Decibel #208 - February 2022

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VON HELL 1 9 7 2 - 2 0 21

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upfront 8 obituary:

hank von hell Remembering when things weren’t so grim

10 metal muthas The dirty work of motherhood 12 low culture Keeping your expectations nice and low 13 no corporate beer A year in (p)review

16 wombbath How much is HM-2 much?

18 hypocrisy A thinking man’s conspiracy theorists 20 earthless A monstrous undertaking 22 hyperdontia Even more for us to chew on

14 in the studio:

wake

Deep in thought

features

reviews

24 q&a: scorpions Rock legends Klaus Meine and Rudolf Schenker just want to write some tunes and save the world

69 lead review Though we cannot confirm Venom Prison’s literary knowledge, we can certainly quantify their death metal chops on their newest album Erebos

28 special feature:

the top 20 most anticipated albums of 2022 Finally, a list without Carcass at the top

40 exclusive:

turned inside out: the official story of obituary excerpt In which a lion of death metal gained his mighty roar

70 album reviews Releases from bands that have survived another bloody year in service of the War on Christmas, including Helmet, Malignant Altar and Mizmor 80 damage ink A Witte comeback

44 the decibel

hall of fame

Death Never Dies COVER STORY

Texas’ best kept secret dead horse may have come up short on commercial success but are rich in Decibel acclaim with sophomore LP Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers

COVER PHOTOS BY TIM HUBBARD, GENE SMIRNOV, KIP DAWKINS AND SEAN JORGENSEN CONTENTS PHOTO BY GENE SMIRNOV

Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., P.O. Box 36818, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $29.95. Periodical postage, paid at 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, P.O. Box 36818, Philadelphia, PA 19107. © 2022 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

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2 : FEBRUARY 2022 : DECIBEL

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REFUSE/RESIST

February 2022 [T208] PUBLISHER

Alex Mulcahy

alex@redflagmedia.com

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Albert Mudrian

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AD SALES

James Lewis

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

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As I write this, today is both the 40th anniversary of Venom’s Welcome to Hell and the 30th anniversary of Cathedral’s Forest of Equilibrium. The latter was a massive wrench of crushing doom thrown directly in the grinding gears of speed-obsessed death metal, and the former was some of the dumbest, most rudimentary trash I’d ever encountered in my 16 years on planet Earth.

That’s what I thought upon hearing each record for the first time in 1991.

Back then, death metal mania had already engulfed me, but Forest of Equilibrium revealed another unexpected path forward—ironically through essentially looking backwards.

Darker, heavier and more languid than Sabbath at their doomiest, there was a gravity to Forest suggesting that extreme metal could be introspective. One track’s lyrics were a reinterpretation of a 100-year-old poem.

The LP’s slowest dirge featured a flute as one of its main instruments.

And my insecure, pretentious high school ass was all about that shit.

Venom, however, were clearly your older hesher brother’s heavy metal band. Sure, they were more legit than what passed for mainstream metal 30 years ago. But compared to Carcass, Napalm Death or Paradise Lost? You couldn’t take Welcome to Hell seriously. And the death (and now doom) metal I adored was serious business. Am I really supposed to believe those pasty British dudes who dressed in spandex and sang about venereal diseases worshiped the devil? Venom was no Glen Benton. Now that guy definitely worships the devil! I mean, just look that inverted cross he cooked in his fucking forehead! I mentioned that I was 16, right?

Context and self-awareness would mercifully come for me in my early 20s. Through growing older and embracing the genre’s history, it was easy to appreciate how groundbreaking, influential and, well, extreme Welcome to Hell was in 1981. All the dumb stuff about it was still pretty dumb, but it was now also fun, as I had embraced the very simple concept that maybe not all great extreme metal is supposed to be so grave.

A generation separates Welcome to Hell and Forest of Equilibrium, but that gap seems like a sliver compared to how it felt three decades ago.

Both records are no-doubt, first-ballot Decibel Hall of Fame inductees that laid the groundwork for a pair of subgenres that still flourish today—with or without the support of unenlightened 16-year-olds.

Welcome to equilibrium, I suppose.

albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND SALES

ART DIRECTOR

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COPY EDITOR

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Tim Mulcahy

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Chuck BB, Ed Luce Mark Rudolph

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Periodical postage, paid at 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.

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and appreciate bands like Baroness and Judge that I might not have considered otherwise. It’s been a pleasure to continue with you guys over the years!

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You’ve been an active subscriber for over a decade. First, thank you! Second, how have we managed to keep you around for so long?

Simply put, Decibel has a genuine passion for the metal scene—along with the history and culture around it—that’s clearly evident throughout each issue. I think many metal fans appreciate this music far more deeply than what is simply on the surface, so it’s refreshing to see that your writers take a seriously intellectual approach with their coverage, with just the right degree of subtle humor. Your recent in-depth special reports on subjects such as the impact of immigration regulations on overseas artists and the devastation the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked on live shows offer insights that many fans might not consider when it comes to the scene. And, thanks to the Hall of Fame articles and coverage of newer artists, the Decibel team has led me to discover

6 : FEBRUARY 2022 : DECIBEL

You were the bassist of Mortal Decay from 1994 through 2003. Those were arguably the leanest years for death metal’s popularity. What can you tell us about that period that might shock today’s brutal death metal bands?

Even though death metal’s overall popularity at that time appeared to shrink compared to, say, European black metal, it thrived on a more regional level in areas like the Midwest and Texas, so bands like Mortal Decay, Internal Bleeding and Dying Fetus always had places to play outside of our areas where there was strong turnout and great audiences. But the drawback to the scene becoming so insular during that period was that many of the newer bands that came after were in a creative vacuum and had a more limited pool of resources from which to draw their inspiration. It wasn’t until we saw Cryptopsy, Nile and Deeds of Flesh emerge—and bring in an all-new set of influences and dynamics—that death metal started to become exciting again and gain traction on a wider basis. That being said, there were some bands from that time—namely Deaden, Fleshtized and Somnus—that managed to put out some criminally slept-on releases that are well worth checking out.

You’re an unassuming-looking family man today with a deeply undeath metal office job. Are your co-workers aware of your extreme metal fandom?

I work for a small firm that performs collateral audits of companies for commercial lenders, which is about as far removed from death metal as you can get. Since there are only 10 people in our firm and I wear my passion for this music like the print on a longsleeve, they’re all aware that I’m a die-hard metal fan. Prior to the pandemic, my job required a decent amount of travel, which gave me an opportunity to visit local record shops and, on occasion, go to a show if one was in the area.

Obviously, that hasn’t been happening recently now that we’re all working from home, but I’m sure my co-workers are at least thankful that I’m not subjecting them to the likes of Severe Torture, Dark Funeral or Vio-lence on a regular basis.

This issue’s cover story features the longawaited return of the Decibel Magazine Tour.

I realize we don’t have a PA date this year, but are you still coming out or what?

Let me first start by saying welcome back!

It’s a shame that there’s no PA date this time around, but thankfully Baltimore is a reasonable distance, so it’s certainly within the realm of possibility. It’s been absolutely wonderful seeing that tours are starting to resume again and all of us—bands and fans alike—are getting the opportunity to enjoy this music in a live setting once more, so I hope to be one among many to (safely) welcome the tour back to the stage!

Chuck BB is the illustrator of the graphic novels Black Metal, Vol. 1, 2 and 3 For more info and art, head over to chuckbb.com

OBITUARIES

HANK

VON HELL 1 9 7 2 - 2 0 21

IT

would be easy to look at Norway in the late ’80s and ’90s and think

that black metal was the only revolution taking place in the country. Elsewhere in Oslo, Hank Von Hell (born Hans-Erik Dyvik Husby) and friends were taking music in an entirely different direction with Turbonegro, a band that coupled classic rock, punk, big choruses and juvenile humor in a genre they called deathpunk. Their music was part AC/DC swagger, part Meatmen scatology and part Kinks pop—a volatile-but-infectious brew that spawned an enormous international fan club called Turbojugend and made Von Hell an unlikely celebrity in his home country. He was both an inspiration to wayward souls and court jester for the underground. ¶ Turbonegro formed in the late ’80s in Norway, around the same time a group of misfits started forming black metal bands a few miles away. Their earliest lineups took inspiration from punk as well as the Butthole Surfers.

Unlike the earliest black metal, Turbonegro’s music wasn’t a colossal fucking bummer that made life feel like a hopeless vortex. It teemed with energy and life, and never took itself seriously. It made you want to chug beers and shake your ass and howl at the moon.

Despite that rebellious spirit, Turbonegro kept working and improving as a band, sharpening their sardonic music into a razor-sharp scythe.

They were arguably at their peak in the late ’90s with career-best albums Ass Cobra and Apocalypse Dudes. Apocalypse Dudes in particular is like Turbonegro’s version of AC/DC’s For Those About to 8 : FEBRUARY 2022 : DECIBEL

Rock: part singalong, part summons to arms, and all rock ‘n’ roll fury and bluster. Von Hell took that spirit to another level with his pseudo-King Diamond/Alice Cooper makeup and a stage act that included lighting roman candles in his ass à la Jackass.

Von Hell’s personal life, sadly, was often a

challenge, and at times derailed his musical career. He left Turbonegro in the late ’90s to get help for heroin addiction and depression before reuniting with Turbonegro again in 2002. He left the band for good in 2009, but their profile only seemed to grow in the new millennium. Von Hell’s November 19 passing was mourned not just in his home country, but globally.

I have a close friend who is a huge Turbonegro fan and could memorialize Von Hell far better than I could. This is what he said: “In a time when Norway’s underground scene was focused on who could be the most evil, along came this roly-poly, larger-than-life, AliceCooper-eyed fauxmosexual whose lyrics and presence were endlessly sardonic and camp, but also razor-sharp and clever. What’s more, his band seriously fucking rocked. They—and he, as their impertinent frontman, and ultimately the face of Turbonegro—truly changed the face of rock ‘n’ roll.”

We’ll never forget the other revolution that took place in Norway in the ’90s, one that was a hell of a lot more fun than what was happening down the road. Thanks for the headbanging and laughs, Hank. Safe travels—you will be missed.

—JUSTIN M. NORTON

NOW SLAYING Wonder what Decibel world HQ has been rocking for the past month?

Well, here are the records that we spun most while baking a motherfucking pizza tonight.

Because not all of us were spawned in the darkest recesses of hell

This Month's Mutha: Norma Mitchell Mutha of Rah Davis of Filth Is Eternal

Tell us a little about yourself.

I was born in Monticello, FL, and was raised in Tallahassee. My family has deep historical roots in the northern Florida panhandle. My maternal grandmother’s generation migrated to California, where Rah and his younger twin brothers were born. I’ve always been supportive and encouraged my children to embrace different perspectives. I’m super proud of my sons' choices in life.

Rah has been a bassist in multiple bands across the extreme music spectrum over the better part of the last two decades. Did you play a role in forging his diverse musical tastes?

I had nothing to do with him choosing music.

However, his biological father was a musician and unintentionally influenced him. He played both trumpet and guitar. I would catch Rah occasionally strumming his dad’s guitar at a young age. His great aunt also sang in the church choir.

Rah has always followed his own separate path, and I admire his strength and constitution to make a decision and follow his passion. I have faith he makes the best decision for himself.

Outside of music, what were some of Rah’s interests growing up?

Rah showed passion for a number of sports early on, ranging from football, basketball [and] baseball [to] eventually surfing. Pretty sure baseball was—and still is—his absolute favorite. He also enjoys comic books, sci-fi novels and making delicious food. Once he decided to take 10 : FEBRUARY 2022 : DECIBEL

a season break, he rediscovered music, and the rest is history.

Rah’s band Fucked & Bound recently changed their name to Filth Is Eternal. How did you feel about the original moniker?

The moniker has a specific meaning for the band members, and I support their decision to express themselves. Their music is expressive enough to expose them to the world, regardless of the controversial name.

What is your impression of your son performing onstage?

It’s exhilarating and warming to my heart to see him connect with other musicians of his caliber and perform so wonderfully. I know how hard he works at his craft. He is totally engaged, and it is awesome!

What’s your favorite project that Rah has been involved in?

