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…

Everybody loves a comeback. It’s why we still pay attention to Metallica (that’s why we still pay attention to Metallica, right?), why we were so psyched when Celtic Frost (almost) erased Cold Lake with Monotheist and the ensuing Triptykon action, and why there’s just a sliver of hope in your rotted heart that maybe Morbid Angel, Cryptopsy and the Haunted find the strength to stop fucking around sometime next year.

Autopsy’s Shitfun maybe wasn’t that egregious an offender compared to the above. Well, the cover was, although I enjoy imagining that thing as a Halloween-size Butterfinger. Anyway, after the death metal hall of famers dropped their 1995, um, turd, and transmogrified into Abscess, they were neatly filed in the “unlikely comeback” department. Then Macabre Eternal placed high on our ever-unfuckwithable Top 40 Extreme Albums of 2011 list, and We All Good Again.

We so good, in fact, that Autopsy are graciously keeping the hot streak ablaze on the latest installment of the Decibel Flexi Series, a special rerecording of “Mauled to Death,” which super-fans might remember from their ’87 demo. It’s raw, unmastered, polished only by sweet metallic purple on blue vinyl, and only for subscribers. Give it a test drive below, and since I won’t be annoying you next week, happy (barf) hellidays.

Autopsy “Mauled To Death” (2012 unmastered version) (dB014) by Decibel Magazine

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The February 2012 issue of Decibel, which also features Goatwhore, The Black Dahlia Murder, Black Tusk, a preview of 2012′s most anticipated new releases, and a King Diamond/Abigail Hall of Fame, can be ordered 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…

Decibel Deleted Scenes time. We couldn’t quite cram this into the splattered entrails of January’s Cryptopsy HOF, but Adrien Begrand compiled some stirring None So Vile testimonials from the technical death metal legends’ peers. Here are those musicians’ choice cuts on our latest inductee.

John Longstreth (Gorguts, Origin)

“Slit Your Guts”—what an amazing death metal song, right? That screamy, shrill intro piece—it sounds like they were paying homage to a drill press. The stop at 0:25, the solo is beautiful, the opening lyrics are “Pardon, please…” Holy cow, what went wrong with these guys? Some sort of rotten black brilliance was causing some serious torment in these dudes’ heads. How else could it be written? Definitely a poignant and early representation of how nail-biting, nervous and strung-out death metal would come to sound. A definite influence for me and Origin. Thank you for this song and album! Congratulations, gentlemen! You deserve it!

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 to get in on today’s needless-listing fun…

HIPSTERS

“Well, someone didn’t like Wolves in the Throne Room.”

REASONABLE NERDS

“Somewhat surprised that neither Batillus nor Hull cracked the top 40, while Junius—a meh-ish post-something-or-other band w/ a Coldplay vocal influence—did.”

UNDERGROUND ELITIST DOUCHEBAGS

“well im glad to see decible is still totally clueless and of total shit taste as they should be. stay out of the trve vndergrovnd!”

PEOPLE REALLY EXCITED ABOUT LULU

“Over the half the bands on that list won’t even be around in 5 years. Horrible.”

PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY BUY RECORDS 

“Glad to see Yob, 40 Watt Sun, Tombs, Subrosa, and Graveyard among a few others getting some love.”

-AB

If you wanna read the Top 40 list to which everyone is so reasonably reacting, you’ll need to buy the January 2012 issue of Decibel 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…

Teaser time! It took us almost eight years to earn (and lose, and re-earn, kind of) enough cred to make this happen, but we’re proud to announce the first-ever Decibel Magazine Tour, coming next April to an unflushed toilet near you! And dickish enough to not announce that much more about it! But we do have the glorious official tour logo above, rendered by sketch-tastic auteur Justin Bartlett (Trap Them, Wolves Like Us, Locrian), with text lettering courtesy of in-house design scumbag Bruno Guerreiro.

While a real-deal announcement about the actual participants will be made sometime after the new year, you can actually somewhat determine what bands are onboard from Justin’s art. Study closely, then take a stab in the comments. Hint: Orgy haven’t officially reformed yet, so gotta wait ’til 2013 on that one.

