Track Premiere: Cognitive – “Birthing the Deformity”
Cognitive was formed with two ideas in mind: heaviness and intense technicality. On the first taste of their Unique Leader debut, they prove those ideas are still at the forefront of the band.
Search Results for: decapitated
Akercocke Returns With Death Metal and Positivity(?!) aplenty
Guitarist/vocalist Jason Mendonça is excited and filled with positivity. And you should be, too.
More From The East Bay: Notes From The Box Truck w/Tristin Campbell of Control
We continue our periodic look at the East Bay metal scene with Tristin Campbell of Control. Campbell is a needed throwback to the do-it-yourself ethos that made Northern California so rich musically.
Exclusive: Win Tickets to At the Gates’ 2016 North American Tour!
Melodeath icons At the Gates have just announced dates for their 2016 North American Tour, with support from Decapitated, the Haunted and Harms Way. This is obviously a must-see, and we’re offering an exclusive opportunity to win tickets now!
Justify Your Shitty Taste: King Diamond’s “The Graveyard”
I’m going to give my editors the benefit of the doubt here and assume they meant Verify Your Awesome Taste. I mean, come on, everybody knows there’s no such thing as a shitty King Diamond record. Some might be less memorable than others based on your personal criteria and/or schlock tolerance, but I’ll be goddamned if King has ever had a “St. Anger” moment in the span of his career.
Hall of Fame Countdown: Slayer’s Reign in Blood
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?
Hall of Fame Countdown: Slayer’s Reign in Blood
There are not many perfect albums in heavy metal history, but Slayer’s Reign in Blood is one of them. 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/insane 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?
Noisem Spark Up Sophomore Stunner in the June Issue
They turned — and decapitated — heads opening the 2014 Decibel Tour, they “defiled” the Flexi Series, and their debut was our ninth favorite record of 2013. Now the teenage thrashers of Noisem have graduated to Decibel‘s cover, and they’ve revved up a worthy successor in Blossoming Decay. We chronicle the Baltimore quintet’s fast ascent…
Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: Polish Dream-Black Mornië Utúlië
Poland’s one-man, one-woman (and thus, probably Church approved) blackened frost-treaders Mornië Utúlië offer one of those perfect blends of intent, image and music. Calling a black metal record Sny (Polish for “dreams” and, coincidentally – thanks Google Translate – Afrikaans for “cuts”) and draping the cover in a field of stars certainly sets up expectations that this might be a toothless, undistorted bliss-out, but Mornië Utúlië’s adventures into the void turn out to be way more Darkspace roar than Alcest sigh. Like the subtle merging of Nosferatu and nebula on the cover, Mornië Utúlië throttle up the terror in in their yawning darkness and never settle for mere atmospheric meandering.
We asked Bartosz Brożek, the man behind the music, about his journey and his newest creation, so you can read all about it after the jump while you stab through the cosmos with Sny and a video for the late-album cut “W Nocy Płynie Chłodny Wiatr” featuring gal-vocalist Ewa Kleszcz. If you dig, be sure to head over to the Mornië Utúlië’s Facebook site or Bandcamp page, where the album lives.
Live long, prosper, eat the weak and fear your dreams!
STREAMING: Human Improvement Process “Tortured Hands of Reason”
What happens when Meshuggah and Decapitated are fused together in brutal staccato matrimony? Human Improvement Process. Based in Italy, but not sounding particularly “Italian” (or that they’re from the home of balsamic vinegar), Human Improvement Process (or HIP) are one of the country’s upcoming stars. They’re technical, atmospheric, yet highly aggressive. “We’re beyond excited to…
Regional Openers for the Decibel Tour Announced
The 2015 Decibel Tour is still just under two months away, but it’s cold and terrible out (grim in a bad way), and you deserve some righteous news before the weekend. We have six outstanding, hand-picked regional openers who will get the party started in advance of At the Gates, Converge, Pallbearer and Vallenfyre’s trail…
VIDEO PREMIERE: Hate “Leviathan”
It’s only been two years since its last slab of blackened death metal, but Hate is back with album number nine in the form of Crusade:Zero. While the LP–which was recorded at Bialystok, Poland’s Hertz Studios (Vader, Decapitated, Behemoth)–doesn’t drop for another couple of weeks (February 10th in the US via Napalm Records to be…
Sucker For Punishment: Needle Groper, Pinkeye Poker
The situation surrounding the release of Witch Mountain’s latest album is not one you see very often. It’s one thing for a metal band to lose a singer – a real test of a metal band’s greatness is how difficult it is to replace the singer – but to see a band whose career was…
Nader Sadek and Decibel Join Forces for “Malefic”
Is there any heavy metal story more heroic and heartening than that of Nader Sadek? Seriously. Here is a serious connoisseur of extreme music and culture — not to mention an extraordinary visual artist — who came up in a time and place — that would be Egypt in the eighties — where his interests…
Decibrity Playlist: Lazer/Wulf
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…
Dave Brockie: 1963-2014
In the late 90s, perhaps around 1998, I pulled over at a truck stop about 45 miles outside of Richmond, Virginia. I grabbed a few snacks and went to the checkout line when it occurred to me that the clerk was staring, somewhat horrified. I looked down and remembered why: my entire body was covered…
Top 5 Tech Death Metal Bands You May’ve Overlooked
5. Loudblast – Sublime Dementia 1993 (Semetary) Appearing with three tracks on Century Media’s cool In The Eyes of Death compilation in 1991, Loudblast were virtually unknown outside the four corners of France even though they’d released two full-lengths and a string of demos prior to Sublime Dementia. Loudblast twisted Schuldiner’s brutal/melodic idiosyncrasies (from Human)…
Regional Decibel Magazine Tour Openers Announced!
