching documentary short (for just a seven-minute run-time)!

Clouds Collide is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Chris Pandolfo of Allentown Pennsylvania, and has been steadily showing tremendous promise when it comes to the soaring, epic “metalgaze” pioneered by Alcest and made popular by Deafheaven. The great thing about Clouds Collide is that Pandolfo has used those influences in a constructive way rather then simply imitate, a great example being the 2013 debut full-length Until the Wind Stops Blowing…, a heartfelt tribute to his late mother that was equal parts agony, reflected in the searing black metal passages, and wistfulness, heard in moments that dared to approach the majesty of Ride.

In his equal parts bewitching and harrowing memoir Punk Elegies: True Tales of Death Trip Kids, Wrongful Sex, and Trial by Angel Dust former Slash Magazine mainstay Allan MacDonell delivers a gorgeous, iconoclastic, wonderfully actualized, deliciously literary encapsulation of the 1970s Hollywood punk scene. 

To celebrate the book’s release MacDonell was kind enough to send this exclusive playlist along to Decibel…

No, this doesn’t sound like Prong. Sometimes the (labored) headlines just write themselves around here. Vancouver progressive quartet Neck of the Woods mean business. Operative word: mean.

“Once this song was written, we had a much more clear idea of where the album was headed.  A more grimy, riffy direction,” says Vattnet Viskar’s Nick Thornbury to Decibel.

So, like, yeah, I missed some stuff, but release dates shift around and stuff.  The new Noisem, Blossoming Decay, is really good. I didn’t get a shot to tear apart the new Six Feet Under.

June’s Decibel features our third Agoraphobic Nosebleed flexi, “The Honkey Reduction EP, ” a ripping re-recording of four tracks from their first two full-lengths.

Need a fix of heavy/proto metal before our Pentagram rehearsal flexi drops in the July issue?

Four tapes essential for enduring the impending sunny weather.

Master mechanic/goddess of metal Mary Bielich of Derketa (day job: Honda automotive technician) has plenty to say about ripping things up on stage, on tour and under the hood. Take notes.

Helmed by a fellow who goes by the name of Outre-Tombe, Akitsa is one of many bands to help create the fertile Québécois black metal underground that you see before you today. It just so happens Akitsa has a new full-length album Grands Tyrans coming out – its fifth, to be exact – this coming June 2 on New York’s great avant-garde label Hospital Productions.

…according to Variety. It appears they failed to take our casting advice from TEN YEARS AGO. The issue’s sold out, so for your viewing pleasure, we resurrect “Cast Iron: Decibel thinks these Hollywood stars are ready for their grim and frostbitten close-up.” 

“I fucking hate metal band performance videos,” says Paradise Lost guitarist Greg Mackintosh (also of Vallenfyre), “so when I got told that we needed to do one I was obviously annoyed but then came the idea to do a performance video of utter misery. The slowest song we have ever recorded.

On its crazy diverse leveler of a debut EP West of Everything Lies Death Pittsburgh-based Taphos Nomos — a band which counts a mystery Decibel writer amongst its pseudonymous ranks — summons forth a mesmerizing trio of blackened death doom epics full of pummels, shreds and unforeseeable left turns.

It’s true: Shellac covers by Thou and Great Falls are precisely as fucking awesome as you’d imagine — if, you know, you actually had to use your imagination and not just click “play” below. 

Full disclosure: Roadrunner Records funded my trip to Stockholm to hear Heritage and interview frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt and team for Decibel. Fuller disclosure: I’ve been a long-time Opeth fan—OK, let’s settle for fanatic, to be frank. 

Make what you want about Arch Enemy’s decisions since outing ex-Furbowl, ex-Carnage, ex-Hearse vocalist Johan Liiva, but they’ve never given up. 

Doom icons Pentagram are approaching their 45th year (brief hiatuses and name changes notwithstanding). 

Dark, heavy and full of heart, Missouri’s Sisters Of… set their sights on the May 12 release of their first full-length record, The Serpent, The Angel, The Adversary.  Their blend of bestial rage and contemplative yearning might just tear you open and fill you up.  Come inside and find out.

There are not many perfect albums in heavy metal history, but Slayer’s Reign in Blood is one of them. Personally, in this writer’s opinion, when it comes to the greatest metal album of all time, it’s a toss-up between Reign in Blood, Master of Puppets, Ride the Lightning, and Paranoid. We’re dealing with an untouchable album here. Well, near untouchable, as Decibel’s Andrew Bonazelli had the brilliant idea for a new way for us to argue about our favorite metal records: why not rank the songs on each Decibel Hall of Fame inductee? Sure, why not?

We’ve spilled plenty of ink about the new Tribulation record such that any further gushing about The Children of the Night here probably wouldn’t add anything new to the discourse.  Chris Dick talked to the band for a feature in this month’s issue (more of which you can read about here) and the quartet scored the lead review and best new noise in our preceding tome.  If you’ve perused either piece, however, or had the pleasure to listen to the group’s excellent third full-length, you might be interested in hearing about ten albums that helped form the entity known as Tribulation.

Roughly two years go, I received a Facebook friend request from someone named Jonathan Dick in Birmingham, Alabama. I was late to join social media so the idea of befriending someone I didn’t know stuck me as curious. Jonathan was different: I found his profile picture – a snapshot of an intimate tea party with his daughter — utterly endearing. 

April showers bring May, uh, flaming horses and capsizing Moby-Dicks.