I’ve been proud of most of his projects, but I was the most proud of his stint with Cattle Decapitation. I remember him being 21 years old and touring Europe for the first time. He had done plenty of domestic tours, but I felt the seriousness of this decision to travel uncharted lands and pursue his dreams to be a musician. To this day, I am emotional over this project because his dedication has remained steadfast ever since. As I have always told my sons, find your passion, work hard at your craft [and] make it your life, and there will be no regrets. —ANDREW BONAZELLI

Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f  Turbonegro, Apocalypse Dudes  Helmet, Live and Rare  Immolation, Acts of God  SpiritWorld, Pagan Rhythms  dead horse, Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e  Idles, Crawler  Metallica, Live Shit: Binge & Purge  10,000 Russos, Superinertia  Flipper, Album: Generic Flipper  Spacemen 3, Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s  Abbath, Abbath  Immolation, Acts of God  Uada, Cult of a Dying Sun  Blut Aus Nord, Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry  Various Artists, The Transformers The Movie: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r  The Red Chord, Clients  Immolation, Acts of God  Author & Punisher, KRÜLLER  Ossuary, Supreme Degradation  The Devouring Void, Hypnagogic Hallucinations ---------------------------------Aaron Salsbury : m a r k e t i n g a n d s a l e s  Khemmis, Deceiver  Soul Glo, Songs To Yeet At the Sun  Worm, Foreverglade  Tomb Mold, Manor of Infinite Forms  Dream Unending, Tide Turns Eternal

GUEST SLAYER

---------------------------------A.L.N. : m i z m o r  Ulver, Bergtatt  Author & Punisher, Beastland  Shape of Despair, Angels of Distress  Emma Ruth Rundle, Engine of Hell  Hoverkraft, Schwebende Musik

Y ISEMAN

TNE

BY COUR

Welcome to 2022: Same Great 2021 Flavor, Less Sodium was either 2002 or 2003,

but I was in Germany for New Year’s Eve at a metal bar called Alcatraz, which I believe has since closed. It was a really fucking cool spot: some pool tables, nice and dark, and generally the best selection of music of any of the Nuremberg metal bars (which, at the time, numbered several). On New Year’s Eve, they would cover the pool tables and bring out a ton of food for people.

For Americans, it was weird shit like pickles and various meats and cheeses. Then, at midnight, they would give everyone a glass of champagne. You can tell this isn’t an American bar because they didn’t charge extra; they just did it to show appreciation to their patrons and actually celebrate the New Year without gouging anyone. Anyway, sometime after midnight, I went outside when whoever was drumming for Deströyer 666 at the time yelled at me to get out of the way. But I’ve always had the reflexes of a 95-year-old, so it was too late and I took a small bottle rocket to the chest—or at least part of one.

I was fine, thanks for asking.

I bring this up because it’s one of my favorite memories of a holiday I stopped really caring about once I moved into a shitty neighborhood that would keep us up until 4 or 5 in the morning on New Year’s Day firing fucking guns into the air and/or at things. Even when the price of ammo increased, I’d still be tripping over shell casings on the way to my car to go to work the next day. Now I have an infant and the idea of an “exciting” New Year’s Eve would mean she falls asleep at 7 and stays the fuck asleep for more than two hours at a time.

I also bring this up because this is a good time for reflection and figuring out the lies you’re going to tell everyone masqueraded as 12 : FEBRUARY 2022 : DECIBEL

“resolutions.” So, this year, like some previous years, I’ll go through a few. This is the seventh anniversary of Low Culture, if you want to send me gift cards or put a commemorative plaque on a park bench.

Otherwise, I resolve to secure a copy of Old Forest’s Into the Old Forest on vinyl for an non-insulting price.

Well, that was exhausting. What else can we talk about? Oh right, it’s now 2022. Which means we’re just starting to get over the influx of everyone’s year-end lists and some asshole has already declared a record to be their favorite of ’22. There’s a bunch of shows and tours people are excited about that, much like premature ejaculation, will be cancelled or less fulfilling than they had hoped after two years of griping about it online—generally after they post their own year-end lists. Some band is getting ready to showcase a dramatic change in style in order to either satisfy their expanding creative palettes or (more likely) try to cash in on whatever Deafheaven did better (probably, I don’t know) than they’re doing. At least a dozen people are circling their Lord of the Rings calendar with important holidays like that day they all yell “Slayer!” while lawn-sprinkling whatever poor fuck is in the path of the blast zone coming out of their mouths.

Same shit, different year.

So, instead of making grandiose plans with all the aplomb of a wet shit, only to forget about them and fall back into despair when another wave of COVID hits—or, even worse, an internet commenter makes fun of you—take a moment to stop and be grateful for making it through another year. Fuck, some of you should be really proud of that one. And take those first steps into 2022, soldiering on and keeping your momentum strong, because a calendar change means nothing but another year.

Looking Ahead at 2022, the Year in Beer

W

hile the last few years may have snuffed out our collective flicker of “Surely this year will be a good one!” hope, we are safe to assume one thing: new year, new beer. It might seem like there are no “trends” in craft beer, that there is only IPA, but things change and styles resurge, and that’s exciting for beer drinkers. Here are some predictions to watch for this year.

More Lager Love

Burgeoning for a few years, this only stands to continue in 2022. Big beers have long dominated: hop-packed IPAs, pastry-stuffed stouts, fruit-jammed sours, often hitting double digits in booze. Many drinkers crave lighter, cleaner, crisper beers they can have two of without canceling tomorrow’s plans.

Craft lagers offer that without the watereddown blah of macro lagers.

“It’s no surprise that there is an interest in something in the middle,” says Jack Hendler, co-owner and brewer at lagerfocused Massachusetts brewery Jack’s Abby.

“Not something that is so light that you can’t taste it, but not so strong that you can’t taste anything else.” Hendler expects craft lager production to grow, but does point out that it will remain a very small segment of the market, since lagers take up precious tank space for so much longer than ales, and are therefore more expensive to make.

Chilling trend  The Cold IPA, such as Wayfinder’s premiere Relapse IPA (in honor of Relapse Records) is ushering in a new ice age for craft beer

The Dark Stuff Diversifies

Similar to the lager’s humble resurgence, breweries are starting to embrace dark beers other than stouts and porters, and these beers make for an interesting, more complex take on lighter imbibing.

Purveyors like New Hampshire hotspot Schilling and Brooklyn’s Threes Brewing are helping stir up contemporary interest in clean yet roasty schwarzbiers, English milds and Czech dark lagers.

Beer Terroir

“Terroir” has long been tied to wine, but beer has entered the chat. Breweries are crafting unique beers in ways that reveal their particular regionality. Upstate New York’s Plan Bee Farm Brewery and Virginia’s Wheatland Spring Farm + Brewery boast beers made entirely from ingredients grown on their own property, while breweries from New York’s Drowned Lands to Washington’s Garden Path Fermentation have put their own spin on different beer styles with hyper-local hops and malt and the character of local water.

IPAs Chill Out

IPA has become an umbrella covering bitter West Coasts, hazy New Englands, spicy Belgians, dry bruts and many more. Get ready to see more of the Next Big IPA: the “Cold IPA.” A counter to ubiquitous smoothie styles, these are brewed for clean crispness.

They’re heavily hopped and higher in ABV. Expect something light and dry in taste, really spotlighting hop bitterness, with a sneaky boozy punch.

Efforts Toward Equity Become Even More Integral

Since craft beer’s racism and sexism reckonings in 2020 and 2021, we’ve seen a swell of new initiatives from DEI leaders, aimed at making beer both welcoming and safe for women, LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC. 2022 certainly won’t see a magic solution, but it stands to see momentum on this front are more consumers seek responsible producers.

“2021 was the year the kindling caught fire in craft beer in terms of progressive initiatives aimed towards improving diversity, equity and inclusion,” says Beth Demmon, a journalist who has extensively covered these problems in beer, as well as the people working to solve them. “How that fire will spread remains to be seen, but I think it’s going to be very hard for breweries to continue ignoring or opting out of these conversations in 2022 and beyond.

It might make craft beer more polarized between those who care and those who don’t and probably never will; but frankly, if that means my neighborhood brewery who practices anti-racist and anti-sexist measures no longer feels comfortable for people in opposition to those values, so much the better.”

DECIBEL : FEBRUARY 2022 : 13

WAKE

STUDIO REPORT

W

WAKE e’ve been holed up at Flatline for the past couple weeks, and things

ALBUM TITLE

best and most dynamic work are sounding deadly,” Wake guitarist Rob LaChance says of Thought Form to date. When we go into the RECORDING DATES Descent, the follow-up to Wake’s widely praised breakthrough album studio, we usually have an September 13 to Devouring Ruin. “We try to use each of our previous albums as a base leadexact idea of what we want it October 2, 2021 ing into the next, take things further and get more expansive on specific ideas that to sound like. It’s a more proPRODUCER worked well for songs on the last album. We used our Confluence EP to experiment gressive and challenging take with ideas we had going into this full-length. With every album we want to keep on what we do.”

Dave Otero (Flatline Audio, things fresh, moving and ever-growing while retaining the ‘Wake’ sound.”

Thought Form Descent will be Denver, CO) For Thought Form Descent, Wake used a similar recording setup to Devouring Ruin, the band’s first record for the RELEASE DATE but with added elements. “One major component to this album is that Ryan venerable label Metal Blade. late spring/ [Kennedy, bass] is doing added vocals, as well as playing a lot of synth,” LaChance “Metal Blade has released some summer 2022 says. “Dave [Otero, producer] has a knack for not only capturing what we do live, of the greatest metal albums of LABEL but also the emotion of our sound and ambience of Wake.” our time,” LaChance enthuses.

Metal Blade Like every other band, COVID-19 left Wake with not much else to do except “So, yeah, there was a little practice and write. It also derailed the significant touring the band had planned pressure, but at the same time for Devouring Ruin. “We were scheduled to start tracking the album in July, but that was canceled it’s business as usual. We do what we do full when the international border was closed due to the pandemic,” LaChance says. “This allowed throttle and have little care for outside perspecmore time to refine and work on the album. We have created something that we believe is our tives.” —JUSTIN M. NORTON

Thought Form Descent

LOTUS THRONES STAY ALIVE, PRAISE DEATH ON LP #2 14 : FEBRUA RY 2022 : DECIBEL

It’s gray and miserable in late November in Chicago, where the weather turns on humanity and begins to assault it for months. Hence, the perfect time for post-punk’s new master of the prolific, Heath Rave, to enter Hypercube Studio with producer extraordinaire Sanford Parker to record the follow-up to 2021’s Lovers in Wartime.

When asked why he’s already back in the studio after a full-length and four EPs in the hopper, Rave provides a dour, yet somehow uplifting outlook: “Because after abusing myself making the first fulllength, then immediately moving across the country, I found the only way to keep living was to continue to write about wanting to die.”

This marks the first time the project is in person with Parker. “This time it’s really amazing just being one-on-one with him, coming up with sounds and experimenting,” Rave says of the eight new songs.

“Sanford’s direction, production and belief in me are integral to the DNA of Lotus Thrones.” Expect the new record—with Yakuza’s Bruce Lamont again on saxophone—to appear sometime in 2022.

—NEILL JAMESON

PHOTO BY MILES MENDOZA

STUDIO SHORT SHOTS

WOMBBATH

WOMBBATH

Swedish old-schoolers deliver death… the progressive way

T

he 1970s may be long gone, but by issuing three albums in the span of 18 months—including their sixth and latest full-length, Agma (also a double-album!)—Swedish death metal OGs Wombbath are certainly treating the ’20s like the “Me Decade.” ¶ “It’s funny you mention the ’70s,” vocalist/ guitarist Jonny Pettersson clickety-clacks via email, “as we were discussing how a lot of people might see it as odd for a band these days to release so many albums in such a short period, whereas in the ’70s, it would have been normal to do several releases per year without diminishing the musical quality.” ¶ “The situation of the last year and a half hasn’t impacted the pace of our writing,” adds guitarist Håkan Stuvemark. “Agma could have existed sooner since we were finished with it in March.

But there’s the label’s schedule, not to mention a tough lockdown in India [where the band’s label, Transcending Obscurity, is based] making everything harder. It was not planned to be a double album, but quite soon after we had the material, we said, ‘This is too good and solid to leave a bunch of songs out!’”

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And in a move completely opposite to padding the album with filler or casting material aside for B-sides, comps or splits, Wombbath went whole hog in the areas of expansion and progression. The familiar sounds of vintage Swe-death are augmented with soundscape-y layers and classical instrumentation à la Into the Pandemonium. Dig a little deeper and you’ll hear outlying nods to spidery math rock, horror flick soundtracks, monk robe doom, Cattle Decapitation-esque vocal experimentation and dark lager-fueled D-beat hardcore. None of this was originally on the docket, though everything was a long time coming.

“There has always been progression within Wombbath, and we have always had small non-typical elements in our songs,” notes Pettersson. “Without thinking about it, we let those parts shine through even more on Agma. I think this album has the most in common with the early days of Wombbath, as we have

scaled away the Swedish death metal and let the Malevolent Creation, Monstrosity, Harmony Corruption-era Napalm Death and Benediction influences shine through. This is the way Wombbath sounded in the beginning anyway; we’ve just layered it with other elements.”

