You’ve all read Decibel editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian’s Choosing Death, right? If not, you should get off your ass and do that; it’s the definitive history of death metal and grindcore, and whether you’ve been a fan of those genres since the day of Scum or you’re a youngin’ trying to figure out what the big deal about Carcass is, you are guaranteed to learn something from reading it.

Well, I’m super-stoked to let you know that Mudrian has now penned a second volume of Choosing Death — this one focusing on deathcore. Says Mudrian via press release:

“Deathcore is the definitive form of extreme music in the aughties. As Napalm Death, Carcass, Cannibal Corpse, and Suffocation were to my generation, so will bands like Suicide Silence, Oceano, Emmure, and Winds of Plague be to this generation.These bands are proudly carrying the torch of the brutal music we all love, so it only made sense to see to it that their story was told.”

And the best part is — MetalSucks’ own Sergeant D. wrote the introduction! So now you know you need that shit.

You can pre-order a copy of Albert Mudrian’s Choosing Death II right here — it hits shelves on May 24 via Da Capo Press.

-AR

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.

By now, you all know that Decibel’s December Hall of Fame is Venom’s Welcome to Hell. Good shit, right? Not to mention, it’s always fun when a HOF inductee either has a) two or three killer albums, but nothing that blows the rest of the discography out of the unholy water (I’d put Isis and Ministry in this category, although they haven’t popped up in the Hall just yet), or b) two or three stone-cold face-rulers, and no matter which record we pick, somebody will be harshed that the others got left out. Venom are of the latter ilk. (I wrote “ilk.”) You could make a strong-ass argument for Black Metal, and people have, emphatically. Being the dude who makes these calls can suck. And by “the dude,” I mean editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian, who I’ve as of yet failed to convince that Coal Chamber s/t would “tie the room together.” How about honoring both, you might ask? As of today, we haven’t inducted two albums from the same band; it would be a totally different nightmare determining who should be the first to deserve that. At the end of the day, in my eyes, Welcome to Hell vs. Black Metal — it’s a toss-up, right?

Or not. Sayeth Albert: “Welcome to Hell is hands-down the superior record. A lot of folks champion Black Metal as the better LP, but they think it’s better only because the record is CALLED Black Metal and it makes for a cooler T-shirt! Don’t get me wrong — Black Metal still rules — but tracks like “Teacher’s Pet” and “To Hell and Back” can’t hold an inverted cross to anything on Welcome to Hell.”

This is the same man, mind you, who won’t honor a pointless, already-forgotten sports bet by growing a beard and dying it black. But his reasoning may be a little sounder this time. Agreed?

-AB

If you wanna read Decibel‘s complete Hall of Fame entry on Venom’s Welcome to Hell, you’re gonna need to go ahead and buy yourself a copy of the December 2010 issue of Decibel. But, better yet, why don’t you just treat yourself and buy yourself a full subscription, so you can read EVERY Hall of Fame entry from now on?

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.

While the free world breathlessly awaits the results of Decibel editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian’s NLCS bet with Exhumed frontman Matt Harvey — and even down 3-1, it’s way too early to start taunting the boss with “black black black black number ooooooone” — the rest of team dB has moved on to give you a Very Special December issue.

Yes, that’s one of extreme music’s most polarizing mugs on the cover. (You know what, let’s say “polarizing figure”; there’s nothing polarizing about Phil’s facial expressions, which all clearly fucking rule.) As usual, the man has a billion things going on. Sadly, one of them is not the fourth Down record (yet), although a new Arson Anthem slab and the 20^th anniversary of Cowboys From Hell are pretty sick placeholders. For a dude that’s been somewhat, um, contentious in interviews, Anselmo is crazy gregarious with our man J. Bennett. Like Mustaine or Lars, whether you love or hate the guy, he gives great copy. And I promise that the anecdotes about early Pantera — especially pertaining to Seagal-caliber bar pummelings — will do you right.

As for the rest of the issue, there’s plenty more radness that you can see for yourself on the cover, but one thing you can’t that I’ll spoil right now is Rod Smith’s review of the Amphetamine Reptile 25^th anniversary show. Shannon Selberg of the Cows is wearing mousetraps as earrings. ‘Nuff said. This fucker will be on newsstands next week, but we wouldn’t mind picking up our Secret Santa anal beads before Black Friday, so help us out by grabbing it early here.

