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…

A couple weeks ago, I came around these ungodly parts and nailed theses to the cyberdoor extolling Unsane’s 1995 breakout Scattered, Smothered and Covered, our newest Decibel Hall of Fame inductee. As usual, when we go steady with a band, we treat them like the little princesses (OK, in this instance, blood-lusting noise-rock psychotics) they are—hence the latest inductee in our flexi series is the New York trio’s coruscating “Grind.” I don’t have the lyrics handy, but I’m pretty sure they’re talking bone with a mortar and pestle, not blast beats. It was recorded just before they took to the studio for hot-shit comeback Wreck (Alternative Tentacles), and is a raw, throbbing, gristly reminder of how to do this music right. Take a hard listen right here:

The black-on-yellow vinyl is, as always, for subscribers, but there are a limited quantity of this issue with the flexi available in the Decibel webstore now.

-AB

The July 2012 issue of Decibel also features Baroness, Nile, Fear Factory, and a Dying Fetus Hall of Fame, and can be ordered here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?

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…

I’d qualify this as a “regional” Fear, Emptiness, Decibel since my purpose here is to remind you that the inaugural Decibel Magazine Tour  is down to its last three stops—Quebec City, Worcester  and NYC—but it doesn’t have to be. I went to the Philadelphia show this Sunday and one of our dearest longtime contributors, Scott Koerber, drove eight fucking hours specifically to see Evoken, then walked in the door 30 seconds before they went on. Now that’s some slow, deep and hard satisfaction. So, if you’re in Peoria or some shit (and Axl has personally assured me that 85 percent of the commentariat hails from Peoria), shout at the devil and gas up now. The shows are tonight, Friday and Saturday, so you can follow up worshipping at the altars of radness with Sunday mass and all will be forgiven.

I don’t want to spoil the experience for everyone, but I carted some magazines, banners and whatnot over with the editor-in-chief beforehand, and backstage was basically a Nag Champa factory. For a second I thought we were going to be unrolling Jim Morrison blacklight posters instead. Not sure how well the incense counteracted whatever the Devil’s Blood and Watain doused themselves in later in the evening, but I can assure you that the frontman of the latter is a perfect gentleman offstage. Decibel Senior Designer Bruno Guerreiro made him a cup of coffee prior to the show. You’ll never guess how he likes it.

Here’s a candid:

Click to read more…

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…

Readers have been clamoring for an Amphetamine Reptile-related Hall of Fame for a while now. Our former customer service “night person” Mark Evans got his prized Cows Sexy Pee Story shirt bloodied at a Watain show, and is surely still perplexed that Shannon Selberg and co. haven’t been inducted as a reward. I tried to get a Temple of the Morning Star induction going for Today Is the Day, but could never track down Christopher Reeser to seal the deal. Half of Helmet just plain doesn’t wanna, and as for Melvins, well, take that up with the editor-in-chief.

This is not to suggest that Unsane’s Scattered, Smothered and Covered is our fifth choice or something. Chris, Dave and Vinnie are some of the most consistent and reliable players in the game, their sound is unmistakable and the scene was straight-up elated when Wreck reared its malformed head earlier this year. Whether you’re an o.g. from the Matador days or — like many others — you discovered them through the skate-and-die “Scrape” video, you’ll be pleased with this long-form exploration of their breakthrough album and brief, bizarre exposure to the mainstream.

As for other AmRep nominees, Hammerhead’s Into the Vortex is one of my favorite records ever, and would have a better chance if more than 500 people gave a shit. What about you guys?

-AB

The June 2012 issue of Decibel also features Paradise Lost, High on Fire, Prong, Torche, Suffocation, and an awesome Paradise Lost flexi disc, and can be ordered here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?

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…

Ideally, here at Decibel, we try to switch up the cover artist, hall of fame and flexi disc so you’re not like great, here’s the girlfriend metal issue, or god, will these guys ever get off XXX Maniak’s dick? And yet, this is two straight issues now that you’ve gotten a double dose of the cover artist (well, in May just one of them) courtesy of a gnarly new flexi. But we’re cool with it, seeing as how everyone here loves Paradise Lost. And I mean loves. It’ll be fairly obvious when you check out the sidebar, in which basically half the masthead and a ton of extreme musicians give their entire discography props.

