Thanks to various teases both in print and right here on this very website, we’ve known for sometime that our friends at Decibel were working on their very own tour; and given how awesome Decibel is, we expected that tour to be something pretty special. But now the line-up has been announced, and… WOW. We didn’t realize it would be this special.

The twenty-six date trek is going to be headlined by Behemoth, making their triumphant return to U.S. stages for the first time since Nergal was diagnosed with, and ultimately defeated, leukemia. And while that fact alone should definitely be enough to get you asking “Where do I buy my ticket?”, just to make extra-extra sure that this tour is unfuckwithable, support is going to come from Watain, The Devil’s Blood, and In Solitude.

And now I believe the words you’re looking for are, “HOLY SHIT!”

Speaking about the tour, Nergal himself said, “I’m thrilled… seriously, I am thrilled about the fact we are arriving to US shores again after such a long break. It’s a big deal for us.” Watain’s Erik Danielsson added the following:

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…

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?

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

-AB

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…

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…

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

-AB

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

-AB

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

-AB

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?