Oh yeah, if you’re getting pumped about the Incantation Onward to Golgotha Hall of Fame shows that I’ve been babbling about the last month or so, the New York one just moved. It’s no longer at Rebel on November 20, but Club Europa, which evidently is here:

Europa Night Club
98 Meserole Ave. (corner of Manhattan Ave.)
Brooklyn, NY 11222

Shit will rule. Snap ’em up.

-AB

Like the man said, you can buy yourself a copy of the December 2010 issue of Decibel here. But we’ll love you better if you just go ahead and buy yourself a full subscription. Trust us, it’s totally worth it!!!

Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh: “A good friend of mine used to say, ‘This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.’ Think about that for a while.”

For Mets fans like Vince Neilstein and yours truly, the preceding Bull Durham gem is probably the most charitable way to assess the last four seasons of Shea/Citi Field underachieving. For Phillies fans like Decibel asshole-in-chief Albert Mudrian and Giants fans like Exhumed splatter-master Matt Harvey, their go-to baseball flick quote du jour has to be the great Roger Dorn of Major League: “I got one thing to say to you, Vaughn: Strike this motherfucker out!”

Yes, the National League Championship Series is set for launch on Saturday, with San Fran squaring off against Philly. While Vince and I would strongly recommend going to a show — any show; like, Ke$ha would suffice — instead of supporting MLB’s dwindling playoff ratings, you might think otherwise now that the dignity of not only an extreme metal magazine publisher but vaunted musician is on the line. It turns out that Harvey is feeling awfully good about the Giants’ chances in the best-of-seven, and challenged Mudrian to an appropriately retarded wager. Anybody who has seen SF closer Brian Wilson lately can attest that Harvey’s challenge is solid fucking gold. Catch up right here for the terms, and join us in brainstorming something even more humiliating.

Or just post “Yanks in 4” or some such fucktardery in the comments. Either way.

-AB

In case you’re curious, Axl Rosenberg doesn’t give two shits about sports. But he wants you to buy yourself a copy of the November 2010 issue of Decibel or, better yet, buy yourself a full subscription. If you don’t, expect lots more coverage of Skunk Anansie in the near future.

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. Smart, funny, insightful, and honest, Decibel was recently called “The not completely fucktarded version of MetalSucks” by revered cultural critic Slavoj Žižek. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli.

First of all, holy shit, we misspelled Kataklysm on the last cover. Great catch by Clancy in the comments. You win my unyielding respect, which means a lot, since I’m the sort of person who seriously entertained rolling bowling balls down a hill toward oncoming traffic during high school. Anyway (hi mom!), Good Christ, do I fucking detest misspelling. I’m talking anything from “Woah” instead of “Whoa” to Jonas “Renske” instead of “Renkse.” Then again, the second “e” in our logo was backwards, dawg, for the first 24 issues. (It took throwing those big fat smart bugs in Isis on the cover to inspire some semblance of editorial literacy — and some semblance of not many people buying an issue of Decibel that month.)

Amorphis — well, you can’t really misspell that, short of writing a review as Sylvester the Cat. Another thing about Amorphis: They’re hard to write about when you’re simultaneously listening to The Promise Ring in your iTunes. Who the FUCK put that shit in there anyway? Surely not the same genius that put Amorphis’ Tales From the Thousand Lakes into our vaunted Hall of Fame. (Transitions: my specialty.) That genius would be Albert Mudrian, our Editor in Chief, the same man who has IMed me the word “Woah” on several occasions over the past two weeks. Do you know how much he loves Tales From the Thousand Lakes? So much so that he detested it until 2008, before mysteriously falling in love with it. (Kind of the same way you all feel about Disturbed’s Ten Thousand Fists.) And just like that, we got Scandi-phile Chris Dick on the trail, and Tomi, Esa, Jan, Olli-Pekka and Kasper regaling us with — you guessed it —t ales of ill-fated dentistry videos, Doors covers, clean vocals and hotel trashing. And accomplishing that was no walk in the park, as the Dickman has been working on a Moog-less version of this HOF for years, with or without the EIC’s kind of necessary approval.

So, what do you guys think? Is Tales worthy of induction? Is another Amorphis jam more deserving? Should we have just gone with 10K Fist Fuckz? Talk it out.

-AB

Buy yourself a copy of the October 2010 issue of Decibel here, or just go ahead and buy yourself a full subscription here. It comes down to about two bucks an issue for a one-year subscription, which is roughly thirty-six dollars more a year you could be spending on spelling lessins.