Which is a pretty cool thing, because these guys have gone rogue more than once. Transforming from doom overlords to the metal equivalent of this is a good way to alienate your entire fan base. Yet, that (mostly) didn’t happen. PL stick to their convictions, create inspired music, and people follow. Not blindly, like Metallica fans. More like they embrace the challenge. And we know Paradise Lost don’t move, say, Meshuggah numbers. Who cares? Their courage and passion over nearly a quarter-century is more than enough to warrant a cover.

And hey, if you can’t deal with that funny feeling in your pants, there’s a Vulgar Display of Power quasi-HOF in this one, too.

-AB

The June 2012 issue of Decibel also features High on Fire, Prong, Torche, Unsane, Suffocation, and an awesome Paradise Lost flexi disc, and can be ordered here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?

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…

John Milton has influenced global pop culture in some pretty weird ways. On this side of the pond, it’s manifested in memorable Al Pacino and Brad Pitt histrionics. On the other side, West Yorkshire’s inimitable death/goth/synth/doom/you-name-it practitioners Paradise Lost have been doing the man’s work proud for nearly a quarter-century. The quintet continues to bravely forge their own path 13 albums into their storied career, occasionally to their detriment, but generally in a way that continues to command the admiration of both curious dilettantes and hardcore fans. And now they’re Decibel’s June flexi disc honoree. Extremely limited quantities of that flexi are available here, and you can check out a stream of “The Last Fallen Saviour,” an exclusive b-side from the Tragic Idol sessions, right here.

And if you’re as psycho for these icon-oclasts as we are, stay tuned next week for all sorts of major PL announcements.

-AB

The May 2012 issue of Decibel also features Pantera, High on Fire, Torche, Unsane, Suffocation, and Prong, and can be ordered here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?

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…

Here’s a game we haven’t played in a while, with (if I’m not mistaken) new spoils for the victor. Guess the cover of the June Decibel, and we’ll hand over one of our iconic Schuldiner estate-approved Death tribute shirts. Now, does Death or anything (or one) in the varied, expansive and challenging Death discography have anything to do with the cover artist? Without getting too specific, I can emphatically tell you: maybe, maybe not. Guess away. (There are a few fairly decent hints in the preceding subterfuge, btw.)

-AB

The May 2012 issue of Decibel features Behemoth, a Baroness studio report, a Megadeth/Rust in Peace  Hall of Fame entry, and an awesome In Solitude flexi disc, and can be ordered here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?

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…

So, there were two M’s/A’s games in Japan last week that nobody cared about (although King Felix vs. Yoenis was a sick early matchup), and yesterday the Marlins laid a gaudy, pastel Easter egg in their new avant-tard shithole. But today, friends, today is really and truly Opening Day in baseball, with a full slate of… seven games? Seven fucking games? God, Bud Selig is an idiot. Why can’t the powers that be let the whole country play hooky together, like the first round of March Madness?

Anyway, we all celebrate Opening Day in our own idiosyncratic ways. Decibel’s Editor-in-Chief is having a dentist appointment to simulate the agony of the right side of his team’s infield starting the year on the DL (after which everything will be diagnosed A-OK, to simulate his starting pitching). Decibel’s managing editor, yours truly, is wearing a shirtsey extolling the virtues of a likely golf course rapist. If you want to join in the “fun,” check out one of our many metal baseball previews. The tradition of gathering our favorite extreme musicians to brag/whine about their favorite teams began way back in issue 5 when our cover stars were just plain radi-cal. We’ve done it seven times since, with participants as diverse as Mike Patton, Scott Kelly, Geezer Butler, and actual ballplayers Pat Neshek and Jason Michaels. Relive the (for many of us) crushing funereal sadness.

2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012

-AB

The May 2012 issue of Decibel, which also features Behemoth, a Baroness studio report, a Megadeth/Rust in Peace  Hall of Fame entry, and an awesome In Solitude flexi disc, can be ordered here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?