-AB

While you wait for the big announcement: the January 2012 issue of Decibel, which features Lamb of God, Behemoth, Opeth, Mastodon, and a Cryptopsy Hall of Fame, can be ordered 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…

Lamb of God and their new American goatees get the cover, and Agoraphobic Nosebleed and their frozen corpses stuffed with holiday cheer get the flexi, but the main component of Decibel’s January issue that will get the internet’s privates in a knot is the Top 40 Albums of the Year list. I’ve been at this job since 2005, and back in the day I recall reading about how “adventurous” and “fresh” the list was, but then snarkiness was invented in roughly 2009, and now it’s, at best, “polarizing.” But “polarizing” is good! Ghost are polarizing! Gnaw Their Tongues: polarizing! Nickelback playing halftime at the Lions game tomorrow: considering the intended audience and surrounding context: believe it or not, polarizing! It definitely won’t be dull, ’cause despite the fact that we’ll lovingly fellate 3-6 albums you adore, the rest will drive you fucking nuts, and you’ll hurt our feelings in comments sections across the universe. We all know the drill. Anyway, I don’t want to go on about the Top 40 much more, because Albert made me write the print edition intro again, and the requisite bitterness, arrogance and self-deprecation is already piled on there. Check the issue out in the webstore, and go Megatron!

-AB

The January 2012 issue of Decibel also features Behemoth, Opeth, Mastodon, and a Cryptopsy Hall of Fame, and can be ordered 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…

I was impressed when Wormrot crammed three songs onto our eighth Decibel flexi disc back in August. One of those also happened to run away with the coveted Best Flexi Song Title award (“Fuck… I’m Sober”). Until now. I don’t know if Wormrot’s short sharp shock treatment inspired Agoraphobic Nosebleed to one-up their international brothers in grind, but shit just got real. No matter what you think of ANb’s pathological need to provoke, you can’t say they half-assed their flexi, appearing this January in conjunction with our annual year-end festivities.

Scott Hull’s staff of elves has painstakingly assembled our first ever holiday-themed flexi, Make a Joyful Noise. If you thought Mariah and Kenny G had the market cornered on Christmas sounds the whole family can enjoy, check out this 11-song, four-minute stocking stuffer, featuring future caroling classics like “Hung Like a Stocking by the Chimney With Care,” “Santa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” and (…) “Frozen Corpse Stuffed With Holiday Cheer.” A limited number of copies of the issue with the flexi are now available in the Decibel webstore , so order now. In the mean time, the lyrics to this masterpiece, reprinted after the jump, should whet the shit out of your appetite.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed “Make a Joyful Noise” (dB013) by Decibel Magazine

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…

Our year-in-review issue goes to print in, like, minutes. (Hopefully I’ve had some semblance of lunch by the time Vince and Axl throw this post up.) So, let’s throw the usual rhetorical stalling out the window and get to the point: Guess what band will grace the cover of this hand-wringing/throat-slashing funfest and win a Decibot T-shirt. The only hint I’m allowed to give you is actually a really big one: They’ve never been on the cover of Decibel before. Hit it!

-AB

The December 2011 issue of Decibel features Megadeth, Municipal Waste, Animals as Leaders, Landmine Marathon, Hammers of Misfortune, and an awesome Goatwhore flexi disc, and can be ordered 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…

We’ve done three special one-off Decibels now, and have pimped them in this very spot like Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver (you can do anything you want with them… but no rough stuff, all right?). The one you see above is my favorite, not necessarily because I prefer thrash to black metal or a general ’90s metal countdown, but because a shark eating a skeleton eating a pizza is only half the fucking cover art by acclaimed metal artist Andrei Bouzikov (Municipal Waste, Skeletonwitch, Cannabis Corpse).

