Metal

Kill Screen’s fondness for New York death metal maestros Undeath has been established since day one—literally. In 2022, as our misfit column was still very much in alpha, guitarist and World of Warcraft fanatic Kyle Beam kindly offered to be our first player character. And when the co-nerds needed a headliner for their Metal &

There’s something to be said for a nice, concise 20-minute extreme metal album. Aukland, New Zealand death grind quartet Rvkkvs (rukus?) offer up just that on Antithesis of Prosperity. The longest song on this aggro crusher clocks in at three minutes and most are in the one- to two-minute range and are frequently augmented with snippets of

We all say it every year, but this year was another exceptionally-loaded year for extreme music, with more album-of-the-year contenders and records that raise the bar than in recent memory. The Decibel Top 40 Albums of 2024 list reflects that fact, too: it spans across genres and labels from all corners of the extreme music scene. If

In case you haven’t been keeping score, our latest installment of Metal & Beer Fest: Denver kicks off in just three weeks. Though we’re excited to experience all 14 bands and 13 breweries tapped to participate, we’re not trying to speedrun the weekend either. This year, the co-nerds at Kill Screen have teamed up with

Photo: Victoria J. Polsoni Laura Bates is a brilliant violinist, peerless musician, and a vital part of the Canadian doom metal band Völur. Her musical bona fides, however, extend far beyond the metal genre. Bates makes a good living in Toronto as a musician for hire, a violin teacher, and with studio gigs. Some of

Photo by Bella Peterson No doubt Nashville quintet Flummox flummox the hell out of people with their progressive, genre-hopping symphonic thrash, as evidenced by their latest single, “Executive Dysfunction.” This madcap nearly six-minute track finds Flummox—Alyson Blake Dellinger (vocals/bass/stunt guitar), Max Mobarry (guitars/vocals/midi), Chase McCutcheon (guitars), Jesse Peck (keys/programming), Alan Pfeifer (drums)—skating between majestic metal crush

Thin Lizzy—iconic, obviously. The fact that we might still get them in some form—awesome. Scott Gorham, one of the legendary guitarists from the band, is still out here kicking and sharing as much of that Thin Lizzy loveliness as he can. Gorham just did an interview with Neil Jones of TotalRock about updates on what

Honestly, I’m not sure why I’m surprised. Sure, this seems like something shock rock band W.A.S.P. may have done when Chris “I’m a racist short dick man” Holmes was still in the band, but this is just depressing. At their New York show last night (November 16) at the Hammerstein Ballroom, W.A.S.P. pretty much ejaculated

Welcome to the 20th annual Decibel Top 40 Albums of the Year. That marks two full decades of countless “you forgots,” “it’s only Novembers” and at least one “No Belphegor? GTFO!” we have weathered from your critical keyboard strikes. Of course, some of those replies to our yearly Top 40 are from forlorn attention-seekers, but

‘A Brazilian vocalist, a Chilean guitarist, a Russian bassist and a Venezuelan drummer walk into a Montreal metal bar’ might sound like the beginning of a borderline funny joke, but it, in a roundabout way, speaks to the christening of thrash, punk, death-beat quartet CHÜZO. The band’s latest EP — M.T.M.D.(Maximum Threshold, Minimum Decay) —

Today Decibel celebrates the official release of Into Everlasting Fire: The Official History of Immolation. Decibel Books’ newest limited edition hardcover explores the legendary New Yorkers from their beginnings in the nascent tape-trading underground through their current standing as one of the most beloved bands in death metal history. And Decibel is proud to share

Greetings, Decibel readers! Ah, it’s that time of year again. That magical time when we put out our list of the top 40 albums of the year, and everyone on our socials complains about it. In many cases, the gripes amount to not satisfying 20% of people. Ten percent have what I call “obscurity bias,” wherein

Quebec symphonic, melodic heroes Trollwar drop their next EP, Tales from the Frozen Wastes, on November 15. Ahead of the release, you can stream the full record right here.  Tales From the Frozen Wastes by Trollwar The record fuses the band’s roots with even more symphonic orchestration, progressive elements, and all-around big sounds. As always,

Underground heavy metal act Impellitteri have been at it since 1986, formed by guitarist Chris Impellitteri and singer Bob Rock (no, not that Bob Rock). For their recently-released twelfth album, War Machine, Impellitteri recruited Slayer/Kerry King drummer Paul Bostaph. Decibel spoke with Chris Impellitteri to get the scoop on War Machine, working with Bostaph and how the band has

Nepenthe (Photo by Alex Snape) Canadian blackened doom upstarts Nepenthe are back with a powerfully atmospheric release, pairing their haunting 2020 EP Elegies of Loss and Doom with a fresh chapter in The Fading Promise of Tomorrow. Dropping November 15 via Hypaethral Records, this double feature promises to be both a culmination and an evolution

Thrash metal has always been good about alerting us to the various perils of the world, whether it’s piranhas or nuclear war or zombies or fucking irradiated zombie piranhas. Thrash has had our back. So luckily we have Indiana old-school speedsters Graveripper giving us a futuristic look at the next shit we’ve gotta steer clear of

Earthburner – Photo by Corey Soria Where they from?Chicago, IL. I would feel remiss to not mention what happened last Tuesday here in the United States. It’s something on everyone’s mind and people seem to be having all sorts of reactions to it and it just feels like the turd in the punchbowl that I

Post-metal/rock outfit Pelican are an institution in the genre, having existed at this point for more than two active decades. The December issue of Decibel features a studio report with guitarists Trevor de Brauw and Laurent Schroeder-Lebec, who is playing on his first major Pelican release since 2012’s Ataraxia / Taraxis, so you’ll have to pick that issue

Do you love Obituary but wish they thrashed and grinded just a little harder? If your answer is “yes,” then I’ve got an album to pitch you: Mystic Seance Unrealities, the new album from Canadian death-thrashers Immortal Force. Their first LP after a demo and pair of splits with fellow Canadian bands Expunged and Nephilim’s Noose, Mystic

The pastoral opening passage of “Moment Présent,” from new French outfit Septaria’s debut album Astar, may not give the impression that this is in fact an extreme metal album, but rest assured it is. Mostly it’s filled with the kind of kind of post-metal explosives that see the band—Hugo Thevenot (guitar/vocals), Hugo Leydet (drums), Baptiste Trébuchon (bass),