After returning Sunday night from my final jaunt of 2010 down to the MS Mansion Kentucky Korner, I logged onto Decibel Magazine‘s Deciblog for some late night bloggery… and lo and behold, it looks all purdy and shit! Not that the website of our favorite metal magazine wasn’t looking mighty fine before, but their new site design is like the equivalent of that time early this summer that Axl showed up to a hangout in his spiffy new pinstripe shorts; all that much sexier! And as always, Decibel’s talented writers are infinitely more clever than we are.

In addition to their fancy-shmancy new layout, The Deciblog is ablaze with new contest; Kylesa’s Laura Pleasants lists her Top 5 Albums That Remind Her of High School, Alex Lee from Bonded by Blood’s mad yoyo skillz (with video!), an interview with Laethora’s Niklas Sundin and the latest on Landmine Marathon frontwoman Grace Perry’s side project Osama Bin SARS. Check it, add it to your bookmarks / RSS and be merry.

-VN

That’s what The Deciblog called JoshofDarkness, the YouTuber you can watch below pleading for some sort of understanding amongst metalheads everywhere. And while I think anyone who has ever read this site is probably pretty aware that we enjoy bands from the entire metallic spectrum, at the end of the day, I have to agree with The Deciblog on this one: “his position is indefensible.”

-AR

Here’s what The Deciblog posted this morning with regards to the above video:

“And how’s this for weirdo irony: Epitaph’s recent signing I Set My Friends on Fire is the first case of a MySpace sensation inking a deal based entirely on a reinterpretation of another MySpace sensation’s work (a batshit crazy “screamo” cover of Soulja Boy’s “Crank Dat”). Good for the kids in I Set My Friends on Fire for taking advantage of those desperately out-of-touch carpetbaggers at Epitaph and grabbing the loot — they’d probably find other ways of peddling their wares without a deal, but now they can make music with less distractions. As you can see from the video above, Matt and Nabil seem like pretty funny guys and obviously don’t take themselves too seriously. And the songs on their MySpace page — despite drawing from a somewhat limited palette — are proof that ironic screamo is the only tolerable form of screamo. Since society is getting dumber by the minute, Matt and Nabil could make a killing amongst their 89,000 MySpace friends; when the actual record comes out in Fall 2008, though, they may be the only ones laughing.”

Now, I don’t have a problem with humorous metal so long as it’s accompanied by something resembling musical talent; which is to say, I’m with The Deciblog on this one. What could I Set My Friends on Fire possibly hope to be, other than metal’s answer to Afroman?

-AR

Earlier today, Nick at The Deciblog posted the below video of the dudes from Kataklysm attempting – and repeatedly failing – to shoot a message to their Australian fans during their recent tour down under. As Nick pointed out, the highlight is undoubtedly front man Maurizio Iacono’s spit take at the 1:21 mark. Hilarious.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/W6mMu-NtI1s" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

-AR

Epicurean vocalist John Laramy (pictured left) has done a guest post for The Deciblog entitled “Top 5 Musical Moments that made the world more dumb.” My personal favorite is #3, “Heavy Metal: 1994 – 2001,” natch:

“In the song ‘Rollin’,’ before bursting into lyrics plagiarized from a Richard Simmons work out tape (‘Breathe in, now breath out, hands up, now hands down’) Fred Durst asks, ‘You know what time it is?’ Indeed I do, it’s about a quarter past: time for the members of Gorgoroth to sodomize you while I enjoy a mug of hot cocoa and a smug sense of satisfaction.”

A man after my own heart.

Read the rest here.

-AR

Normally Pelican is one of the last bands I’d ever accuse of being a nu metal act; but Nick at The Deciblog posted a link to a mash-up of Pelican’s “Dead Between the Walls” and “Pillz” by Gucci Mane* this past Sunday, and while I find the resulting track catchier than I’m comfortable admitting (okay okay okay, so I may have listened it to five or six times in a row last night), it is amazing how adding rap over Pelican’s music suddenly makes it sound remarkably like late 90s/early aughties rap metal. Seriously: check out the bouncy, fat (phat?) riff, the gentle verses that really allowing the “flowing” to, uh, flow, etc., etc.

This raises a series of questions, like: if you put rapping over any band, will it automatically begin to sound like nu/rap/whatever metal? Would Limp Bizkit have been a semi-decent band if not for Fred Durst? Is Axl Rosenberg losing his fucking mind? Discuss amongst yourselves.

-AR

*I also did some homework on this Gucci Mane fellow, with whom I was previously unfamiliar, and have since decided that he is the single most brilliant artist working in hip-hop today. Take the lyrics to the song “Freaky Gurl,” for example: “First you get her name/Then you get her number/Then you get some brain in the front seat of her Hummer.” If that’s not the greatest love poetry of the 21st century so far, then my name isn’t Axl Rosenberg.