Anyway, the content is just as choice: a galloping rundown of the top 50 thrash albums of all time, buffered by seven radical Hall of Fames:

Slayer, Reign in Blood
Anthrax, Among the Living
Testament, The Legacy
Metallica,  …And Justice for All
Megadeth, Rust in Peace
Anacrusis, Reason
Prong, Beg to Differ

The latter three are exclusive to this issue, duh. If you’re wondering why the Big Four haven’t been fully represented in the Hall until now, well, it took years of busting ass from writer Chris Dick to make it happen. (Which you probably could’ve guessed—I mean, it’s Megadeth.) But it’s really funny and harsh and long—I’m sure I’ll post some deleted scene action here someday, since we basically had to cut it in half. Anyway, the Thrash HOF issue is available only in Decibel’s webstore and select indie record shops (go here to find a store near you). If you missed out on our previous special issues, we’ve put together this triple-threat bundle for extreme convenience. You’re welcome.

Any other thrash-centric HOFs you wanna see in the future? Comment away.

-AB

You can order this very special one-off issue right here. And, of course, the December 2011 issue of Decibel – which features Megadeth, Municipal Waste, Animals as Leaders, Landmine Marathon, Hammers of Misfortune, and an awesome Goatwhore flexi disc – can be ordered 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…

Three weeks ago we played a little hide the salami “Guess the Next Decibel HOF,” and “Mark” busted right out of the gates to correctly identify Tragedy’s self-titled debut. Like, for real, on the very first comment. One might assume Mark’s exploiting some inside info, but if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t trying, and since everyone here’s exhausted from fledgling fatherhood and binge-drinking, fuck it, he wins! We’ll be in touch regarding the subscription soon, dude.

The feature itself—conducted by Kevin Stewart-Panko with the whole band in the back room of an Indian buffet in Baltimore—is a slow-burner. Yannick Lorrain, Billy Davis and the Burdette brothers were originally reluctant to sit down and talk about their evolution from His Hero Is Gone, but once they got comfortable, the anecdotes started to ricochet in all directions, mirroring the adventurous chaos of Tragedy’s music. Was the album’s cover randomly pulled out of the trash at Kinko’s? Possibly. Did the band almost get curb-stomped by a cabal of neo-Nazis in Poland? Perhaps. Are they one of Portland’s last legitimately awesome exports before that city became a stronghold of sniveling pussy indie bullshit? Could be! Read all about ’em in the MegaDave issue.

-AB

The December 2011 issue of Decibel also features Municipal Waste, Animals as Leaders, Landmine Marathon, Hammers of Misfortune, and an awesome Goatwhore flexi disc, and can be ordered 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…

I’m kind of scared to interview Dave Mustaine. Not because I have a Vic Rattlehead backpiece and placekick my cat every time she comes within three feet of my Peace Sells… vinyl box. And not because he’s an intimidating, confrontational guy with a scary-low tolerance for perceived affronts. Mostly because he has a tendency to ramble like the bum downstairs who just tried to buy one of my smokes for a quarter, and we don’t have a Decibel intern right now who would transcribe that clusterfuck for me. Luckily, Jeff Treppel is a true believer with infinite patience, and he did an unsurprisingly stellar job on December’s Megadeth cover story.

It’s about time we gave MegaDave a cover all to himself (he shared the glory with Testament and Slayer back in February of ’10). Hell, there are plenty of occasions to commemorate. The oddly stylized new record is, in fact, number TH1RT3EN, and Dave just celebrated the big 5-0 with a (literally) backbreaking Big Four homecoming. Most surprising of all, he comes off as legitimately introspective and humble for the duration of the piece. And bonus: the cover image is just the right blend of really cool and disarmingly creepy. The December ish also features a super-exclusive interview Jef Whitehead of Leviathan (speaking of confrontational), as well as Daniel Ekeroth’s favorite new-school Swedish death metal bands, stories on Absu, Animals as Leaders, Muni Waste and… yeah, you can see it all for yourself right there on the cover.

-AB

The December 2011 issue of Decibel also features Landmine Marathon, Hammers of Misfortune, and an awesome Goatwhore flexi disc, and can be ordered 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…

Goatwhore’s Carving Out the Eyes of God settled in at #27 on our Top 40 Albums of 2009 list, and in the accompanying write-up, Liz Brenner enthused that the blackened-death clusterfuck was the sort of “neck-bulging, fist-extending sort of heavy that makes it hard to breathe freely or form sentences that don’t start with ‘fucking.’” I know we tend to get hyperbolic about NOLA sludge at dB, but… hold on, let’s get to a period. Fucking a. (You go, Liz.)