“Another detail is the decrease of HM-2 on the album,” reveals Stuvemark. “We chose to have [just] enough of it. Having 100 percent of it would have killed a lot of the feeling, and I knew I wanted it that way early on.”

Despite that discouraging bit of sacrilege, Agma’s step forward into previously uncharted territories actually results in a definitive, career high-water mark.

Says Pettersson, “We had ideas beforehand of what we wanted to add to the songs, and those came along so well that it spurred us to add even more unexpected details. And it all came together just the way we wanted it to.” —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

HYPOCRISY

HYPOCRISY

The only thing Peter Tägtgren doesn’t question is his commitment to melodic death metal

P

eter tägtgren has a few stories to tell. After three decades of Hypocrisy (and three years prior to that as Seditious), the Swede hasn’t backed down from questioning (and pointing lyrical fingers at) all sides of reason. Whether it’s famously “Roswell 47” and “New World” or “Scrutinized” or “End of Disclosure,” there’s vitriol in Tägtgren’s words for the upper crust of societies, governments and corporations. Stands to reason then that Hypocrisy’s new album, Worship, spares none as it cuts sharply into Big Pharma’s predilection for addiction (“Chemical Whore”), tax havens (“Greedy Bastards”) and culling mankind via various and sundry means (“Dead World”). ¶ “I question things,” Tägtgren professes. “I have [enough] time, so I can dig into things. Other things make me question, so I dig more, and I question more. I always leave the door open for new information. I do a lot of research, both on the left and the right. I collect information all the time. There’s a lot of conspiracy theories that are moronic. Most of the time, it doesn’t take too long to see how stupid most conspiracy theories are.

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Like the Flat Earth Theory. If you watch them talk, they’ll say things like, ‘We have 200,000 members around the world.’ Well, wait a minute. If the Earth is flat, then I need real proof. What’s under us? Satan?”

Hypocrisy songs often start out from Tägtgren spinning through reams of the fantastical and banal.

Indeed, Worship kicked off much in the same way previous albums did, but with one minor detail.

The death metal legend’s son, Sebastian Tägtgren, sparked the fire that became Hypocrisy’s newest studio album. Originally slated for a now-defunct side project with Sebastian, the duo wrote “Dead World,” inspiring the rest of the Worship sessions.

This isn’t the first time the younger rager penned brutality for the older guard. He’s credited with “Soldier of Fortune” (End of Disclosure) and “Mathematik” (for Lindemann’s F&M). Between 2018 and 2019, the elder Tägtgren, with aid from his talented son, honed

motifs, riffs and concepts that complied with Hypocrisy’s fabled DNA. “My goal with this album was simple,” says the elder Tägtgren.

“I wanted to write better songs and have a better production. We started off inspired solely by death metal. The first Deicide, Morbid Angel, Entombed, and things like that. The first two albums are definitely reflective of those influences. I think it’s normal for bands to start growing on their own.

First, it’s healthy to be inspired by others. This is something you can hear in others, including Hypocrisy.

There’s nothing wrong with that at all. But over time you fiddle around with ideas, which is how bands like Hypocrisy start to develop their own style. The personal touch gets added. [1994’s] The Fourth Dimension was our first step into that. It was after that when we really developed our style, with the twin harmonies, slow melodies and shit like that.”

Brothers and sisters, Hypocrisy are back! —CHRIS DICK

EARTHLESS

EARTHLESS San Diego psych rockers embark on a monstrous undertaking

S

pecs for Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, the second Earthless projectile for Nuclear Blast and fourth studio LP overall, heat-map yet another burning star from the titanic San Diego trio: a 41-minute album unleashing the titular hellions in suite-like waves of massive rhythm and shred.

And then there’s 20-minute encore “Death to the Red Sun,” another instrumental asteroid of delirious guitar mania. ¶ “It’s like making soup or improvising with Legos,” writes drum behemoth Mario Rubalcaba. “You start with a couple pieces or ingredients, and then see what else works into the mix. My favorite thing that happened on this album was being able to use the very first Earthless riff we ever came up with on the new title track.” ¶ “When we started as a band, [bassist] Mike [Eginton] pulled this riff out, and we would jam on it for a good chunk of time,” affirms axe maniac Isaiah Mitchell. “It appears in ‘Night Parade’ right before each breakdown section. The riff helps the song come down and lead us into a brand new musical territory.”

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Imbued with surf drones, NWOBHM breakdowns and shrieking acid rock, Night Parade turns the West Coast time ‘n’ space shifters’ book of spells—in this case inspired by the Japanese legend Hyakki Yagyo—into confetti.

“It’s from a book called Atlas of Monsters and Ghosts,” emails Eginton, who drew the album’s Asian folk art. “It goes through mythical and cryptozoological creatures from around the world, continent by continent. My son’s very much into the Leviathan album by Mastodon, so anything dealing with these myths turns into a song with him.

The Orang-Bati from Indonesia, the Jersey Devil and the Chupacabra are favorites of ours from the States, and the Mapinguari from Brazil is crazy. It’s a one-eyed giant sloth with long arms and sharp claws that has a terrible smell and makes ear-splitting cries.”

Key to the new Earthless comet, whose two-track paradigm circles back to the group’s dual-cut 2005 introduction Sonic Prayer, is Mitchell’s return to the California port town after touring with the Black Crowes.

“Izzy moving back to San Diego was everything, as far as being able to do an album like this again,” agrees Rubalcaba. “[Black Crowes] is a totally different mindset and approach,” details Mitchell. “I haven’t played much in a two-guitar band. There’s a focus on counterpoint with Rich [Robinson] and staying out of the way of the vocals. Think the dynamics of Mick Taylor and Keith Richards.

“It’s an exercise in being selfless and playing what’s right for the song, which could be playing less,” he concludes. “Whereas in Earthless, I have a wide-open canvas to fill out how I choose [to] in the moment.” —RAOUL HERNANDEZ

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HYPERDONTIA

HYPERDONTIA

Heavy hitters of the European underground cut the death metal album they want to hear

T

his album has been one of the most enjoyable albums for me to write, record and listen to,” says Mustafa Gürcalioglu, founding guitarist of international death metal tempest Hyperdontia. Reflecting on Hideous Entity, the European quartet’s sophomore full-length, Mustafa says, “After finishing the album, when looked at objectively and examined as a whole, from the riffs to its sound, from any small detail on the cover to the timbre of the bass, the lyrics, etc., you see that it is a very fitting entity for death metal.” ¶ Since the beginning, Hyperdontia have been composed of death metalheads living in Denmark and Gürcalioglu, who still lives in Istanbul. True, Malik Çamlıca hails from Turkey as well, but Hyperdontia’s mad bassist had already relocated to Copenhagen by the time the band formed. For Hideous Entity, Çamlıca says, “We recorded everything individually.

Mustafa recorded in Istanbul, and the rest of us in Denmark at our own studios.” ¶ According to Gürcalioglu and Çamlıca both, this arrangement has always served them just fine. Living apart “has never been a problem,” Gürcalioglu assures us.

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“Our products have always been formed this way. Everyone in the band is well-equipped for death metal with years of experience.

Since everyone knows exactly what to do when the time comes, we focus only on enjoying our work without encountering any difficulties while constructing this structure.”

So, is it really any wonder that, during a global lockdown, the long-distance death metal band that prefers to work on its own would lock in its greatest work yet? “Hideous Entity is about the inner demons and how they try to rip and lacerate their way out of our body,” Çamlıca says, driving the point home.

Otherwise, Gürcalioglu notes, “We did not follow a different path than from when we first started [writing and recording death metal]. We all have consumed many genres of traditional death metal for years as listeners. This has made us instinctively equipped as performers of this genre. Our

style is obvious; we are clearly not inventing something new. I just pick up the guitar and start writing to be able to leave a good example behind, and the materials somehow find their own way.”

In case you didn’t know, all four of the musicians behind Hyperdontia are each in numerous devastatingly sick, yet distinctively disparate-sounding bands (Septage, Ascendency, Diabolizer, Sulphurous, etc.). But even with zero context, there’s no doubt that Hideous Entity will still completely blow down your proverbial doors. It’s as simple as sharp and catchy riffs, urgent and interesting songwriting, and heaviness and brutality explored and exploited at every opportunity.

Like Gürcalioglu says, “The band came together just to play death metal, and we didn’t take any extraordinary measures to bring the necessary elements together for it.

We wrote the death metal that we will enjoy listening to as listeners, that’s all.” —DUTCH PEARCE

interview by

QA j. bennett

WITH

KLAUS

MEINE

(AND RUDOLF SCHENKER!) SCORPIONS OGs discuss rock believers, CIA rumors and their new Mikkey Dee-powered album

24 : FEBRUARY 2022 : DECIBEL

Y

ou know what they say about the best laid plans. We had one of that Lemmy died, and we were really looking to

those, and it was this: Get on a transatlantic internet call with Scorpions frontman and living rock legend Klaus Meine to talk about the band’s new album and everything surrounding it. But when we logged into the video conference at the appointed time, we discovered that Meine and yours truly (and the band’s German publicist) were not alone.

There was another person on the screen: a man with spiky blonde hair and tinted glasses and a shirt open halfway down to reveal a tanned chest. There was a phalanx of colorful flying V guitars mounted on the wall behind him. It was none other than Scorpions founder and resident riffmeister Rudolf Schenker. That’s right: BONUS RUDY. ¶ Being the highly adaptable interrogators that we are, we forged ahead: onward, upward and NOW WITH MORE RUDY. As planned, we discussed the band’s new album, Rock Believer. We discussed the distinct ’80s sheen of lead single “Peacemaker.” We discussed new drummer Mikkey Dee, formerly of Motörhead. We even discussed that crazy Wind of Change podcast from last year, which explored the rumor that Scorpions’ 1990 mega-hit single of the same name was actually written by the CIA. What inspired the title Rock Believer?

This album started with the lyrics before Rudolf came back with the music, and I was thinking about our life as artists, as musicians, as a band. We’ve been a band for over 50 years, and through all those years we always heard, “Rock is dead,” you know? Because of alternative, because of hip-hop, rock is yesterday’s news. But the truth is, rock is well and alive.

That’s what we see on the road. We see all those rock believers out there, so we dedicate this album to all of them.

MEINE:

I really like the album cover. It’s a combination of classic Scorpions imagery and the Rolling Stones’ sleeve for Goats Head Soup. Is that what you were going for?

You described it perfectly!

I think we were looking for an image where you can feel the passion for rock music— fans going totally nuts for the music, like this young lady on the album cover now. That’s exactly what we see from those kids in the front row, and I tell you it’s a privilege to play in front of three generations, where the folks that are getting older with us are up in the back of the stadium or the arena because it’s too loud, but the younger generation is in front of the stage.

They feel the music, they love the music, and we can feel their passion. I think the screaming young lady on the album cover is like this.

She goes, “Scream for me, screamer. I’m a rock believer—like you!”

SCHENKER: MEINE:

The first single, “Peacemaker,” recalls the style of ’80s Scorpions albums like Blackout and PHOTO BY MARC THEIS

Love at First Sting. Why did you want to go in that direction?

SCHENKER: Because, you know, with Scorpions, we went through different times. Especially grunge took a lot of, say, attention from the rock side. So, we did some, let’s say, musical trips around, but we felt that the real Scorpions DNA is from ’79 to ’85. So, we wanted to get this, especially during the pandemic, when you feel sometimes depressed because of people dying and the whole situation. So, we wanted to get this DNA back, especially with Mikkey Dee in the band, who is really kicking ass.

He’s a fantastic addition to the band.

SCHENKER: Yes. You know, Motörhead and Scorpions were always friends. We played already together in 1974 in Blackburn, in one of the country halls. They supported us, and from there on we were friends. Lemmy, of course, had a different way of presenting himself, and we were crazy, on the other hand. But we had to somehow get that DNA back. Mikkey Dee is also a Scorpions fan, and he agreed. So, we played in the studio where Klaus is sitting now.

They have a big room, and we played there together with Mikkey Dee and the bass player, Powerhouse Pawel [Maciwoda]. It was fantastic, so much fun, and so much power. We enjoyed this very much.

You guys have been in Scorpions forever, so it must be nice to have some fresh blood in the band.

SCHENKER: Yes, it’s always important for us to have the right chemistry. It was a bad situation

get [former Scorpions drummer] James [Kottak] back on track, but he couldn’t make it more than 10 or 15 percent or something. So, then [guitarist] Matthias [Jabs] said we should call Mikkey Dee. We thought that was a great idea, so we called him. And he said, “Yes, when do we start?” We met at a rehearsal room in Berlin and we knew, yes, this was the man.

I understand that the lyrics to “Peacemaker” were partly inspired by the pandemic, but that’s not all the song is about, right?

