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extremely extrem e
March 2011 [T77] decibelmagazine.com
cover story
death The story of perseverance
upfront 10 news Extreme cinema
24 inquisition Space cases
14 grinding it out Monkey business
26 murder
15 brewtal truth Pales, in comparison 16 cry now, cry later Innit to winnit 18 studio report:
origin
Estranged bedfellows 20 volture Wasted and wanted 22 abysmal dawn Channel surfing
construct No tattooed millionaires
28 the famine No vice, all virtue 30 cauldron Bubble trouble 32 ulcerate The fear keeps them there 34 diesto Fucked up in the streets
reviews
features
77 lead review On Darker Handcraft, Trap Them pull nothing but mallets out of the hat
36 call & response:
78 album reviews Records that are all beast mode, all the time, including Owen Hart, Neuraxis, Imbroglio, Primate and Hate 94 sub:culture South-ofheaven’s Gate
anal cunt
Straight talk 38 mogwai Post- secrets 40 q & a: kirk
windstein
Addicted to sludge
48 the decibel
hall of fame The Jesus Lizard threw great Goat on stage and wax
96 south pole
dispatch
Thanks for the memories
44 special feature:
orchestral metal Digging deep in a very different kind of pit
cover photo by frank white
Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $29.95. Periodical postage, Philadelphia, PA, and other mailing offices. Submission of manuscripts, illustrations and/or photographs must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Postmaster send changes of address for Decibel to Red Flag Media, 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia PA 19107. Copyright© 2011 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All rights issn 1557-2137 | usps 023142 reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited.
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extremely extreme
March 2011 [T77]
Pu bli s her
Ed itor -In-Chief
managing Editor
Ar t Di rector
Se nior Ed itor
a dozen pages to our worldfrom the editor exclusive oral history of Chuck Schuldiner’s legendary Death, I won’t belabor the point of just how important Chuck’s music was to the development of the entire death metal scene. But I will say that words can barely express how vital records like Spiritual Healing and (especially) Human were in my journey to becoming an extreme metal obsessive. Longtime Decibel contributor and Death cover story author Chris Dick wasn’t at a loss for words, however. Despite having nearly 10,000 words to work with while assembling his exhaustive oral history, there were still a number of choice interview cuts left on the butcher’s table due to space and clarity issues. So, rather than let these stories remain born dead to this world, we present to you, dear readers, the following regurgitated guts: Frederick “Rick Rozz” DeLillo: I showed up the first day of high school with corpsepaint on. Spikes, the whole get-up, man. For real. We all wore corpsepaint back then. Not the white stuff, though. Just the black around the eyes. Hellhammer and Slayer did it. I remember I was asked by the principal not to wear the raccoon make-up again. ’84, I think it was. Scott Carlson: Chuck wiped a booger on his wall and then stuck a penny on it. It stayed there forever. He did that right when we got there to impress us with something really gross. The penny was still on the wall when we left. Borivoj Krgin: Chuck requested that Roadrunner [Records] include a clause in his contract that I was not to be given any advance tapes of Symbolic prior to its release. Eric Greif: We were touring the world for Human, and some of the European dates were a few weeks behind Bill [Andrews] and Terry [Butler]’s tour with Massacre. We found anti-Chuck graffiti courtesy of the Massacre dudes in more than one backstage room over there. James Murphy: I had little time to prepare for Spiritual Healing. When they’d ask, “Hey, James, you got a riff for that?” I’d just look at them and say, “Uh, yeah!” Of course I didn’t. So, I just made up riffs as I went along. No one knows that I was going fishing for riffs. Scott Carlson: We did end up working with Chuck at a Cadillac dealership [washing cars], and Chuck once ran over a poor mechanic’s leg trying to back a Caddy limo out of a stall! Luckily, the guy suffered no serious damage! Ah, good times.
—albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief
Albert Mudrian
albert@redflagmedia.com
Andrew Bonazelli
andrew@redflagmedia.com
Jamie Leary
jamie@redflagmedia.com
Patty Moran
patty@redflagmedia.com
Chuck BB, Mark Rudolph, Paul Romano
des ig ner
Bruno Guerreiro
prod u ction
Lucas Hardison Albert Mudrian
albert@redflagmedia.com
215.625.9850 x103
Since we’ve already devoted
Contributing Writers
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co ntr ibutin g ar tis ts
adv ertising
just words
Alex Mulcahy
un der to nes section
Drew Juergens
Ma rke ting Di rector
Kevin Juliff
drew@decibelmagazine.com kevin@decibelmagazine.com
Online Dec iblog ed itor
Andrew Bonazelli
soc ia l med ia p romotio ns
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andrew@decibelmagazine.com
Anthony Bartkewicz Adrien Begrand J. Bennett Shawn Bosler Liz Brenner Brent Burton Richard Christy John Darnielle Jerry A. Deathburger Chris Dick Jeanne Fury Ula Gehret Nick Green Joe Gross James Hoare Jonathan Horsley Cosmo Lee Frank Lemke Shawn Macomber Shane Mehling Kirk Miller Greg Moffitt Etan Rosenbloom Scott Seward Kevin Sharp Rod Smith Zach Smith Leah Sottile Kevin Stewart-Panko Adem Tepedelen Jeff Treppel Jeff Wagner Greg Whalen Catherine Yates Co ntr ib utin g ph otogr aphers
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To order by phone: 1.215.625.9850 (10 a.m. – 6 p.m. EST) To order by fax: 1.215.625.9967 To order online: www.decibelmagazine.com Decibel (ISSN 1550-6614) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $29.95. Periodical postage, Philadelphia, PA, and other mailing offices. Submission of manuscripts, illustrations and/or photographs must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Postmaster send changes of address for Decibel to Red Flag Media, 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia PA 19107. Copyright© 2011 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. PR INT ED IN U SA
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fanbase *
nions meet the miima gined) (real and
blog, Metalcakes: http://metalcakes. blogspot.com/. The woman who runs it, Kathy, knows her shit: all the recipes are delicious as hell, and she has great taste in bands, too. She’s made recipes for everybody from Priest to Black Tusk, and they all rule. You guys should do a feature on her someday—it’s one of the best metal blogs out there! My favorite is the Bathory recipe, “Baptized in Fire and Frosting.”
Reader of the
Month
John Humphrey Denver, CO
What record do you credit with opening the door for you to extreme metal? I was sort of late to the extreme metal game. But I picked up Meshuggah’s Destroy Erase Improve and Opeth’s My Arms Your Hearse my junior year of high school, and finally took my seat at the smorgasbord of Swedish death. A couple years later, I picked up Decibel #2, with the Reign in Blood Hall of Fame, a record I had (shamefully) never heard before then. It was a total life-changer. Now I have a Slayer tattoo because of you guys!
6 : m a r c h 2 0 11 : d e c i b e l
What are the best and worst Decibel covers ever? From an art direction standpoint, I love the Refused, Slayer (“American Psycho” cover, #58) and Napalm Death covers. Last year’s High on Fire and Danzig covers were silly but fun. And even though I’m a huge Star Wars dork, the Tauntaun-meets-Queen Amidala Dimmu Borgir cover makes me laugh every time I see it. That one’s some Level 12 black metal nerdery right there. I’d love to see an Eyehategod or Weedeater cover story someday. Awesome bands, and totally weird sense of humor, too. You bake a lot of cupcakes. How can you tell that they’re metal cupcakes? I take no credit for my creations. I actually get all the recipes from this awesome metal baking
You consider yourself “an unabashed Swedophile.” What’s your favorite band from today’s Swedish metal scene? Dude, tough call. I think the metal and hardcore scene in Umeå, a smaller town in the north country, is amazing: I love Meshuggah, Refused and Cult of Luna. My recent favorites have been the traditional doom bands— Witchcraft, Graveyard, Ghost. If you ask me, the future of Swedish metal is gonna be found in the ’70s-worship stuff coming out now. My girlfriend and I are going to Metal Town in Goteborg this summer, and I’m psyched to see Watain and At the Gates on their home turf. Of course, I could always go with my clutch and say jävla ABBA. I love that band, man. You can’t spell “Sabbath” without “ABBA!” Fucking Magnets: How do they work? I asked the science teachers at my school about it, and they all gave me a very thorough explanation of the physics involved. Although one of them used a badass analogy about ninjas and samurai as opposing forces. All I know is, if it’s got anything to do with the last Metallica album, count me out.