It’s so cool and gratifying when a solid, hard-working veteran band starts lurching towards greatness—unless you have your shit together from note one of song one on album one, evolution and development are pretty great things—and now we’re all psyched about album numero cinco, due in 2012. This month’s installment in the dB Flexi Series isn’t a sneak preview per se, but it’s the first piece of new music you’ve heard from Goatwhore in a long time—a cover of Motörhead’s self-explanatory and totally correct “(Don’t Need) Religion,” off 1982’s Iron Fist. The gents banged out the cover during sessions for the as-yet-untitled new Metal Blade LP, and you can stream it right here in advance of the hard copy, which will—as always—be available to subscribers only in the December Decibel.

Goatwhore “(Don’t Need) Religion” (originally by Motorhead) (dB012) by Decibel Magazine

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The December 2011 issue of Decibel also features Megadeth, Municipal Waste, Animals as Leaders, Absu, and Russian Circles,and 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…

I’ve been an editor at Decibel for six years now, and I’m a Tony Gwynnian one for three on successfully executing a Hall of Fame feature—Quicksand’s Slip was my “groundball with legs,” way back in June of ’07. This meant interviewing all four members separately by phone, which necessitated specializing a few questions for each dude, but in the end mostly asking the same goddamn thing, worded the exact same way, four times. While conforming to dB standards and practices made the process a little boring at times, it was nevertheless interesting to identify the small fissures in memory and chronology in their shared experience. You get a more thorough picture. I’ve always disliked group interviews for that very reason—interviewing band members one at a time prevents, say, the singer from hogging the conch, the drummer from clamming up, the bassist from waiting for somebody else to tell the story, then chiming in with the cursory “Yeah, what he said.”

On the flipside, if you can corral a band in one room and there’s still some semblance of camaraderie and enthusiasm, you can get some entertaining overlap, and the guys do your job for you, going off into tangents and anecdotes you’d never dreamed of addressing. Most of our Ministry HOF went down that way, as Bill Rieflin, Chris Connelly and Paul Barker requested that they be interviewed together and separately from Al Jourgensen. And our forthcoming December HOF is 100 percent like that, as our esteemed writer (no hints) got an esteemed band (ditto) to chat about their classic record over dinner, and the piece wound up all the better specifically due to the way in which it was conducted. They riffed off each other, and good shit happened (then again, I wasn’t the poor bastard who had to transcribe it, so what do I know?) Guess the artist and album based on the clip below and, as usual, we’ll hook you up with a six-month subscription.

DECIBEL HALL OF FAME DECEMBER 2011

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The November 2011 issue of Decibel features Skeletonwitch, Alice Cooper, Machine Head, Chimaira, Brutal Truth, and an awesome Anaal Nathrakh 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…

It took us a while to get industrial pioneers Ministry in the Decibel Hall of Fame — classic case of the classic lineup hating each other’s classic guts. But enterprising staffer Chris Dick finally convinced the infamous “Book Club” (Paul Barker, Bill Rieflin, Chris Connelly) to sit down together and reminisce upon the bad old days alongside polarizing ringleader Al Jourgensen, and now we’ve got a satisfyingly blunt, insightful and acrimonious history of The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste.

I seem to recall lobbying for The Land of Rape and Honey and/or Psalm 69 when Team dB was debating the apex of Ministry’s long run. Near the end of this HOF, Rieflin wisely notes that Mind is a transitional record between the two. Literally, yes, duh, but he’s underscoring how all over the place it is; and yet, it really does boast some of the most powerful hybrids of Ministry’s “phase B” and “C.” (“A” being the “Everyday Is Halloween” era, which we’ve all tried so hard to forget.) Honestly, though, I feel like this is an outfit that never quite captured a start-to-finish stone-cold classic. They admit as much in the piece, as the Book Club straight up obliterates the record’s penultimate industrial/hip-hop hybrid “Test” (Al’s idea). It’s much harder to fuck with “Thieves,” “So What” and “Burning Inside”—although Al certainly tries with the latter.