No. It was inspired by the planet in 2019 and 2020, and just what’s going on around the world. I was playing with the words, “Peacemaker, bury the undertaker,” because I liked that kind of image. And then when you take a look at the news, with the worldwide pandemic, the devastating wars and all these mindless crimes, it seems like the undertaker is working overtime these days. So, it’s up to all of us to support the peacemaker in order to make the world a better place.

MEINE:

“Peacemaker” is the only song we’ve heard so far. Is the rest of the album also in the ’80s Scorpions style?

Yeah, we think it is. “Peacemaker” is like an appetizer. It gives you a good first start for the record. It’s very much a hard and heavy album, and I think a lot of fans will be surprised out there.

MEINE:

You had some outside writers involved in your last album, Return to Forever, but all the new songs were written by the band. Why was that important this time?

Like Rudolf said earlier, because of the Scorpions DNA, we really tried to focus on the band. When you look back, yes, we had outside writers. On this new album, there’s also one or two songs where somebody else is involved as well. But the majority of the songs on the new album are written by Rudolf and myself.

That’s important because when you look back at our biggest songs, they always had our stamp on it. Sometimes it’s good to have some outside writers, but this time we really tried to stay pure and give our fans a strong record. And we know they’re waiting for the Schenker riffs like “Rock You Like a Hurricane” and “The Zoo,” the heaviness of “Animal Magnetism” and “China White.” Rudolf is the guy who comes up with those kinds of riffs, and all those years I wrote the lyrics after. This time it was the other way around. I wrote the lyrics first and Rudolf was inspired by the words, and he came back with these great songs.

MEINE:

DECIBEL : FEBRUARY 2022 : 25

 True believers

Scorpions’ five-decade reign of rock seeks to be an agent of positive changze

interviewed in the final episode of that podcast.

What was that experience like?

I mean, can you imagine? We do so many interviews, and it’s always a journalist talking to a songwriter or a musician, you know? But [in] this case, he’s not interviewing a musician.

He’s interviewing a spy! [Laughs] It was surreal.

It cracked me up laughing. It was just crazy. At first, it was just like one of a thousand interviews, but then the guy goes, “Klaus, have you ever heard that the CIA wrote ‘Wind of Change,’ and you’re telling the world that you wrote it?”

So, in a way the guy is saying, “You are lying for 30 years, my friend.” It could be a good way to be totally upset and freak out and leave the room, but this guy came all the way from New York City to Hanover, Germany, to talk to me about “Wind of Change,” so I was polite. Like he put it later, “Klaus was a good sport.”

But what can you say? I think the fans understand that the song came straight from the heart, but it’s hard to take when somebody says it was not from the heart—it was all just Cold War propaganda. But the truth is, it’s a peace anthem. We saw it firsthand in those years—’88, ’89—and that’s where the song was inspired. If Patrick Radden Keefe, who made this interview with me, would’ve been right, I think the Scorpions would’ve been smart enough to perform this song at the Moscow Music Peace Festival in ’89. [Laughs] But that was the moment of inspiration.

MEINE:

KLA U S What can you tell us about the lyrical themes?

Well, it’s just about life. It’s about rock ‘n’ roll, our fans, special places—countries, cities— that we came through in all those years. There’s a song on the album about when we came for the first time to America, around the time where we went to “The Zoo,” you know? New York City, 42nd Street—that’s one of our classics. This is not a remake of “The Zoo”—it’s a completely different song—but it goes back to that time. I thought of when our U.S. managers at the time said, “You guys gotta go out there and knock ’em dead.” This is what you feel on the way to the stage. So, that’s what this song is all about, just to give you an idea. We don’t want to give the title away now, but that’s one of the songs. And there are other scenarios from other parts of the world that I connected myself with. I think if I can connect with it, our fans can do the same thing.

MEINE:

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M EIN E You guys have been putting out albums for 50 years now. How do you keep it interesting for yourselves?

SCHENKER: Nobody was thinking 50 years ago that there would be a German band playing in over 80 countries around the world. When you follow this road, you come to where you wanna go. That’s the important point: inspiration.

What else can be better than playing music and getting all this love from the audience? That’s the situation we always miss when we’re at home. You’re always thinking, “When do we start again?” We can’t live without music.

Like many folks, I listened to a lot of podcasts during the pandemic. One of my favorites was Wind of Change, which explored the rumor that your famous song of the same name was actually written by the CIA. Klaus, you were

You’ve sold more than 120 million records and played over 5,000 shows in 80 countries. What do you feel you have left to accomplish?

To go out on the road again. After this long worldwide pandemic, from lockdown to lockdown, being in the studio was a blessing. We had something to work on. But now the album is done and we start the rehearsals for a new production for a new show. The Rock Believer tour will start in March with a residency in Las Vegas, and we’re very excited about it. If we would not go back this year, it would be a disaster, just like it was a disaster for so many young artists and so many bands who wanted to play shows in 2020 and ’21, but were cut off from the world. We were very lucky that we had a chance to create new music and use this pandemic time so well, but if we could not start next year, it would be very tough for all of us. It’s been postponed twice because of the pandemic, but we keep our fingers crossed. We can’t wait to play and share the album with our fans.

MEINE:

PHOTO BY MARC THEIS

When you take a look at the news, with the worldwide pandemic, the devastating wars and all these mindless crimes, it seems like the undertaker is working overtime these days. So, it’s up to all of us to support the peacemaker in order to make the world a better place.

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BY ADEM TEPEDELEN

hough we have recently bore witness to numerous indications that the final apocalypse is nigh upon us—like how the fuck did the Braves win the World Series, for instance—certain things remain unchanged. Metal bands will continue to write and record new music, and inevitably find a label that will release said tuneage. This will no doubt continue in some fashion or another until humanity manages to snuff itself out, or whatever vengeful god/demon/politician you choose to worship does the deed. ¶ But, hey, that’s probably still a ways off (fingers crossed), and we’re staring down 2022 with the kind of hope and optimism you reserve for new years that you preface with “it couldn’t be any worse than...” Reasons for optimism include:

Bands are touring again!

The Decibel Tour is back!

And some of the extremely extreme world’s heavy hitters have new albums set for release!

Let’s just re-emphasize the “set for” part of that, because, as we discovered while assembling this list, any number of unexpected impediments may arise, including—but not limited to—Adele hogging all the record plants so she can press a half million copies of a licorice pizza that five years from now will be found in every thrift store across the country. ¶ We’re quite sure, however, that our 20 Most Anticipated Albums of 2022 will never find their way to any thrift store bins, because, as you’ll see in the pages that follow, all that pent-up quarantining anxiety and frustration has actually resulted in some incredible music. Don’t take our word for it, though. Read what the people who made it had to say.

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DREAM UNENDING Song of Salvation 20 Buck Spin PRODUCER: TBA RELEASE DATE: Fall TITLE: LABEL:

Having just released their debut last November, it may come as a surprise that this new ethereal doom duo, formed by Derrick Vella (Tomb Mold) and Justin DeTore (Innumerable Forms), will have a new album in 2022. As it turns out, debut Tide Turns Eternal “switched on the fountain of creativity,” according to Vella. “As I soaked in the finished product, as happy as I was, it made me reflect and think about what else I had to say musically. The excitement of finishing it sparked something. I wanted to push the edges out further on the things that make Dream Unending special.” To that end, the new one is already 95 percent written, with Vella saying he feels, “more inclined to make something a little more grand in scale, a little more epic, a little prettier and simultaneously nightmarish, more Zep parts, more ‘lightning crashes’ parts, maybe a little more plaintive.”

W

WATAIN

hen we first reach either of its predecessors, Trident Wolf Eclipse or 2013’s out to Watain vocalist/bassist Erik The Wild Hunt. “The new maDanielsson for word terial is much more of a freeon the upcoming standing endeavor, created album, he’s not quite ready out of nothing but the deep TITLE: TBA to give us exclusive insight. passion, devotion and humIt’s only after a few days of bleness I have for Watain, LABEL: Nuclear Blast composing his thoughts on and the deep chasm of power PRODUCER: Tore Stjerna the follow-up to 2018’s blitzthat we draw from,” he says. ing Trident Wolf Eclipse that he “Musically, one could perRELEASE DATE: Spring gets back to us via email with haps say it takes off where some crucial details about the we ended on [2010’s] Lawless Swedish black metaller’s new opus, starting with its Darkness, but with quite a few new twists and nascence during what he refers to as “the plague.” turns, not to mention the addition of our own “Much of the material was already stirring like personal experiences and progression, and the dark dreams in the depths of my mind,” Danielsincrease in skill and the growth of spirit that has son says. “And like always, it becomes a matter taken place in the gulf of time that has passed of reaching as far down there as possible to see between then and now.”

Though Danielsson typically resists dissecting what could be brought back and into the rehearsal or analyzing his lyrics, he nonetheless acknowlroom to be transformed into actual songs. It was, of course, fantastic to have proper time for that edges their origins. “I would say the lyrics on insanely intricate process for once, but I honestly the new album are all quite different from one don’t think the album would have turned out that another, but just like the music, their common different without the plague.” origin can be traced back to a very pure and honest place within myself,” he explains. “Some are An additional luxury the band was afforded, however, was to work on the “insanely intricate deeply personal reflections on subjects such as improcess” together. “A big difference this time was permanence, myth and longing. Some are written that we were rehearsing with a full lineup,” Danas hymns to things that I hold sacred. Some are ielsson notes, “with the intention of recording written in a more ecstatic, trance-like state. Some the songs live in the studio instead of tracking can be seen as a commentary on experiences I’ve had doing what we do in a world that, to a great the instruments separately.” extent, still believes in normative concepts such The results are an album that, per Danielsas good and evil.” son’s assessment, bears no specific relation to PHOTO BY ESTER SEGARR A

EUCHARIST I Am the Void LABEL: Regain PRODUCER: Markus Johnsson RELEASE DATE: March 25 TITLE:

As detailed in the “In the Studio” section of issue 205, Eucharist’s longawaited follow-up to 1997’s Mirrorworlds is finally finding release after many years of false starts, since founder/ creative force Markus Johnsson and drummer Daniel Erlandsson (Arch Enemy) rekindled their creative partnership back in 2015. At that time, Johnsson began composing and recording what would become I Am the Void, but it wasn’t completed until Simon “BloodHammer” Schilling (Marduk, Panzerchrist) was enlisted to lay down drum tracks in 2021. Longtime Eucharist fans shouldn’t expect, however, an exact continuation of where the band left off 24 years ago. “I would say that this album has a lot in common with old Eucharist,” explains Johnsson, “[but it’s] using a somewhat different method to perform a similar story, so to speak.

You will enjoy this album like an old Eucharist fan if you are prepared to open your mind just a little bit further in order to welcome these new tones of passion and labor.”

DECIBEL : FEBRUARY 2022 : 29

VOIVOD

MATT PIKE

CULT OF LUNA

TITLE:

Synchro Anarchy LABEL: Century Media PRODUCER: Voivod RELEASE DATE: February 11

TITLE:

Pike Vs. the Automaton LABEL: MNRK Heavy PRODUCER: Billy Anderson RELEASE DATE: February 18

TITLE:

Quebec progsters Voivod may well have been one of the busier metal bands during the pandemic, releasing vinyl EP The End of Dormancy and live album Lost Machine (recorded in 2019), as well as performing a streaming concert and full online performances of both Nothingface and Dimension Hatröss. They also wrote and recorded Synchro Anarchy in a way that only Voivod can. “We had to build the demos with computers [while] isolated at home, [and that] made everything really surgical,” drummer Away tells us. “I think it shows in the end results. We were trying to stick bits of songs and riffs together, and there are proggy moments because of that. [Guitarist] Chewy had some material written, as well, with more of a thrash metal approach, so there are a lot of double-kick drums on the album. We sure worked hard on it!”

High on Fire guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike did not find the pandemic lockdown at all to his liking— “I was just going bonkers,” he tells us—but he channeled that mania into one helluva solo album, with some help from his friends, including HOF bassist Jeff Matz, drummer Jon Reid (Lord Dying), Pike’s wife Alyssa, and even Mastodon’s Brent Hinds, among others. Don’t expect HOF heaviness, though. Pike describes the material as “way more psychedelic than any other record I’ve made. It’s very different, although my guitar and writing style is hard to hide.” One example of the experimentalism Pike employed is a track called “Leaving the Wars of Woe,” which features Matz playing a Turkish saz, a long-necked lutelike acoustic instrument. “That song is one of the most incredible songs that I’ve ever been involved with,” Pike says. “The riff is just fucking badass.”

Sometime back in 2017 or 2018, Cult of Luna changed their approach to making records, and the creativity has flowed unfettered. “I don’t know what happened,” says guitarist/vocalist Johannes Persson from his home in Umeå, Sweden, “but when we opened up for more spontaneous kind of writing, we’ve just been going ever since.”