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…

So, you’ve made art, and somebody wants to ask you questions about it. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, huh? Yet, for whatever reason, there are some people who just don’t give a good interview. Okay, “good” isn’t the adjective—“enjoyable.” Maybe they grow weary of the repetition, maybe they’re naturally contrarian, maybe they’re just total fucking assholes. When it comes to Dave Mustaine, well, it’s a combination of that and a whole lot more. Mega-Dave has long been one of the most outspoken and polarizing voices in extreme music. This generally makes for fun, outrageous copy, especially in an election year, because who wouldn’t want to know what this dude thinks of the GOP Final Four, civil unions, internet porn, etc.

Click to read more…

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…

Most mags that put multiple band members on the cover have to do extensive Photoshopping to avoid coming off like something composed by a five-year-old. We at Decibel like to do things the hard way (hey now), so we insisted that (clockwise from top) In Solitude’s Pelle Åhman, Behemoth’s Nergal, the Devil’s Blood’s F., and Watain’s Erik Danielsson appear in the same place for their cover shoot. Sure, they’re all Europeans, and Åhman and Danielsson are actually countrymen, but that’s one big-ass continent. Anyway, it went down in Sweden just before New Year’s, and their combined presence before a lens did not cause a black hole to spontaneously erupt and swallow the studio space, so that bodes well for your survival on the inaugural Decibel Magazine Tour (don’t worry about selective purchasing; we’ll be done well before the big Barenaked Ladies/Blues Traveler/Big Head Todd and the Monster/Cracker summer skull-rape).

J. Bennett handles the cover story, which makes sense given that 1) he does like 80 percent of them, and 2) his band Ides of Gemini are one of eight regional acts we hand-selected to open the nationwide black mass. Past and future dB cover scribe Chris Dick elaborates on the future star openers, and as you know, subscribers will have first dibs on the sweet In Solitude flexi (covering Samhain). In other words, the May issue pretty much doubles as a tour program; you can even use it to blot off the bloodstains.

-AB

The May 2012 issue of Decibel, which also contains a Megadeth/Rust in Peace hall of fame, a Baroness studio report, and an awesome In Solitude flexi disc, can be ordered here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?

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…

In Solitude don’t even have a Wikipedia page (as of this Wednesday afternoon writing), but so what? Let’s all overcrowd the ground floor together. Their second full-length, The World. The Flesh. The Devil, was our fourth favorite of 2011, so it’s only fitting that the infectious Swedish occultists are fourth-billed on our inaugural Decibel Magazine Tour. Pale-faced Pelle Åhman and his motley crew also get the honor of this month’s flexi disc, interpreting Samhain’s 1986 classic moan-along “Mother of Mercy.” Fans of In Solitude’s small but explosive heavy metal discography may not assume Åhman has much vintage Glenn snarl in him, but will be pleasantly surprised at the “emotionally exquisite” ferocity of this cut, arriving in metallic silver on red.

Preview here:

And then order the new May issue, which contains the actually flexi, here.

Of course, there are three other participants on the dB tour—the Devil’s Blood, Watain and Behemoth—none of whom have appeared in the flexi series. Yet. So, you tell us: What would you want to hear if we ever capture any of those bloodletters on wax? Remember, it can be a cover, a b-side, hot liveage, an alternate take, pretty much anything you haven’t already heard on a single, EP or album.

-AB

The May 2012 issue of Decibel, which also contains a Megadeth/Rust in Peace hall of fame and a Baroness studio report, can be ordered here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss one of these awesome flexi discs?

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…

We’re almost exactly one month from the launch of the Decibel Magazine Tour (April 11 in Columbus, OH—great city for music fests, not so great for “Andrew’s friends securing a second semester at OSU”). Deciblog devotees know that we’ve recently begun unveiling regional openers for the tour (you’ll recall us soliciting/ignoring suggestions a few months ago). Well, now that we’ve eclipsed the halfway point, with five of the eight very special guests named, we decided to use this real estate for a little false idol worship.

