Fear, Emptiness, Decibel: Lemmy is Like Magic

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

Lemmy’s not in good shape, and there’s a couple ways to look at that. The boring asshole way is: All that hard living finally caught up to him (tsk-tsk) and he’s finally paying the piper. But consider the alternate perspective: He’s only just now starting to deal with the consequences after all that indulgence? At age 68?! Imagining that most of you reading this are healthy-ish enough dudes in the age 25-35 realm with varying degrees of spare tires, you’d be down with another full lifetime of hardcore partying, right? Shit, maybe we’re not drinking/smoking/shooting up/snorting/fucking enough. (Then again, the Sweet brothers from Stryper are chugging right along in their early 50s.)

Anyway, following King Diamond, this is the second straight month Decibel has honored a titan of heavy music with a first-time cover story. The Motörhead frontman’s longtime bandmates and business associates offer brutally honest insight into Lemmy’s recent health setbacks. The cool thing is, the inimitable power trio is still making must-hear music 20+ albums in, even having to work around their frontman’s convalescence. How sobering will you find the cover story? Take the Rorschach test and give it a good read before diving into our annual Top 20 Most Anticipated Albums of the Year breakdown.

The February 2014 issue of Decibel also features Opeth, Beastmilk, and an awesome Monster Magnet flexi disc, and can be purchased here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?