As if you needed any more incentive to attend this year’s second annual Decibel Magazine Tour—featuring not only headliners Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death and Immolation, but rotating openers Beyond Creation, Cretin and Magrudergrind—it gives us great pleasure to announce eight one-off openers for select locations. Blast beats, please: MAMMOTH GRINDER May 10 / Houston, TX…
Throw Me a Frickin’ Bone: Waldo’s Pecks of the Week
Well, it looks like we’re still in the doldrums of the slow part of the year. The releases SHOULD be picking up in a week or so, so stay tuned. What time is it? Well, Australian black/death metallers PORTAL are releasing their latest and perhaps best, Vexovoid on Profound Lore. Before I start here, let…
Throw Me a Frickin’ Label Hack: Argentina’s Mortuorial Eclipse
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)…
A Very Heavy Halloween III: Stallone Vs. Dane Cook & the Kings of Leon
We’re about two weeks out from the release of American Baby, the driving, effervescent debut from ex-Torche/current MonstrO guitarist Juan Montoya’s instrumental metal outfit Stallone. Burly as their namesake, Limited Fanfare Records describes the EP as “riff oriented, drop-tuned melodies combined with an uplifting expression of aggressive energy” and that seems pretty spot on, though…
FREE DEATH METAL – Apply within: Dead Beyond Buried “The Dark Era”
UK underground champs Dead Beyond Buried are giving their new album, The Dark Era, and that’s pretty cool, right? Everyone likes free stuff. That’s a given. And especially free music. Eight out 10 features with bands at some point touch upon the music industry’s perilous position right over yon great fiscal abyss, into which it’s…
Bonin’ the Interhole: Portugal’s Malevolence
Bands like Gojira and Godflesh might be major brand names ‘round these parts, but mention them to your average Metallica-loving broseph and you’re likely to get a squinty-eyed, the-fuck-you-say? half-nod. But Decibel just won’t quit. We dig deeper, danker, darker and dirtier (though rarely fitter or happier) to turn up a few otherwise overlooked gems….
Decibrity Playlist: “Best of” Meshuggah
Sure, Meshuggah releasing its seventh full-length on Tuesday was an event in and of itself. But what has gotten somewhat lost amidst the furor is that, for the quintet, this year marks a quarter century of polyrhythms, polymeters and, of course, polytours. To celebrate both achievements, we enlisted the help of some of the many…
LIVE REVIEW: DAMNATION FESTIVAL 2011
Welcome to University of Leeds. This is Damnation Festival’s seventh year, the fourth since moving to the three-stage venue. It’s no minor triumph to last seven years as an underground metal-fest, packing the punters in when having to compete with larger festivals with their larger budgets, surviving all that industry bullshit at a time when…
Justin Broadrick interview: Godflesh, growing up and anarcho-punk
If Godflesh’s supremo of beats ‘n’ riffs, Justin K. Broadrick, is having trouble getting an unbroken night’s sleep, it’s not the attendant stress of having resurrected the industrial metal project for near-monthly live excursions after a near-ten-year hiatus. It’s not their forthcoming appearance at UK metal-fest Damnation that’s worrying him either, because he and Ben…
Cannabis Corpse take the high road through Europe
The Deciblog took to sober prayer and genuine concern when Cannabis Corpse brought their marijuana death metal party through Europe. The big worry was in the logistics: just how were four weed-obsessed death metal dudes from Richmond, VA going to negotiate over ten border controls, navigate themselves across the continent without some Midnight Express fucking…
Cephalic Carnage / Summer Slaughter Tour Diary Pt. 2
Today, I learned about “feather footing.” Y’see, I’ve never driven a 15-passenger van before, let alone one with a trailer the size of my dining room towed behind it. During my quick tutorial, I learned that in order to prevent the engine from overheating, you’re supposed to not depress too hard on the gas and…
Cephalic Carnage/Summer Slaughter Tour Diary
Day 0 – BUFFALO, NY – SAN DIEGO, CA This year marks the 28th anniversary of the first and last time I ever visited my mother’s country of birth, the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica. There are a lot of things about that journey that are surprisingly fresh in my memory: the hurricane-beaten exteriors of…