The Long Road North—which Persson describes as “big” and “cinematic”—was also aided by his return to Umeå after a decade spent in Stockholm.

“I was traveling around in the north of Sweden last summer just to experience this part of the country since I’ve moved back here, and I tried to put the impressions that I got into words and music.”

KREATOR TBA LABEL: Nuclear Blast PRODUCER: Arthur Rizk RELEASE DATE: Summer TITLE:

We distinctly recall a moment of repose in February 2020 thinking, Goddamn, a new Kreator record would go down real nice right about now. It’s been a few years since Gods of Violence kicked our ass. Turns out guitarist/vocalist Mille Petrozza was thinking the same thing. He was ready to unleash the fury, but unfortunately, the world wasn’t. “I am constantly writing music, so the album was 80 percent done when the pandemic hit,” he tells us. “We decided to move the release date since we wanted to tour after the album release.” And the gods of violence laughed. But, hey, it’s 2022 and touring is back, and Kreator are primed—and fucking excited!— to deliver the goods. “[The new album] will blow metalheads away!” Petrozza enthuses via the Interhole. “It’s everything a Kreator album should be. People will be very surprised!”

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NO/MÁS

The Long Road North LABEL: Metal Blade PRODUCER: Cult of Luna RELEASE DATE: February 11

MIDNIGHT

LABEL:

Let There Be Witchery LABEL: Metal Blade PRODUCER: Noah Buchanan RELEASE DATE: March 4

We love it when Metal Archives gets all uppity. No/ Más were apparently only “accepted into the Metal Archives based on [2019’s] Last Laugh.” As if the deathy grindcore the D.C. quartet has been crushing out since 2017 just wasn’t, uh, metal enough. Well, these dudes may well have the last laugh when Consume/ Deny/Repent unleashes all kinds of mayhem in 2022.

Guitarist John Letzkus, for one, is stoked about the recording that took place over two weeks at Taylor Young’s (God’s Hate, ex-Nails) Van Nuys, CA studio.

In comparison to the album that finally got them on MA, Letzkus has this to say: “I think the songs are more memorable and catchy [on Consume/Deny/ Repent], yet a little more brutal, and dare I say technical. It’s an interesting dynamic. I’m most excited about the fact that you can hear the guitars on it!”

“Typical Cleveland luck,” Midnight guitarist/vocalist Athenar says of the timing of his last album, which dropped in January 2020. With no chance to support it, Athenar (neé Jamie Walters) started making more new records. Yes, plural. Let There Be Witchery was recorded nearly two years ago, but at the time of the sessions the material didn’t quite click with Athenar. So, he went home and wrote an entirely new album. However, when revisiting the Witchery sessions, he found the material “sounded great to me,” hence he kept it (and then also recorded its unnamed follow-up). What Athenar ultimately appreciated about Let There Be Witchery were the songs. “Each one speaks—or screams—for itself,” he says. “It’s just more about the individual tunes making up a killer piece of work that flows well together. And of course, there’s always little tidbits in the lyrics that amuse me and probably only me.”

Consume/Deny/Repent Closed Casket Activities PRODUCER: Taylor Young RELEASE DATE: TBA TITLE:

TITLE:

PHOTO BY JUSTIN BORUCKI

IMMOLATION

You won’t be cheated when Immolation’s new album drops. The New York DM legends, not content to sit on their collective laurels, maximized their down time to full effect and crafted a 15-track beast that voTITLE: Acts of God calist/bassist Ross Dolan describes as a “more aggresLABEL: Nuclear Blast sive and punishing album than our last few releases.”

PRODUCER: Immolation Though roughly a third of Acts of God was started by guitarist Robert Vigna as early as 2018, it was whipped RELEASE DATE: February 18 into shape over a prolonged creative period in 2020 and 2021 that gave the brutality proper time to fester and rot. “There’s such a wide range of sonic destruction to satisfy every Immolation fan’s thirst for new music,” says Dolan. “It’s a much, much darker album musically and lyrically than Atonement.”

ABBATH Dread Reaver Season of Mist PRODUCER: Endre Kirkesola/ Abbath/Dag Erik Nygaard RELEASE DATE: March 25 TITLE: LABEL:

A B B AT H P H O T O B Y J E R E M Y S A F F E R

Whatever ups and downs his personal journey takes him on, Abbath never fails to deliver the goods when it’s time to create new music. His frosty black metal legacy is well preserved on Dread Reaver, which largely features the same lineup as 2019’s Outstrider—guitarist Ole André Farstad, drummer Ukri Suvilehto and (current Nervosa) bassist Mia Wallace, who only played on a portion of the album. Abbath himself handled the rest—guitar, bass and vocals—while crafting a collection of huge, sprawling songs littered with unexpected turns, yet still staying true to his vision (and even his sense of humor).

Hell, he even throws in a chilly cover of Metallica’s “Trapped Under Ice.

BLOOD INCANTATION Timewave Zero Century Media/ Stargate Research Society PRODUCER: Blood Incantation/ Pete deBoer RELEASE DATE: February 25 TITLE: LABEL:

Spoiler Alert: The new album from Denver death metal space cadets Blood Incantation contains no death metal. In fact, it contains no guitars or drums. Guitarist/vocalist Paul Riedl describes it as “entirely instrumental progressive/atmospheric dark ambient space music,” and notes that the quartet had planned to make this type of record “since 2011, when we were first laying out the overall concept and strategy for the band.” The two-track record (one song per side) will feature vintage analog synthesizers, tape echoes, gongs and some acoustic instruments, “recorded live as a group onto 2-inch analog tape, with minimal overdubs.” Riedl sees this release as not a new direction for the band, but a “[palate] cleanser that allows us to start totally fresh for our next metal release.”

DECIBEL : FEBRUARY 2022 : 31

AS

CAVE IN

it turns out, 2019’s Final Transmisthat, I think his spirit is very much alive sion wasn’t Cave In’s final “transon this album.” mission.” Not that there was any Scofield’s spirit may well be alive on Heavy Pendulum, but there are fresh creinsinuation at the time that it ative forces at work here, as well. Conwould be, but ambiguous album titles can nonetheless raise questions in the verge bassist Nate Newton (who ironically minds of curious listeners. It was, however, replaced Brodsky in Converge in the late the final album that bassist/vocalist Caleb ’90s) is now in the mix. “Heavy Pendulum TITLE: Heavy Pendulum Scofield (R.I.P. 2018) would have any creative is Nate’s first creative venture with Cave LABEL: Relapse involvement in. Heavy Pendulum will be the In,” says Brodsky, “and I’m just thrilled at how engaged he was throughout the whole Massachusetts quartet’s first album withPRODUCER: Kurt Ballou out Scofield’s input in any capacity in more process. Me, [drummer] J-R [Conners] and RELEASE DATE: April/May than 20 years. His presence, however, is still [guitarist] Adam [McGrath] have been bangbeing felt. ing our heads to Nate riffs and screaming “In a way, [making Heavy Pendulum] felt like Caleb was still with us,” along since Channel [his early metallic hardcore band in Virginia says guitarist/vocalist Stephen Brodsky. “In 2017, he had ideas for writBeach]. And J-R and Adam are also writing and playing at the top of their game.” ing another album and recording in a proper studio. Final Transmission It is surely a transition album in certain regards, as Cave In leave [was] Cave In attempting to achieve Caleb’s vision before he died, and some of the past behind and push ever forward. Previous label Hydra Heavy Pendulum is the sound of us fulfilling it. The song ‘New RealHead has been replaced by Relapse, yet Heavy Pendulum also marks the ity’ is about him, and also features one of his riffs; the lyrics to the return to old friend Kurt Ballou’s GodCity Studio for the first time in song ‘Amaranthine’ are mostly his. There were many points where 20 years. “It’s an exciting time,” Brodsky concludes. we considered how Caleb might approach something, and with all

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BELL WITCH

TITLE:

TBA LABEL: Century Media PRODUCER: Trey Spruance and Imperial Triumphant RELEASE DATE: TBA

TITLE:

New York City avant black metallists Imperial Triumphant made a significant splash mid-pandemic with the genre-blurring Alphaville, yet were denied the opportunity to support their creative efforts. Undeterred, they simply continued on. “We’re always writing,” says vocalist/guitarist Zachary Ilya Ezrin. “The work never stops. We spent all of 2020 and 2021 just writing, rehearsing and honing this new album. It is a tremendous amount of creation, but having all three members of the band composing and writing expedites things.” Co-produced by Imperial Triumphant and Mr. Bungle guitarist Trey Spruance, the new album will continue down the band’s boundary-pushing path. “We always try to surprise our audience and ourselves,” says Ezrin.

What’s unsurprising is IT’s dedication to detail in every aspect of what they do. “The attention to detail that goes into designing a luxury product has been a large source of inspiration. Whether it’s Rolex or Rolls-Royce, there are so many tiny decisions that were made from inception that contribute to a greater experience. Why not apply that to music?”

For a small-in-number band, Seattle funeral doom duo Bell Witch think big.

Big songs (some spanning entire albums, such as 2017’s Mirror Reaper), big concepts and a big sound. The upcoming release from drummer Jesse Shreibman and bassist Dylan Desmond, who share vocal duties, is merely the first part of the pair’s most grandiose endeavor yet, a “triptych released over three records,” Desmond tells us. Writing began in 2019, and Bell Witch even performed portions of it while on tour with Neurosis that same year. Concepting was refined in the ensuing years, and the band laid down part one of the triptych with Billy Anderson during the pandemic. “[It] establishes some themes we’ll carry and expand on during the second and third releases,” says Desmond. “We’ve spent so much time hacking and butchering riffs and lengthy passages during this process that I believe once all three records have been completed, it will be our most cohesive and developed material to date.”

CANDY TBA Relapse PRODUCER: Arthur Rizk RELEASE DATE: TBA TITLE: LABEL:

The last sonic transmission we received from sludgy, drop-tuned hardcore quintet Candy was “Super-Stare,” a two-song single released via Relapse in 2019. In the intervening years, the fivesome, spread across four states, wrote a new batch of songs, scrapped them and then made a record that could only happen during a pandemic. “When we were writing this record, nothing else mattered to us,” says guitarist Michael Quick of the band’s isolation from each other and the rest of the world. “For better or worse, this album is what happens when you have nothing but time to think, and few people to communicate with. Any thoughts of fear, loss, anger or doubt that were brought on by what was happening in the world during that two-year period couldn’t be expressed to anyone else, so they were just poured into the album. It’s 100 percent honest, and no one else could have made anything like it.”

TBA LABEL: Profound Lore PRODUCER: Billy Anderson RELEASE DATE: July (tentative)

UADA Crepuscule Natura Eisenwald/Obsidian Spells PRODUCER: Jake Superchi RELEASE DATE: Spring TITLE:

LABEL:

Uada guitarist/vocalist Jake Superchi oozes with positivity regarding the Portland black metal quartet’s new release, and just generally looking toward the future, in spite of the many obstacles the band faced since Djinn was released in late 2020. “I believe this to be our best and strongest work to date,” he says.

“For the first time we have been blessed to finally create an album where all four members are fully invested and working together... and we believe it will be heard and felt in the album. It is a new beginning for all.” Lead guitarist James Sloan was locked down in Colombia during much of the pandemic, so the band’s usual writing process was disrupted. Superchi instead hunkered down in a battery-powered storage locker to write with new drummer Elijah Losch. The full band convened for two weeks last January and Crepuscule Natura was quickly tracked. The band’s fourth LP is, according to Superchi, “the fourth step in the chain that has evolved from ‘transition’ to ‘reflection’ to ‘possession’ to the current state of ‘resurrection,’ and it feels good to be alive again. I believe [Crepuscule Natura] will be a defining moment for the band.”

MESHUGGAH Immutable Atomic Fire PRODUCER: Rickard Bengtsson and Meshuggah RELEASE DATE: April 1 TITLE:

The big news surrounding Messhugah’s ninth studio album is the return of lead guitarist Fredrik Thordendal, who excused himself from touring commitments following the release of 2016’s The Violent Sleep of Reason. Once the band finally hits the road again in support of Immutable, Thordendal will relieve his fill-in, Scar Symmetry guitarist Per Nilsson, of his (temporary) duties. Immutable was recorded in summer 2021 at Sweden’s Sweetspot Studio with Rickard Bengtsson (Arch Enemy, Grand Magus, Spiritual Beggars), and was written largely while the members were separated from each other during the pandemic.

