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?

I’m going to put about as much effort into this introduction as I put into trying to be sensitive to Hinder’s feelings.

We begin today’s cinemetal round-up with “Irresistible Force,” the first new video from Jane’s Addiction since whenever the last time they released a video was. The clip has some stuff going for it — like a lot of mostly-naked beautiful women, and a particularly funny moment, at the :54 second mark, when there’s some not-at-all-subtle vaginal imagery — but for the most part it’s pretty standard stoner stuff. The fact that the song is fairly boring doesn’t help.

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Slipknot always take extended breaks in-between albums; that downtime is usually used for Corey Taylor to go do something with Stone Sour, Joey Jordison and Shawn “Clown” Crahan to go play with/produce whomever the hell they’re playing with/producing at the moment, and the rest of the band to pretty much fall off the face of the planet. Not to be rude or anything, I mean, maybe the other six dudes in the band all have very their own musical side-projects, but I’ve never heard about any of them, which isn’t a great sign.

But Slipknot percussionist Chris Fehn (a.k.a. “The one whose mask has a Pinocchio schnozz“) is getting in on the action now: Lambgoat reports that he is now the new bassist for Will Haven. So, hey, lookit that! He can do more than hit a garbage can with a baseball bat and jerk-off his nose. Killer.

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In the “actually didn’t see this one coming” department, a press release tells us that Sacramento post-hardcore pioneers Far have reunited. The band played two secret shows last week in California and have a string of dates lined up in the UK for November; they’ve also recorded a cover of Ginuwine’s “Pony” under the pseudonym Hot Little Pony, which is now streaming on the Hot Little Pony MySpace page.

Oh, what’s that, you don’t know who Far is? Poseurs. Look it up.

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