Chuck BB is the illustrator of the graphic novel Black Metal, Vol. 1. For more info and art, head over to chuckbb.com
d e c i b e l : m a r c h 2 0 11 : 7
web gems presents:
s s e f o k c u n S s Symphonie insane In which we recount the most nth and inspired posts of the mo from our comrades in blog METALSUCKS READERS CHOOSE IHSAHN’S AFTER AS THE BEST ALBUM OF 2010
R.I.P. BASIL, CANINUS, 2001-2011 You know from our Cutest Kitties in Metal spread and For Those About to Squawk blog series that Decibel = pet lovers. So, it was a major bummer to learn on MS that Basil, co-front-dog of deathgrind pack Caninus (who once shared a split with Squawk columnist Waldo’s Hatebeak) has passed away. Basil, a 10-year-old pit bull, was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor and put to sleep. You might assume that Philly’s not a dog-loving city given our NFL team’s current quarterback, but our black hearts go out to Most Precious Blood, the masterminds behind this awesome cult project.
For everyone who complains about the supposed homogeneity among metal magazines and blogs, here’s an interesting curveball. Following an impressive succession of yearend top 10 lists, MetalSucks asked their faithful readers to determine the best metal album of the year. The results were Gore/Bush tight (but not rigged), as Ihsahn’s After beat out Kvelertak’s self-titled debut by a mere three votes. Ihsahn’s record wasn’t even in our Top 40, incidentally. Use the margins of this feature to discuss, literally, amongst yourself.
Grand Magus
Hammer of the North
TAGS: BEST OF 2010, IHSAHN, KVELERTAK
Korpiklaani Tequila
TAGS: CANINUS, MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD
THE AUSTERITY PROGRAM’S JUSTIN FOLEY INTERVIEWS AQUARIUS RECORDS’ ALLAN HORROCKS AND ANDEE CONNORS ABOUT HOLIDAY SHOPPING AND THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
WE’RE LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AWAY FROM THE RELEASE OF NYC SUCKS!!!
TAGS: ALLAN HORROCKS, ANDEE CONNORS,
Just as we at Decibel love to spotlight kickass music from radical bands via our already notorious Flexi Series, MetalSucks cofounders Vince Neilstein and Axl Rosenberg are likewise tr00 believers in bringing the noise. Hence their free 27-track collaboration of the best extremity the Big Apple has to offer, NYC Sucks. Boasting names like Made Out of Babies, Tombs, East of the Wall, Castevet, Wetnurse, Krallice and the Austerity Program, we cosign vigorously. Oh, and don’t let the headline confuse you. By the time you read this, Sucks will be up for download on MS.
THE AUSTERITY PROGRAM
TAGS: NYC SUCKS
The holiday season is way over, but it might’ve gone a little easier if you read this hilarious, weirdbeard interview with SF staple Aquarius Records’ co-owners. Horrocks and Connors treat the always-amusing Justin Foley to their underthe-radar metal picks of the year (Realmbuilder, Murmuure), riff on ’80s Christian metal (Horrocks: “At least the Jesus people believe it and I don’t think a lot of the Satanic guys do. So, it adds another layer of sincerity that makes it more fucked up”) and reveal their ideal storeclearing jam (one-man quasi-rapper Fastest).
Visit www.metalsucks.net • 8 : m a r c h 2 0 11 : d e c i b e l
compiled by Andrew Bonazelli
Enforcer
Midnight Vice
Death
Lack of Comprehension Visit the official Decibel channel at Metal Injection http://www.metalinjection.tv/decibel
ARCHITECTS THE HERE AND NOW
CRADLE OF FILTH DARKLY, DARKLY, VENUS AVERSA
BELPHEGOR
CAULDRON
BLOOD MAGICK NECROMANCE
BURNING FORTUNE
HOUR OF 13
KING’S X
THE RITUALIST
NAPALM DEATH BOX SET
LIVE LOVE IN LONDON