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PHOTO BY ESTER SEGARRA

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CROWBAR

we write this, NOLA sludnew material to fans on the extensive tour gelords Crowbar are wrapping they have planned with Sepultura and Saup a 10-date tour in direct supcred Reich. Despite his frustration with the delayed release, Windstein is clearly port of Municipal Waste. When stoked about how the new album came the tour was announced last summer, the quartet no doubt thought they together. Crowbar once again stayed close TITLE: Zero and Below would be out there promoting Zero and Beto home and recorded at OCD Recording low, their first album of new material since and Production in Metairie, LA. “We have LABEL: MNRK Heavy 2016’s crusher, The Serpent Only Lies. Clearly, a system with our producer, Duane SimoPRODUCER: Duane Simoneaux since you’re reading about Zero and Below in neaux,” Windstein explains. “This is the RELEASE DATE: March 4 our Most Anticipated Albums of 2022, that fourth record [we’ve recorded] with Duane, didn’t happen. Understandably, guitarist/ so everything went smoothly.” vocalist Kirk Windstein wishes things had As for what to expect sonically, the band’s gone differently. “We actually finished the [new] record in February swampy, doomified sludge remains firmly intact. Though Windstein explored some new, quieter territory on his 2020 solo album, Dream in of 2020,” he says. “It’s been very frustrating waiting this long for Motion, this one finds him returning to his bread and butter. “I think the record to be released.” we visited all of the elements that make up Crowbar’s sound on this Windstein and his bandmates—drummer Tommy Buckley, lead album,” he says. “It’s a diverse record in that sense.” One that Windguitarist Matt Brunson and bassist Shane Wesley—need only wait stein can’t wait for you to hear. a few more months, however, and then they can actually bring the

36 : FEBRUARY 2022 : DECIBEL

PHOTO BY JUSTIN REICH

O

UNDEATH

ne thing we learned about some things around for us in the scheduling Undeath in an Upfront profile in department,” Jones says, “but by no means our November 2020 issue is that the was [Time] a product of COVID-induced downRochester, NY death fiends are tiretime. We were already well into writing for less practitioners of the dark (metal) it by the time Lesions of a Different Kind came arts. That is to say, they practice and write out [in October 2020], and the pandemic was constantly. After all, those twisty, sick tunes in full swing at that point. Obviously, not TITLE: It’s Time… aren’t gonna write themselves. Touring’s not being able to tour gave us some more flexto Rise From the Grave on the table? They just get down to business ibility with actually recording the new stuff, LABEL: Prosthetic making more music. “I don’t think this band but things had already been in motion for a PRODUCER: Scoops Dardaris while. We don’t get out much.” has ever stopped writing,” says vocalist Alex Jones, “and I mean that sincerely. We take Which is why, just 18 months after ProsRELEASE DATE: April 22 days off here and there, don’t get me wrong, thetic dropped Lesions (Undeath’s first for the but [guitarist] Kyle [Beam] and [drummer] label), they’re already back with more ugliMatt [Browning] and the rest of the guys are constantly working on ness. Jones lets us know what to expect for album number two: “Huge new shit and piecing together riffs around the clock. That aspect of choruses, massive riffs that get stuck in your head for days, a major step up in the playing department due to the fact that this is the first album Undeath has always been really inspiring to me.”

According to Jones, It’s Time… to Rise From the Grave was just the next we’ve recorded as a five-piece, and ass-whooping production that demands step forward—plague or no plague. “The pandemic obviously changed you blast this record as loud as possible. It’s a fucking killer album.”

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DECIBEL : FEBRUARY 2022 : 39

Read how John Tardy discovered his growl in a book excerpt from

DECIBEL BOOKS

recently announced the publication of Turned Inside Out: The

Official Story of Obituary, and now Decibel is proud to share the first excerpt from this 328-page hardcover book authored by David E Gehlke (No Celebration: The Official Story of Paradise Lost, Damn the Machine: The Story of Noise Records). The following passage takes readers back to the mid-’80s when Executioner, featuring Obituary’s founding core of John Tardy, Donald Tardy and Trevor Peres, were about to discover a sound that would change the course of death metal history.

DEL CIBEL 40 : F AE PB RR I LU 2A0R2Y1 2: 0D2E2 C:I B

CHAPTER 3 Xecutioner

 Knives out The first-ever Executioner band photo

D

uring a 1985 Executioner practice, John Tardy stood quietly in the corner of his parents’ garage while his bandmates bashed away on “I’m in Pain,” a new Trevor Peres composition. One of the many tracks to emerge from Peres’ Celtic Frostinspired songwriting run, “I’m in Pain,” had a unique arrangement—its chorus was placed at the very end, eschewing the conventional song structure Peres was already doing his best to avoid. The heavier direction Peres was taking Executioner required a different approach from John, who came away from the Metal Up Your Ass demo thinking there was more he could do as a vocalist. He was confident, though, that he no longer wanted to sound like a thrash singer.

John had to find a way to match Peres’ fiendishly heavy guitar tone and his brother Donald’s dynamic style of drumming.

As his bandmates continued to hammer away at “I’m in Pain,” John hovered around the microphone. He had a basic grasp of what to do during the song’s verses (parts that would eventually be rewritten), but something about the chorus stood out. He strode back and forth as the song’s riffs and rhythms emanated from Donald, Peres, bassist Jerome Grable and freshly inserted new lead guitarist Mark Vittoe. When the chorus came around, he suddenly grabbed

the microphone stand, reared back and, with every ounce of froth, aggression and fury in his not-even-18-year-old body, unleashed the line of “Help me, I’m in pain!”

Peres, Donald, Grable and Vittoe each looked at each other, astonished.

“What the hell was that?” asked Peres. “That was badass!”

“We have to do that again!” yelled Donald from behind his kit. “Let’s go!”

Executioner then launched back into the song, each member almost hurrying their pace so they could get to the chorus, anticipating what John would do next: “HELP ME, I’M IN PAIN!” The song ended, and a satisfied John Tardy had now stumbled upon a vocal style that altered the course of both Executioner and death metal history.

“It was surprising that I was able to sing like that, but also scary,” he admits. “When I started doing vocals like that, I got tired really fast. I would also get hoarse very quickly in those early days. We weren’t touring or anything, so I hadn’t fully developed the style or the stamina. I remember some of the early shows that we did, and I felt exhausted after a few of them. It took me several years to get to the point where I am today. I just worked on things. It’s a weird style; it’s a weird concept.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE JEROME GR ABLE ARCHIVE

So many people hate death metal, and I completely understand why—it’s because of the vocals. Yet, most Obituary fans like Obituary because of the vocals. It’s a really strange thing that most of the world hates us because of me, but our fans like us because of me.”

“This was when John started to find his voice,” says Donald. “Compared to everything before that, he was horrible, and he didn’t know what he was doing, and he was trying to find his way. Then it felt like overnight, all of a sudden, he started turning into something cooler. It still wasn’t quite the ‘John Tardy’ voice yet, but he was on his way.”

“I was happy as hell when I heard them,” says Peres of John’s vocals. “I was so deep into Venom, Possessed and, of course, Celtic Frost and Hellhammer. We were always listening to that shit. It was like, ‘Yes, that’s what we want!’

That was our direction. When he did it, I said, ‘There you go, dude.’ It just got better from there. John’s vocals were so heavy to the point where they were like an extra instrument. At the end of the day, our music was about the feeling, the vibe, especially with the heavy guitar tones and brutal drumming we were doing. Put John’s new vocals into that mix, and it made my hair stand up on end.”

John had actually wanted to be a traditional metal singer like his hero, Savatage’s Jon DECIB DEL C I:BFEELB: RAUPARRI L Y 2022 1 : 41

TURNEDINSIDEOUT

Let the killing begin  Early Massacre (from l to r): Kam Lee, Allen West, J.P. Chartier and Bill Andrews.

Oliva. But aware that achieving a multi-octave range like the Savatage frontman would be out of reach, he turned his attention to Venom, whose vocalist, Conrad “Cronos” Lant, was one of the first to employ a “gruff” style of vocals.

Executioner toyed with the occasional Venom cover during practice, giving John insight into formulating more aggressive vocals. With Peres’ domineering guitar tone creating maximum heaviness, John felt compelled to try a style that was unhinged, relying on a series of sounds rather than lyrics. Without realizing it, he created a vocal style unlike anything in extreme metal.

“I tried to blend in with Trevor’s tone as much as I could,” he says. “Some of those early songs that happened when we started getting heavier, like ‘’Til Death,’ what I was doing vocally was just noises. It didn’t mean anything to me. I never found it necessary to sit down and write lyrics to our songs. I don’t know why; I just never did. As we advanced in our career, I wrote things down, but the pronunciation of things… my approach was totally caveman back then.

We didn’t even know what we were doing. I just started going for it and came up with sounds off the top of my head.”

John’s transition to death metal vocals came at a pivotal time. In 1985, a small but hungry death metal scene started to brew in Florida.

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The undisputed first band and subsequent leaders of the scene, Death, were beginning to become more than just an idea in Chuck Schuldiner’s head. The band’s Infernal Death demo was making its way across the United States and beyond via a group of tape-traders dedicated to the cause of spreading the word of underground metal. Another contemporary was Morbid Angel, who had recently changed their name twice—first from Ice, then Heretic, and had the unique setup of their drummer, Mike Browning, also handling lead vocals.

“We were just concentrating on what we were doing,” Browning says. “It was a weird but exciting time. Heretic used to do a lot of parties. We threw our own parties where we’d go to the beach, run a generator and start playing.

There was also a park in Tampa with a littlesized hill that had steps to a pavilion at the top with electrical outlets. We used to go up there and just jam. We didn’t have a PA system or anything back then. Dallas [Ward, bass], Trey [Azagthoth, guitar] and I used to get up there and start playing Jimi Hendrix rhythms and going crazy for 20 minutes.”

Also emerging on the scene was Massacre, which included the talents of a diminutive lead guitarist by the name of Allen West.

Massacre played many of the same venues as Executioner—including the Mango Rec Center,

which was located near Armwood Senior High School. Grable got to know Massacre bassist Mike Borders from working at the often customer-less Fotomat booth, where they would talk well into the night about their bands and the Florida scene. The two arranged a show for Executioner and Massacre in the fall of 1985 that would serve as the first time the Tardy brothers and Peres saw West play live. They recognized that night that the smallest member onstage had the most talent.

Something was starting to brew in Florida.

Although many of thrash’s early top bands wouldn’t make it to the Sunshine State until several years later, local record stores like Asylum Records and Melody Music carried more than enough metallic options to quench the thirst of would-be ravenous ’bangers. Whether they knew it at the time or not, Executioner were now firmly embedded in the Tampa scene.

Heading into 1986, the band now had an even clearer direction. With Peres now supplying the riffs, Grable and Donald the rhythmic backbone, Vittoe the flashy solos and John the ungodly vocals, the next 12 months were poised to be critical.

Order Turned Inside Out: The Official Story of Obituary at store.decibelmagazine.com.

Words of evil  John Tardy performing live with Executioner, circa 1985.

So many people hate death metal, and I completely understand why— it’s because of the vocals.

Yet, most Obituary fans like Obituary because of the vocals.

It’s a really strange thing that

MOST OF THE WORLD HATES US BECAUSE OF ME, BUT OUR FANS LIKE US BECAUSE OF ME.

JOHN TARDY

PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE JEROME GR ABLE ARCHIVE

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the

definitive stories

behind extreme music’s

definitive albums

The Neighs Have It the making of dead horse’s Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers

by

forrest pitts

1991

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Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers BIG CHIEF S EPT EMBER 11, 1991

You can’t beat ’em

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was a year of revelation and catharsis for popular music.

Heavy music had drawn just enough blood to catch the jackals of the music industry’s attention, and with the release of Metallica’s self-titled LP and Ozzy’s Grammy-winning No More Tears—not to mention the full-throated arrival of grunge thanks to the likes of Nevermind, Ten and Badmotorfinger—FM radio became borderline interesting. Sure, thrash was being force-fed its meds and full-fat yogurt, but against all odds, death metal was looking just as commercially viable. Hell, you could purchase a Godflesh cassette at Camelot Music. Anything seemed possible.

To wit: Houston, TX outfit dead horse (all lowercase, thank you), which clambered out of this extraordinary cradle with a sophomore album that simply shouldn’t exist. It somehow had the charismatic indecency of S.O.D., the oblique catchiness of the Pixies and a certain helter-skelter, country twang.

It was obnoxious, brooding and strangely innocent, and it accidentally managed to make thrash seem really cool again (partially by not really being a thrash record). And it should’ve caught fire. Shit, they were almost, almost there!

But the righteous steam of youth, a little bad juju and 40 ounces of malt liquor make for a seriously stiff cocktail, and by 1994 it was “Every God for Himself.” And maybe you don’t get that reference, but it’s only because you haven’t been properly introduced to what L-G Petrov once dubbed “one of Texas’ greatest bands.” You don’t know yet, friend. But you’re about to.

Welcome, Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers.

After all this time, the privilege is ours, and—at last—the floor is yours...

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Tell us a little bit about how the band came together.