The good-times HOF is in the Skeletonwitch issue, obvs, but you tell us: Which Ministry album is at the top of your personal Hall of Fame? (Filth Pig will not get your knuckles smacked in this classroom.)

-AB

Yeah, you could just order Decibel’s November 2011 issue, which also features Alice Cooper, Machine Head, Chimaira, Brutal Truth, and an awesome Anaal Nathrakh flexi disc — 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’m digging the Skeletonwitch cover this month, but Chance Garnette looks like a younger version of this guy. THERE IS NO FUCKIN’ PUMPKIN ICE CREAM IN YOUR FUCKIN’ FUTURE.

Luckily, House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects never come up in J. Bennett’s comprehensive and revealing cover story on Athens, Ohio’s premier metal outfit (although Appalachian Death Ride sound promising—thanks, Wikipedia!). The blackened thrash quintet has been refining their (witch)craft over the last half-decade while dealing with annoying member turnover. Now Forever Abomination is poised to be their breakthrough; we’re obviously in their corner either way, seeing as how SW made their stamp on the Flexi Series just a month earlier.

The ’Witch headline a Halloween rogues’ gallery in November, including a Call & Response with Alice Cooper, an amusingly acrimonious HOF on Ministry’s The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, features on Goreaphobia and Exhumed, and a new Flexi with Anaal Nathrakh dressing up to deconstruct the Specials’ “Man at C&A.” And as always there’s plenty more razor blades embedded within. Subscribers will have the issue within the next three weeks, the rest of you can order it here now.

-AB

Yeah, you could just order Decibel’s November 2011 issue, which also features Machine Head, Chimaira, and Brutal Truth — 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…

Today’s “Fear, Emptiness, Decibel” is basically a bulletin informing you about our Anaal Nathrakh Flexi Series stream. Or, as the editor-in-chief just referred to it via IM, our “anaal stream.” Being a five-year-old boy (in a 12-year-old girl’s body), I promptly hit Google for more “anal/anaal” puns to annoy you with, but forgot that their autocomplete is totally PG-13; their two options for anal (“anal cancer treatment” and “anal cancer staging”) aren’t exactly knee-slappers.

So, in lieu of buttplay humor, let’s just acknowledge the many blackened-grind merits of AN. Which are precisely what allow Irrumator and V.I.T.R.I.O.L. to do totally back-of-the-left-field-bleachers shit, like cover the Specials for the Flexi Series. Their interpretation of the checkered icons’ “Man at C&A” is just the right blend of WTF and gnarly that we were hoping for when this series launched. It’s streaming right here:

Anaal Nathrakh “Man at C&A” (dB011) by Decibel Magazine

It appears in silver on yellow glory in the November Decibel—for subscribers only—but there are a limited number of copies available in the webstore, so get there pronto.

-AB

Decibel’s November 2011 issue also features Skeletonwitch, Alice Cooper, Brutal Truth, Machine Head, Chimaira,  and a Ministry Hall of Fame. 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…

Some of our Decibel Hall of Fames don’t happen because a prominent member is dead. Some of them don’t happen because we just can’t track down that fucking keyboardist who found Jesus and changed his name out of embarrassment. And then the rest don’t happen because the members simply hate each other’s fucking guts—my favorite subset of that being when everyone can’t stand the purported “mastermind.”

In this month’s case, we’ve got an example of the latter that somehow worked out (after a lot of pleading and ego-massaging), and it’s easily as entertaining and hilarious as J. Bennett’s write-up of Monster Magnet’s Dopes to Infinity. Check out the audio below, try to identify who’s rhapsodizing about the bad old days, and we’ll hook you up with a six-month subscription.