Be it black-sludge evolutionaries Wolvhammer (Chicago), Rocky Mountain lows Nightbringer (Denver), not-prolific-enough doombringers Samothrace (Seattle), kitchen sink psych-thrashers Stoneburner (Portland) or funeral doom godheads Evoken (Baltimore, Philly, NYC), it’s a daunting but rewarding task cherry-picking bands to warm the black masses for In Solitude, the Devil’s Blood, Watain and Behemoth. According to our trusted editor-in-chief/dB Tour curator, Albert Mudrian, “Normally, these acts wouldn’t perform for 1,000 people unless it was at festival, so it was very important to us to give some of our favorite underground bands an opportunity to perform on a larger stage. And the beauty of the Decibel Magazine Tour’s lineup diversity is that it allows us to add funeral doom, sludge and black metal bands in addition as a few more genre-skirting artists, which we’ll unveil in the coming weeks.”

And now, so the uninitiated know what they’re in for, a (mostly) video homage for each radical opener:

Click to read more…

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…

Within the next five years, some stupid deathcore band will probably make a concept album about The Walking Dead. The “dialogue” in that show is basically all grunting and posturing anyway, so it’s really kind of perfect. Team Decibel are just slightly more impressed by Deceased’s Fearless Undead Machines, the perfect Hall of Fame for our one-off zombie extravaganza. The 1997 album has two qualities that get a lot of respect in this office: not only did the Beltway bashers divorce themselves from the gory DM norm to pursue their own retrofied sound, but Fearless is an epic 11-song riff on Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead.

Getting out of the cemetery was by no means easy, though. As iconic as the record’s foreboding smokestack cover art may seem today, it was pretty much the opposite of what then drummer/vocalist-now frontman King Fowley wanted. And if you think in-studio horror stories about Ross Robinson are something, trust us: Fearless “producer” Jim Barnes takes the idiosyncratic cake. Read all about how Deceased vaulted every obstacle in their path to render an intestine-ripping modern classic, a fine centerpiece for this special issue’s rotting core.

-AB

he April 2012 issue of Decibel, which also features Cannibal Corpse and an awesome Municipal Waste flexi disc, is available for order here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?

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…

I read the first issue of Kirkman’s Walking Dead and thought it was a derivative, pointless mash-up of 28 Days Later and name-your-post-apocalyptic-Stephen-King-doorstop. So, it blew my fucking mind (pun intended) when the AMC show eventually popped up and became an instant smash. That said, I often overvalue originality (Carcass clones, for example: don’t see the point). This is probably why I whined/winced more than usual when our EIC informed me that Decibel was doing a zombie issue. I like entrail-gutting and helicopter haircuts as much as the next guy, but exclusively of the 1978 or earlier vintage.

Of course, being an idiot, I failed to acknowledge just how integral the undead are to heavy music culture. From the influential/über-cult Blind Dead film series and gore guru Tom Savini to Romero-worshipping Hall of Famers Deceased and, well, pretty much every band on the Razorback roster, extreme zombie action will, indeed, never die. All are covered herein, and there’s nobody better to bind the putrid package together than Cannibal Corpse. We tried to be as thorough as possible in unearthing everything once and still awesome about the living dudely. Like the cover says, you get 116 Rob Zombie-free pages; but even if you have a soft spot for “Dragula” (or his many horrible movies), this mall’s worth walking. Very, very slowly.

-AB

The April 2012 issue of Decibel, which also features an awesome Municipal Waste flexi disc, is available for order here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?

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…

I have nothing to do with the average Decibel cover other than pitching Albert shitty concepts that are immediately rejected by both band and management. The best was asking Dillinger Escape Plan to do something with protractors and compasses (seriously, this was my great idea), which was understandably nixed, fine. But then they showed up butt-ass-naked on Kerrang! like two weeks later. Uh… yeah. I need to learn the phrase “just give them an axe/machete.”