In the summer of 1982, I became close friends with dead horse’s original guitarist, Robert Moore. Not too long after, I met Greg Martin, who at the time was chasing Rob across a parking lot to beat his ass (school days; fun stuff). Eventually, we became friends and formed the band Axe Thrasher (also with Michael Haaga’s brother Randy on drums), After only a few shows, Rob went into rehab and the band fell apart.

Later, in early 1987, Rob approached me [about a new project]. He was working with Greg again and a new guy named Ronnie Guyote on drums.

I did an audition with Greg and Ronnie, and was in like Flynn. Mike Haaga and Greg were good friends, so Greg talked Mike into coming in on vocals. We recorded our first demo with Randy twisting knobs at a Rural College Studio in Alvin, TX. Soon after, Rob went back into rehab, so we had Mike start playing guitar and changed the name to what I thought was the worst fucking band name in the world: dead horse. The attitude was to bridge the gap between metal and punk, have no limits and just let each other do whatever we wanted to do.

MICHAEL HAAGA: I met Greg in the Palmer Drug Abuse Program; I was just tagging along with my older brother, Randy. I was going through a southern rock phase and Greg was listening to Sabbath and Motörhead. We’d all been jamming—eventually a version of the guys became Axe Thrasher. (They sounded like what you might expect a band called Axe Thrasher to sound like.) At some point, they break up and then reform with Ronnie Guyote; Ronnie had this badass garage converted into a jam room at his house. Randy suggested that I sing for the [as-of-yet-unnamed] band. When I [joined], I thought we should speed all the tunes up by a million percent. That seemed to be the logical direction behind being a punk or hardcore metal band. You had to play a hundred miles an hour.

GREG MARTIN: There was really no concept; we just wanted to be heavy. I love Motörhead, Sabbath, Slayer, D.R.I. and Suicidal Tendencies— that’s the kind of stuff I wanted to do.

ALLEN “ALPO” PRICE:

There’s a significant development in terms of both songwriting and the solidification of the band’s identity between 1989’s Horsecore: An Unrelated Story That’s Time Consuming and Peaceful Death. Tell us about the lessons you were learning during that two-year gap.

PRICE: We were a very fast-growing, yet, frankly, naive band. We were like brothers. We spent a lot of time jamming; not just writing, but tons of improvising. Primus, Sepultura, Pantera, Melvins, industrial music… all kinds of rich Houston

“We were far from mainstream and too bizarre to appeal to typical metal fans.

We weren’t really death metal. We weren’t a comedy band.

Our whole identity was a package deal: the weirdness, the humor, the genre-skipping— a marketing nightmare.”

MICHA E L HAAGA musical flavors were percolating in our minds.

For some of us, writing PD&PF was the hardest thing to go through… it was hard on our friendship. Getting our ideas and parts into the songs [became] very frustrating. Maybe there were too many styles of music pulling us in too many directions. One thing for sure was that we really didn’t want to be labeled a death metal band; hell, we didn’t want to be labeled at all. It was nice to be called alternative—until grunge hijacked the term. Through that turbulence, a great mix of influences made their way onto the album, but it was an extreme process and took its toll.

M. HAAGA: We fucking loved rehearsing. A couple beers and some grass, and we’d jam for hours.

We made fun of each other, and it was raw and honest. You might have an entire song’s chorus be written about you titled “Dumb Fuck”—true story. We always found the metal persona to be a bit humorous in and of itself.

By the time of Peaceful Death, it became harder to get everyone in a room multiple times a week.

Ronnie and I started hanging out more and working out parts before the other guys showed up. The songs went through numerous changes and variations. I think this long process started FEBRUARY 2022 : 4 6 : DECIBEL

to drive the band apart a little bit. Eventually, it was a lot of just working on songs and the changes, less silly improvising. I get it—who wants to work two years on one record? Well, besides me.

MARTIN: You could equate a lot of the difference in the writing between the two albums to the fact that, when we put out Horsecore, we didn’t have any idea about what we wanted to do or who we were. We just slapped a bunch of music together and put it out. But with Peaceful, we were all two years older and two years into the machine. It would need to be different. Plus, we were having more success and positive feedback, you know? It made us feel like we were doing something that had meaning.

How much would you attribute the band’s unusual sound and aesthetic to being Texan?

I guess being from Chicago made it odd for me to be playing anything Southern, but there is something about Texas that tends to produce the atypical rock band. We were influenced by our peers, people like Ruben [Cantu] and Sal [Saldivar, both of Splatterreah]. They brought the death growls into our circle.

M. HAAGA:

P L AY I T. W E A R I T. L I V E I T.

F O L L O W O U R K V LT

ROCKABILIA.COM

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The fact that I’m a Texan has had a big influence on who I am as a musician. I can say that out of all the members of dead horse, I probably have the strangest musical taste. I never really listened to the type of music that we represented. Most of the bands that heavily influenced me don’t have drummers— i.e., Godflesh or Candiru. I think that my taste in music had some twisted effect on the foundation that Allen and I created that gave it some weird, off-the-chain backbone.

RANDY HAAGA (FORMER DEAD HORSE MANAGER): I understand why people blame/credit Texas for odd-sounding music—Butthole Surfers, among others—but I don’t think it’s Texas. I think it’s being so far from either coast, too far from either of the music hubs to even really consider or care what the norms should be.

MARTIN: Ah, I don’t know. I don’t have any way to compare to being from any other state because I’ve only ever been from Texas—we’re kinda natural hicks. The stuff that was going on at the time, we loved that shit. We definitely felt connected to it, and there was a lot of really badass shit out there nationally and in Houston.

Everywhere you went in town, all these bands were sprouting up, and even the ones that

weren’t metal were extremely talented. It was such a strong positive fucking force—you couldn’t help but feed off it, you know?

As I understand it, the band was connected with Big Chief Records through Agony Column. Is that correct, and what sort of deal did you strike with the label?

The gap between the recording of your first two albums coincided with a significant shift in popularity from thrash to death metal. Did that have any impact on dead horse?

PRICE: Agony Column was one way we were connected to Big Chief. I think the fact that Metal Blade had wanted us on the roster also had something to do with it. We’d been offered the standard Metal Blade deal and declined it—our managerial choices were never our strong suit. Big Chief were good folk, just not what we expected.

The end results speak for themselves.

M. HAAGA: I don’t really know how much Agony Column brought us and Big Chief together.

My biggest complaint about Big Chief was their inability to understand what made the band interesting and unique. We were also partly to blame; we used a horrible lawyer who let us sign away our publishing, leaving us to make zero dollars off the release. The label was really just two guys with some cash in a Manhattan office trying to push two of the weirdest bands out of Texas. Hindsight is pretty useless; we were naive and should’ve never signed with them, but we did record in the same studio as Rigor Mortis, and there was porn playing on the monitors the whole time.

It seemed legit.

MARTIN: Yeah, if I remember correctly, some of those guys sent our stuff to Big Chief.

RONNIE GUYOTE:

PRICE: I wanted to stay more in the thrash vein, but the growth of great death metal bands had a great impact on the scene in general. I also think the average fan wanted something a bit darker, aggressive and, well, faster.

M. HAAGA: The growling cookie monster vocals did affect the approach that I took for what I still considered “singing.” I never was very good at it, so I used it more for emphasis. My biggest influence was still more the Beatles than Slayer.

Don’t get me wrong—I think Reign in Blood is a masterpiece. I just enjoy The White Album more.

We did use blast beats here and there. One of my favorite things I ever collaborated on with Ronnie was the blast beat in “Turn.” It was the placement that made it work. I loved the days of working with him. The truth is I offered to jam with him after I left the band, and for whatever reason, he’d never take me up on it. What a shame.

MARTIN: It had no impact on me; I didn’t care.

When death metal came around, I was still in love with all the [same] bands I loved the whole time.

triple crown

phil anselmo In the late ’80s, dead horse were the most innovative band around, whether people acknowledge this or not. They mixed thrash and grind, but also added C&W styles together, even bluesy stuff. Great groove, great songs. Peaceful Death is one of the better LPs of completely originalsounding stuff coming out of the end of the ’80s/ early ’90s, no doubt about it. Utterly great band.

dead horse’S CLASSIC SECOND LP

hunter ginn,

CANVAS SOLARIS/ RADICAL RESEARCH PODCAST

Though released in 1991, PD&PF manages to sum up the kind of convergence we tend to associate more with the middle of the decade. Underrated both in popularity and prescience, dead horse’s sophomore offering blends thrash, grind, hardcore and Southern-fried Sabbath in a fashion that few bands have been able to replicate with such authenticity. Sardonic, unexpectedly moving, whimsical and self-possessed, Peaceful Death represents a watershed moment in the annals of ’90s metal pluralism.

FEBRUARY 2022 : 4 8 : DECIBEL

phil rind, SACRED REICH

Before I ever heard dead horse, I saw their logo on the flyer when we played together in Houston. I already thought they were cool. Then hearing and seeing them made me a fan. I love the mixture of influences that make up their sound. I always thought they were unique, and you can hear it all over Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers. Favorite track: “Medulla Oblongata.”

—FORREST PITTS

PHIL ANSELMO PHOTO BY DANIN DRAHOS • PHIL RIND PHOTO BY STEPHANIE CABRAL

SCENE ROYALTY SOUND OFF ON

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Is it true that dead horse were hoping to record the album with Scott Burns at Morrisound? Man, that would have made for a completely different record! Tell us about the producer and studio you ultimately went with.

PRICE: Yeah, we wanted to get in with Scott Burns, especially after the production of Horsecore came out thin. Personally, I wanted someone with a great track record, and he was the master. Not only would Scott have given us the edge we needed sonically, but the association would have introduced us to many in the industry that could have really helped us. I’m not saying we made the wrong decision to go to Dallas, but I don’t think it was the best one we could’ve made either.

R. HAAGA: I wanted Terry Date to produce the record, but the label didn’t help make that happen and we didn’t know the right people to ask at the time. We were very wary of outsiders.

M. HAAGA: I remember some talk about working with Scott Burns, but we ended up at Goodnight Studios in Dallas. [Producer] Kerry Crafton had a crude sense of humor that meshed with the band—he was a bit of a hillbilly and understood abrasive music. I don’t know what the differences of recording in Dallas over Scott Burns at Morrisound would’ve been. Would Scott Burns have gotten the humor? Would have he tried to make us sound more like the other death metal bands he was known for recording? Did we want to sound more like Deicide or Sepultura?

Who knows?

MARTIN: Ah, I don’t know. I was pretty drunk.

But it was cool working with Kerry Crafton; he was a great guy. Alpo is lucky Kerry didn’t kick his ass.

There’s an improvisational feel and a looseness to these tracks that’s unusual for thrash. dead horse sound confident and very comfortable with risks. What were the recording sessions like?

We were very much into improvising in the rehearsal room and onstage. Part of the looseness [on the record] is that improvisation.

Another part is that we were just plain sloppy.

That comes from being disinterested in playing technical or pristine metal. We played bluesrock leads pretty often because that’s what we were good at. And sometimes we just made noise where some arpeggio might have made sense for a technical guitar player. Also, there weren’t any egos to calm. The bliss of naiveté and going with the flow was still working.

PRICE: The way Greg and Mike connected was hard to describe. They had a seventh sense about the way they flowed: organic and magical. Ronnie and I grew together like a musical sewing machine, stitching it all together. I was M. HAAGA:

just grateful to be along for the ride. Those times in early 1990 were the best times emotionally and musically for the band.

We were equal on all levels of love, friendship and brotherhood.

R. HAAGA: They were confident because they were crazy-famous in Houston, selling out the same venues as Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam. They put in the work.

MARTIN: Our sessions were like chaos, and lots of alcohol and weed. The looseness came from the fact that we were one of the few bands at the time that refused to take ourselves too seriously.

Hell, we didn’t even use tuners.

For the uninitiated, help us decode the “Aplo” track. How does it connect to “Bewah” off of Horsecore and what’s an “alpotatonailgrinder”?

We started an improv session with me saying, “Guys, I’m getting married!” Like perfect improv masters, we went right into that funeral dirge. We pretty much wrote “Aplo” that day.

We’d always encouraged separate players doing vocals, so they wanted me to come up with the lyrics and sing. After working on them for a while, I realized the first verse of “Bewah” went well and bridged these two songs about drinking together. The first time I did it was in the studio while recording PD&PF, and my performance was not quite appreciated at the time. However, the vocal track you hear was the first and only take I did after drinking a Schlitz 40 oz., and pulling a few rips off a pipe.

M. HAAGA: What’s an alpotatonailgrinder? Allen Price’s nickname. We all had nicknames. It was a tough room; you didn’t get away with shit.

Getting fucked with was nonstop. We had an entire dead horse language.