DECIBEL HALL OF FAME NOVEMBER 2011

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Decibel’s October 2011 issue features Mastodon, The Black Dahlia Murder, YOB, Today is the Day, Dimmu Borgir, Testament, a Queensrÿche/Operation: Mindcrime Hall of Fame and an awesome Skeletonwitch flexi disc. 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…

A Queensrÿche Hall of Fame. This is happening. And I mean this is happening in the same way Jack Black meant this is happening when he punted Baxter off the bridge. Some-to-many of you may think this is happening in a “holy shit, Decibel is finally acknowledging this mind-blowing, flawlessly executed, classy-as-hell progressive masterwork,” and that’s what I’m looking for here. You will be very happy with Jeff Wagner’s comprehensive history of Operation: Mindcrime. Anybody who’s ever conceptualized and executed an ambitious, intricate, super-precise creative endeavor will be astonished at how these dudes maintained their integrity and vision throughout the process. Once in a (great) while, sincerity is a good thing.

Now here’s some stuff that Albert—who probably doesn’t trust me to go another paragraph without making fun of this band—wants you to know: “Silent Lucidity” is still shitty, and it’s not on this record. The “Queen of the Reich” video is completely fucking insane/amazing. Oh yeah, and the umlaut would’ve gone over the “r” or something in the whole damn magazine if it wasn’t for my world-class copy-editing eye. As you may have guessed by now, the Mindcrime HOF runs in the Mastodon issue, which actually makes a lot of sense now that I think about it. (I seriously hadn’t thought about it until now.)

-AB

Decibel’s October 2011 issue also features The Black Dahlia Murder, YOB, Today is the Day, Dimmu Borgir, Testament, and an awesome Skeletonwitch flexi disc. 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…

Mastodon’s on the cover of the October Decibel, and that’s four times total now, one more than any other artist. When you climb to that level of popularity—then for at least one glorious month park your ass comfortably atop it—polarization is inevitable. And if this achievement coincided with the release of Crack the Skye, arguably their most popular album and far and away my least favorite, I’d be rolling my eyes along with the haters right now. But what’s so interesting about Masto—and I think as good a reason as any to spotlight them four times—is that every album has so little to do with its predecessor. Love ’em/hate ’em/jack off to ’em/begrudgingly admire ’em, they’re doing exactly what they want and not sweating the consequences (wait ’til you hear “The Creature Lives”). Mind you, this is all really easy to say since I think The Hunter assimilates most of the awesome shit from Remission, Leviathan and Blood Mountain, and is crazy-catchy without being pandering, but the same sentiment goes no matter what they do. Mastodon are always at the cusp of evolution. They picked the right name.

Anyway, Kevin Stewart-Panko did the cover story, meeting up the dudes at the end of their two-year Skye touring cycle, and discovers why The Hunter is their first without a labyrinthine overarching concept. It’s in the webstore now, available for subscribers within two weeks, also featuring that ripping Skeletonwitch flexi disc.

-AB

Decibel’s October 2011 issue also features The Black Dahlia Murder, YOB, Today is the Day, Dimmu Borgir, Testament and a Queensrÿche/Operation: Mindcrime Hall of Fame. 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…

This month’s Decibel Flexi artist is Skeletonwitch, who have forever endeared themselves to me by picking vintage SuperSonics gold on green as their color scheme. (Note: Skeletonwitch are not from Seattle and didn’t have shit to do with the colors.) Anyway, the music on it is pretty choice, too, especially if you’re an O.G. Witch fan. And I’m talking really O.G.—like, say, the Garnette boys’ (probably nonexistent) little sister. “Tragedy of Days” was the closing instrumental to their 2004 debut At One With the Shadows. You won’t find a review in the first couple issues of Decibel because AOWTS came out on Shredded Records (someone might wanna update the actual album’s Wiki page), and sells for a handsome $80 on eBay today. Anyway, the Flexi version of “Tragedy of Days” has full vocals, so it’s essentially a brand new song. Pretty cool move on their part. You can preview it here to make sure they didn’t ruin the jam you haven’t heard—they didn’t:

Skeletonwitch “Tragedy Of Days (dB010)” by Decibel Magazine

Then secure this gem by ordering the new issue in our webstore pronto.

-AB

Decibel’s October 2011 issue also features Mastodon, The Black Dahlia Murder, YOB, Today is the Day, and a Queensrÿche/Operation: Mindcrime Hall of Fame. But the only way to ensure that you get one of these awesome flexi discs is to get a full subscription.

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…