There just aren’t enough good books about metal in the world. I mean, you can only read The Dirt or Choosing Death so many times, y’know? And it’s the summer, and I want to go sit on a beach and read, goddamn it. Now, sure, I could read any number of books on any number of topics, who really gives a shit about anything but loud, obnoxious music? Amirightoramiright?

Luckily for all of us, Flavorwire has now unveiled “A Summer Reading List for Metalheads.” And it’s actually pretty helpful!

Click to read more…

Here’s what I don’t understand about all these lists: why they make people so very angry. When we set out to make our 21 Best Albums of the 21st Century (So Far) list earlier this year, we pretty much knew from the outset that it would be unsatisfactory. For one thing, there were only going to be 21 albums on the list, which meant a lot of great records were going to get left off; for another thing, we made the decision early on to allow bands to have multiple albums on the list if that was the way the voting turned out, and that meant that even more artists who deserved recognition weren’t going to get it; and finally, there was the very issue of how you even go about compiling such a list – we thought it was exciting to solicit the opinions of a lot of prominent musicians and industry insiders (as opposed to just the MS staff), but that approach obviously had its pros and cons, too. I’m not apologizing for or disowning our list – I’m just pointing out what should be obvious, which is that it was meant to be a fun conversation starter, which, from our end at least, is exactly what it was. And who really gives a shit which albums did or did not end up on that list? You know which albums you love and which ones you hate, so you shouldn’t need MetalSucks, or any other media outlet, to validate your opinion. I think Albert Mudrian is a great writer and is way more knowledgeable about metal than I am, but my ego isn’t so frail that I need him to agree with my every assessment of every band and every album.

Which brings me to what this blog post is actually about: Decibel’s 100 Greatest Metal Albums of the Decade special, which you can order here. It’s considerably more comprehensive that our list was, but I imagine most intelligent metal fans will also find it just as infuriating, and just as fun.

Click to read more…

This summer’s ridiculously hot but still awesome Blackened Music Series show with Brutal Truth, Pig Destroyer and Repulsion was, technically speaking, a book release party for Precious Metal, a book collected Decibel’s awesome Hall of Fame series in one classy edition. That fact got kind of overlooked as the world celebrated such an incredible grind show taking place, but there ya have it. It’s a really cool book and you should buy it.

So. Our friends from Metal Injection were on hand, and not only did they interview the dudes gods from Pig Destroyer, but they also snagged an interview with Albert Mudrian. In addition to being the editor-of-chief of the Decibel, Albert wrote Choosing Death, which is pretty much the definitive history of death and grind. In other words: the guy knows his shit.

Here’s MI’s interview with Albert. As a metal-writing nerd, I found it fascinating. And don’t forget to head over to Metal Injection to watch the Pig Destroyer interview, too (they also have plenty of ass-rippingly good live footage from the show). ‘Cause, y’know. It’s fucking PIG DESTROYER.

-AR

Without fail, my favorite part of Decibel every month is their Hall of Fame series, in which they get some insanely truthful and in-depth interviews with bands about the making of classic albums (the rule is all the band members still have to be alive and able to discuss the record, so, alas, no albums by Death, Pantera, etc. will ever make the list). Awhile back it was hinted in the pages of Decibel that the best of these columns would be expanded and collected into one volume, and now said volume – Precious Metal – will be released on July 15 on Da Capo Press. It was edited by Decibel’s own master blaster, Albert Mudrian, who, in case ya didn’t know, also wrote the totally awesome Choosing Death, which I think everyone pretty much agrees is the definitive tome on the history of death n’ grind.

Precious Metal is already available for pre-order on Amazon and minus the cost of shipping, it’ll run you a measly thirteen bucks. And it will be worth every penny, I have no doubt…

-AR

At the beginning of April, just as genre-bending metal masters The Red Chord were kicking off a tour with Converge, Genghis Tron, Baroness and Coliseum, we were given the opportunity to e-mail bassist Greg Weeks some questions. Of course, we jumped at the chance.

And then we never heard back.

At the time, we assumed that Greg had decided our questions were just too stupid to answer (and who could blame the dude?); in fact, there was another culprit at fault for Greg’s delayed response.

After the jump, find out why it took Greg so long to get back to us, and read his thoughts on such incredibly relevant political topics as why no producer will work with the band more than once, touring with Disturbed, and the current state of large beards in metal. For, surely, this interview proves our journalistic integrity.

Click to read more…