Now, Municipal Waste did just fine on their first Decibel cover this March. As in, the tablecloth under the Tony Foresta platter actually looks like it could be his white T-shirt. Inspired! I think! Anyway, their Fatal Feast visualization was so repellently grandiose, we invited them back in April for the Flexi Series. And the thrash upstarts kindly knocked it out of the park with DRI/Nuclear Assault-nodding “Religion Proof,” a choice cut from the Feast sessions. Tony’s disembodied head nods in approval: “Ever since I got that Plutocracy/Aproctous split back in the day, I always wanted to put out a flexi record. When Decibel asked us, I was pumped.” Share the joy, and then grab a copy of the April issue with the flexi here. Quantities are, of course, limited.

-AB

The April 2012 issue of Decibel, which also features Cannibal Corpse, Deceased, Impetigo, a list of The Top 25 Zombie Metal Songs of All Time, and no Rob Zombie whatsoever, is available for order here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss one of these killer flexi discs?

(click to enlarge)

Oklahoma City gets all the good stuff. Well, maybe not all the good stuff, but five years ago they stole Kevin Durant from a metropolis whose literacy rate is in double digits, and now they pretty much get the one-off metal show of the year. If you’re a proud OKC resident (or reside in the multiple surrounding bumfuck satellites), get pumped.

On Saturday, April 28, the Decibel Magazine Tour with collide with the U.S. Torture Tour at the Big Friendly’s Diamond Ballroom. And when I say “collide,” I mean someone should make an ad with both logos on football helmets crashing together and just fucking exploding, except with freshly decapitated heads inside. This Devastator of a lineup consists of Cannibal Corpse, Behemoth, Watain, Exhumed, the Devil’s Blood, In Solitude, Abysmal Dawn and Arkaik. The cost of such a mega-event must be offensively prohibitive, right? Um, try $23 adv./$26 DOS. Roughly the cost of either package’s standalone shows. Plenty of time to get your flights/carpools organized. Bring me the head of Rumble the Bison.

-AB

The March 2012 issue of Decibel, which features Municipal Waste, Napalm Death, Cattle Decapitation, and an awesome Torche flexi disc, is available for order here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?

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…

Overkill’s The Years of Decay is our March Hall of Fame, which is available here now. Anybody who’s heard it—or really anybody who’s even a casual Overkill listener—knows that this is our big chance to churn out a bunch of shitty “e-limination” puns. I’m watching the (rad) video as I write this, and I assure you, the YouTube commentariat has that base covered. (Although, oddly, the most recent topic of discussion seems to be a qualitative comparison of Overkill and Avenged Sevenfold, which I can’t be bothered to research further.)

Anyway, as you might imagine, there’s all sorts of good shit in the HOF about back-in-the-day Terry Date, the vintage Hetfield “Yeeaaah!”, the band’s brief ascension to Euro-pop mag cover boys, and that classic lineup’s unfortunate disintegration during Bobby Blitz’s honeymoon. But the most interesting thing to me is that Blitz remains polarizing enough that I presume some of you will be pumped about this feature, and others squarely in the “fuck that, can’t stand him” zone. Which leads to a natural question: Who is the most annoying vocalist for an otherwise totally awesome band?

-AB

The March 2012 issue of Decibel, which also features Municipal Waste, Napalm Death, Cattle Decapitation, and an awesome Torche flexi disc, is available for order here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?

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…

I’ve only met Dave Witte once, at the editor-in-chief’s palatial Playboy Mansion-esque estate over the Fourth of July (all metal folk remained fully clothed, thank god). He’s a startlingly accomplished whiffle ball pitcher and an otherwise gregarious dude, which in my book is good enough to put his beret-ed mug on the March cover. More notable to you, perhaps, is his long, varied and unfuckwithable extreme music c.v., which branches furthest from the underground in the form of Municipal Waste. The party-thrash institution’s fifth album, The Fatal Feast, isn’t merely an excuse for Dave, Ryan, Phil and Tony to do a gross-out cover/interior spread—it doubles as an interstellar concept album that you really must read about to believe. It’s in the Decibel webstore now, bolstered by the pink-on-white, two-track Torche flexi disc of your dreams.

