Metal: The Illustration of Mark Rudolph

December 15, 2010

Hello fellow Deci-punters. Typically, we don’t toot our own Viking horns—well, we’ve done it before when Decibel Managing Editor Andrew Bonazelli released his acclaimed A Regular book and when Decibel Editor-in-Chief Albert Mudrian clashed swords with Da Capo Press to bring the Precious Metal book to life—but on this occasion, which is near Christmas, originally…

Justify Your Shitty Taste: Metallica’s “St. Anger”

December 15, 2010

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, every Wednesday morning, a Decibel staffer or special guest will take to the Deciblog to bitch and moan at length as to why everybody’s full of shit and said dud is, in fact, The…

Alice Cooper Finally Inducted to the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame

December 15, 2010

We can already hear you bitching about how blasphemous the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame is and how it doesn’t mean anything, etc. Stop the billion dollar baby butt-hurt rant for two seconds, and throw some horns for Alice Cooper finally getting honored by the goddamn museum. Recognition is important, even if it comes…

New Sodom Track “Feigned Death Throes” Streaming + Vinyl Contest

December 14, 2010

Over the last three weeks we’ve been fortunate enough to open three cans of Sodom agent orange on your sorry fiveheads. Week 1 we premiered an uncompromisingly intense set of tracks in “In War and Pieces” & “Hellfire”. For Week 2, another two cans (“Through Toxic Veins” & “Nothing Counts More Than Blood”) of Sodom…

Fun With the Spin 2010 Readers Poll

December 14, 2010

Don’t you wish we did one of these? Cheat Sheet ARTIST OF THE YEAR: (write-in) Bruce Willis BEST NEW ARTIST: (write-in) GWAR BEST LIVE ARTIST: (write-in) Bruce Willis MOST WELCOME RETURN: (write-in) Bruce Willis BEST RAP/R&B ARTIST: (write-in) “Rap isn’t music” SEX GODDESS OF THE YEAR: (write-in) Hit Girl from Kick-Ass SEX GOD OF THE…

King Diamond Gets a Present for Christmas…

December 14, 2010

…and it’s a shiny, newly refurbished heart. Diamond’s wife Livia breaks news of the several heart attacks which culminated in the diabolical falsetto’s recent triple bypass open heart surgery in a fairly harrowing post on Coven Worldwide. Here’s an excerpt: “If you are interested in the details of how this surgery is performed, please look…

Justin Lowe & Trent Hafdahl’s (After the Burial) Top 5 Greatest Riffs Of All Time

December 13, 2010

5. Black Sabbath “Paranoid” intro riff Tony Iommi is the fuckin’ man. The way his guitar sounded back in the ’70s was just evil compared to everyone else. Whether it had something to do with the way he layered distorted guitars on the recordings, or whether it was due to his playing style or missing…

Henry & Glenn Forever Cartoon Xmas Special (& J. Bennett in a Bathrobe)

December 13, 2010

We have the biggest, frostiest, gluiest boner for the remarkably deranged dudes of Igloo Tornado, the hivemind that brought you the homotastic hardcore comic Henry & Glenn Forever. Just when we thought we couldn’t possibly love them any harder or faster, Igloo Tornado’s Tom Neely wrote, directed, and animated a goddamn CHRISTMAS CARTOON starring Henry…

Top 5 Weird-ass Great Guitar Tones by Nate Hall (U.S. Christmas)

December 10, 2010

By Nate Hall (U.S. Christmas) #5. Dixie Collins – Weedeater It takes a special kind of person to create a sonic mirror, a tone that reflects the individual hitting the strings. When Dixie straps on his cheap Squier P-Bass, slugs back some of Kentucky’s worst and switches on his amps, the ungodly wails that erupt…

For Those About to Squawk: Waldo’s Pecks of the Week III

December 10, 2010

Every Friday, Waldo the African Grey Parrot, frontbird of thrash-grind immortals Hatebeak, will get you caught up on the week’s latest “extreme” releases. As the end of the year swiftly approaches, record labels tend to slow down the releases. The rest of this year looks blanker than my body after a good molt. Good time…