In other news, as you’re by now well aware, we’ve corralled four bands who are big fans of beer-buzzed suburban backyard whiffle ball games—Behemoth, Watain, the Devil’s Blood and In Solitude—for our inaugural Decibel Magazine Tour, starting in April. Well, dates and ticket info have finally been released, with all sorts of insane deals that are selling out already. Pig out here while there’s still time.

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…

For a band with just two proper full-lengths in eight years, Torche are a perpetual hot topic. Part of that’s our fault, but we like to think there are constant bursts of killer interstitial material (2007’s In Return EP, 2010’s Songs for Singles sorta-EP, last year’s split with Part Chimp, featuring three Guided by Voices covers) that make the hype less annoying. So, while the boys prep their latest release (an LP, we think) for Volcom this April, we’re happy to administer another get-you-by sludge-pop syringe in the form of our latest dB flexi.

Appearing in the March issue are two brand-new, never-before-heard Torche tracks: “Pow Wow” and “80’s Prom Song” (they fucked up the apostrophe, not us). If you’re one of the many who dig the pop rocks that Steve Brooks and co. have been crushing post-Floor, these buds are definitely for you. “Pow Wow” and “80’s Prom Song” were actually recorded during the Hydra Head sessions for Singles, but never used for some reason. Find out if they’re a bridge to the new material or simply two kickass jams that will make your iPod a less wrist-slitting shithole for a few minutes.

Check them out below, and then order a copy of the March issue with its hot pink and white plastic (you’re welcome) glory:

dB015 Torche Flexi Disc by Decibel Magazine

-AB

The March 2012 issue of Decibel, which also features Municipal Waste, Napalm Death, Cattle Decapitation, and an Overkill The Years of Decay Hall of Fame, is available for order here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss one of these awesome flexi discs?

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…

We’ve already employed this space—and some of our own in print—to tease and please you, Dangerous Toys-style, about the first-ever Decibel Magazine Tour. Well, here’s a straight-off-the-presses scoop for you: It debuts this (gravity blast, please…) April, and features (D-beat, please…) four bands! I know it’s annoying when information’s parceled out via turkey baster like this, but in two weeks you’ll get a grandiose lineup announcement with all the dates and ticket info and assorted sweatpants boner shit.

Until then, we can at least try to be mutually beneficial. We’re going to have regional openers on a number of the dates. I know you don’t know the specific cities (it is a pretty thorough national tour, so your best guesses are probably correct), nor do you know the genres of the headliner and openers (not NSBM, tempting as it was), but let us know who YOU want to see on the dB tour. There’s actually still time to make it happen.

-AB

While we all await the big tour announcement, you can order the February 2012 issue of Decibel, which features Goatwhore,The Top 25 Most Anticipated Albums of the Year preview, and Autopsy’s killer inaugural flexi disc, right here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss one an issue?

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…

Hey everyone. Hope you had a stellar break sharing Trans Siberian Orchestra dubstep mixes/thoughtless $25 Amazon gift cards with your loved ones. If the cover of the new Decibel is any indication—Ben Falgoust rocking a gotta-shit scowl while the other three dudes in Goatwhore do their best Mona Lisa impressions—2012’s gonna be another utterly fucked-up yet strangely satisfying year.

There’s a je ne sais quoi to NOLA metal bands, something iconic about the way they present themselves that’s tough to articulate, yet immediately identifiable. Everyone wears extra black, but they do it right. Like fellow N’awlins linchpins Crowbar, Eyehategod and Down, our February cover stars are among the hardest-working, no-bullshit, most authentic extreme bands around, qualities evident in their radical fifth LP, Blood for the Master. I just hope we remember the Goat when it’s Top 40 time at the end of the year—or, since we’ll all be obliterated, that Woody Harrelson and John Cusack remember.

The February dB also features our always, uh, completely accurate Top 25 Most Anticipated Albums of the Year preview, plus features on Black Tusk, Evoken, Will Haven and King Diamond, and Autopsy’s killer inaugural flexi. It’s up to you to see who else is representing on the gauntlet tip.

-AB

You can order the February 2012 issue of Decibel here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss one an issue?