It should also be mentioned why the song is titled “Aplo” and not “Alpo”: It’s because when we were in Austin at a Taco Bell, Allen wrote the word “Aplo” with a sharpie on his Converse.

A-P on one shoe, L-O on the other. Too fucking funny! Granted, he was probably stoned… but it was monumentally Allen. He got a lot of shit that day.

PRICE:

The cover of the B-52’s “Rock Lobster” was a super left-field choice for the band to perform.

How did it come about?

I’d been playing “Rock Lobster”’s opening riff for quite a while before even being in the band. We learned the song a little bit better for a Devastation/dead horse tour. [Devastation drummer] Louie [Carrisalez] would get up and sing a few lyrics all high-pitched. After that, it kind of became a thing. I remember asking [Philip] Anselmo, “Do you think we should put it on the record?” Philip: “NO!” Ha! I’m glad we did, though.

MARTIN: Hell, we all like the B-52’s, but I think it was largely Mike’s idea. We probably couldn’t M. HAAGA:

FEBRUARY 2022 : 50 : DECIBEL

agree on one and the crowd liked it. It was a damn good choice.

GUYOTE: Playing that cover was—like many things—something I didn’t agree with or want to do live. The guys in dead horse will all wholeheartedly agree that every idea they had (like the name of the band or playing covers or, really, anything) was decided on the fact that if I didn’t like it, it was gonna be big. I say this with all honesty: It always served us well.

I learned to trust the majority and just beat the shit out of my drums, which is what I’m good at.

Like any great metal record of the pre-download era, Peaceful Death’s “Special Thanks” list is an interesting read. Why the hell are Guns N’ Roses included on that list?

Yeah, guys, what the hell was that about?

Were they?!

M. HAAGA: I think it was Big Chief that had been hipped to the fact that the next GN’R record had a song called “Dead Horse.” It just seemed to make sense to put them on our thank-you list—maybe to beat them to the punch in some aspect. Also, just the ridiculousness of doing it.

Whatever. Slash wore a dead horse “Farm Road 666” shirt on tour with Metallica and Faith No More, so it all came full circle.

PRICE:

MARTIN:

Tell us about the so-called “Horse Corps.” I’ve read some anecdotes that sound pretty intense.

Who the hell were these guys?

PRICE: We had friends that would follow us all over Texas; devoutly loyal guys and gals. We often had car wars on the roads across the state.

The things that were thrown in battle, the pranks and antics are legend. We were all like one big family of misfit metalheads.

M. HAAGA: I remember the Horse Corps on a trip to the valley and “Spider” Mike Sikorski car-surfing on the freeway going 75 mph—one of those things you see on TV, but never think people would actually do. These are the types of experiences you have when you’re with people truly living on the edge. One of the boys ODed on heroin in ’93, but they were all good folks that rode the waves of the crowds, worshipped music and would have given their lives for you.

MARTIN: They were absolute maniacs. They were the ones that started the car wars with stuff like throwing a bag of flour into the air, then squirting honey on your windshield, so you were completely fucking blind going down the road.

It was fun!

M. HAAGA: Lots of crazy things began to happen as our Horse Corps entourage grew. [It] became somewhat of a regional traveling show of its own: bullet shells on the hot stove top until they went off; couches out the window; piss bottles being thrown during car wars. All in good fun until someone pisses or pukes on you in the middle of the night.

Carbonized Records 2021

All titles available now! carbonizedrecords.com

DECIBEL : FEBRUARY 2022 : 51

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What about the Metal Blade/Warner Bros. distribution deal? On its face, that kind of firepower sounds incredibly promising.

Yeah, it really did sound promising.

We must have had someone at Metal Blade or Warner Bros. who was a fan, or at least saw a reason for interest. Ultimately, when Big Chief went up (the owner’s nose), it was another misguided management blunder. We hadn’t set up proper publishing and gained control of the rights and agreements for funds disbursement in the release agreement with them. After the fact, we realized that we’d screwed up pretty fucking bad. They’d distributed over 43,000 units. We never got anything more than our advance for the recording budget. So, yes, it was very promising and prosperous for someone; not us!

MARTIN: It was neat to see the WB logo on the back of the record, but it meant about as much as putting GN’R in the thanks list. I know we made plenty of mistakes in dealing with [Big Chief].

Not doing a video they wanted to pay for because they wanted to do this song and we wanted to do that one [for example]. It’s a hard battle, and at times I’m sure we just came across as difficult.

They weren’t always right. Neither were we.

R. HAAGA: The whole concept of label support in every sense literally ended as we embarked on that first tour for the album. The label announced they would close up shop, so there was no tour support, no accounting, no nothing.

We have no idea how many albums actually sold other than the SoundScan count, which might have accounted for less than half the actual sales. We don’t know how it did or what it meant to have Metal Blade and WB on our side. We were released back to the wilderness.

MARTIN: PRICE:

Critical reaction to the record was generally strong, not to mention that all of a sudden, everyone in the scene seemed to be sporting dead horse merch. What was the mood/ expectation of the band following the album’s release?

PRICE: This was the break we’d been working for since we met in 1983. We felt that our lives would change in a great way and all of our work and dreams were coming true. It wasn’t the best in the world, but it was ours and we had no limits.

M. HAAGA: It never felt like we were about to blow up, at least not to me. And while hardcore music fans pay attention to what T-shirt is being worn by whom, it doesn’t mean shit to the labels. It just doesn’t equate to selling records. We were an awkward band to market, I guess. We were far from mainstream and too bizarre to appeal to typical metal fans. We weren’t really death metal.

We weren’t a comedy band. Our whole identity was a package deal: the weirdness, the humor, the genre-skipping—a marketing nightmare. Don’t

get me wrong—for a minute, we had the bull by the horns. We were just always stumbling over something. Eventually, ourselves.

R. HAAGA: [The press support] was jaw-dropping to read, but people needed to actually see the band, and things were quickly unraveling.

MARTIN: Fuck, we thought we were about to blow up, but instead we imploded. I remember us all talking about it and feeling that if one band from Houston could have just made it out, we could somehow bring everyone else along with us and give them a shitload of exposure. We had a plan to make Houston huge, man. It sometimes feels like we let everyone down, the whole Houston music scene.

“[Warner Bros] distributed over 43,000 units. We never got anything more than our advance for the recording budget.

So, yes, it was very promising and prosperous for someone; not us!”

A L L E N “A LPO ” PRICE The metal scene at the time could be pretty stuffy, and the band’s sense of humor and willingness to explore different genres was a huge part of its identity. Did you feel there might have been some struggle on new listeners’ parts to pin the band down?

PRICE: As a kid, I grew up idolizing great comedians. I wanted to become one until John Belushi’s death in 1982; making people laugh was what I wanted to do so badly. When Greg, Ronnie, Mike and I started hanging out on weekends, we found that common love for comedy while watching endless hours of The Young Ones and Monty Python.

We were some sarcastic motherfuckers, and the laughter and sarcasm may have been hard for outsiders to understand.

M. HAAGA: Absolutely. We were off-kilter to many.

I know dead horse’s lack of constant brutality probably turned off some death metal fans—and still would. There’s an open-hearted, openminded introspection to dead horse lyrics... a light-hearted ponderance of death to relate to, as opposed to dwell upon. If we couldn’t laugh at death, we certainly would be consumed by it.

MARTIN: We actually enjoyed the fact that we weren’t easily sucked into any sort of niche. We were never worried about it. Fuck, dude—thrash FEBRUARY 2022 : 5 2 : DECIBEL

and death metal [bands] were so limited to what they could sound like, and if they stepped out of bounds ,their fans fucking hated them for it.

We were always dancing around on that line, tiptoeing and shit because we were a bunch of goofballs, and it came out in our music.

Was the band able to tour to the extent that you felt you needed to at the time? As I understand it, a couple of the members had families by this point, which can certainly complicate things. What sort of support were you receiving from Big Chief?

PRICE: It was hard, but we had our families’ support. We missed our children, and that was extremely difficult to handle when a tour was bad, or we were just tired of being cooped up in a van. It was making money to feed those families that was the real issue. I didn’t think we toured enough. We passed on some tours, and that was a major issue for me. I felt we needed stronger management. Big Chief never gave us much support. Maybe some posters or promo copies of stuff. Other than that, squat. We were on our own.

M. HAAGA: There was zero tour support from Big Chief. The only national tour we did was with Entombed in 1992. We were entirely dependent on the earnings from performanceto-performance to pay for gas and hotels and other expenses that whole time. We stayed with friends and family as much as possible.

They were all in. Our band family included our actual families, and we relied on any and all support from them. There were some tough times, but all in all it was pretty inclusive, and that’s the way we liked it.

MARTIN: No, we needed more! We were struggling, eating baloney sandwiches out of a cooler and whatever the club might give us. It was hard on us all. When we rolled into a town we’d never been to before, there was nothing about the show anywhere. If there’d been advertising ahead of us, it would’ve been great. In Texas, we didn’t need it, but everywhere else people needed to hear about us, and that was a large part of what was mentally exhausting and frustrating. It felt like we were bailing water out of a little boat with holes, and it just seemed pointless. It was hard on our personalities and our relationships, and on top of that, we were all pretty immature and very young. A lot of times we wound up at each other’s throats, and that had never been what we were about; this band has always been a brotherhood. It really strained that.

R. HAAGA: I exited during the Exhorder/Entombed tour after five years of being the only one to handle business for the group. It was a blow-up that had been in the making for years, probably.

So, in the matter of a couple of months, the band lost their record label, manager and their booking agent, who moved to New York. They never really rebounded from all of that.

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DBHOF206

dead horse peaceful death and pretty flowers

 Why the long faces?

Despite a dedicated following and shows with the likes of Entombed and Sacred Reich, mismanagement and poor marketing sent this legendary Texas outfit to pasture early

What was the fallout for dead horse after Big Chief folded?

Thankfully, Big Chief released the ownership of the record to the band. I guess we were happy to be free of them. Any success at that time came with a lot of turmoil and change. My brother and the band stopped their seven-year relationship. We ended up talking with countless labels, entertaining numerous independent offers. Our management situation was unstable, and for the most part, I became acting personal management and booking agent. The label search, talking to promoters and booking shows, ordering merch, dropping it off at stores, going to the post office, answering mail and returning calls all took on more of a role than the work of writing new material, rehearsing or creating new artwork. A lot of the fun had been sucked out. The band would eventually stop hanging out as much.

The music business eats its own; it always has.

At 23-24 years old, I didn’t have the life experience to overcome the anxiety of what I was being handed. I couldn’t wear all the hats I was trying to wear. I also didn’t know how to delegate the responsibility to others. With the direction of the band wavering, our new music was noncohesive [and] jointly uninspired, and the road ahead seemed unachievable. We’d all grown up a lot. We were no longer clueless teenagers having fun. Our egos had all grown a little bigger, too, and we were all a little tired of the dream, in my opinion. We really could’ve used a break, either

M. HAAGA:

in the form of a check or in the form of a period of time away from the game.

MARTIN: [Big Chief] still owe us a shitload of money, don’t they? One guy went back to Ireland and the other guy disappeared back into the New York City gutters. Fuck those motherfuckers!

Peaceful Death represents a huge pivot point in dead horse’s career, as well as in your own lives. What’s it like to listen back to it after all these years?

I enjoy the music as much today as I did when we released it 30 years ago. Greg, Ronnie and I were lucky enough to play those songs for seven more years from 2011-2018 and enjoy sharing the fruits of our prior success with a new generation of fans. Anyone that enjoyed us back in the day should see if our new stuff echoes that same nostalgia.

M. HAAGA: Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers represents my evolution as a young man from his teens to his 20s. I found out who I was as an artist, a vocalist and a songwriter. When I hear it, I hear a simple time when four brothers with a common goal allowed themselves to have an experience unabashed: naive in all its glory. A final, innocent expression. A real honest work of art. I loved those days.

MARTIN: I know this is about the Peaceful Death record and listening back to it over the years, I appreciate it for what it is. But I get much more enjoyment out of listening to our last PRICE:

FEBRUARY 2022 : 5 4 : DECIBEL

two fucking records—especially [2017’s] The Beast That Comes—than I do Peaceful Death.

GUYOTE: When we wrote and recorded Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers, it was a different situation than with Horsecore. We should have waited. We all had an equality in the band, but that changed. I wish it had stayed the same.

We played and worked together very well before Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers.

What—if anything—would you change about the record?

We really came off the Big Chief deal blind. We could’ve signed with greater management like Pantera or the D.R.I. guys. We tried to do it ourselves, failed and ended up blackballed in the industry. If I could change anything, it would be management.

MARTIN: [If] we could’ve got paid, that would be cool.

PRICE: I love what we did, but if I could change anything I’d say, TURN UP THE FUCKING BASS, MAN! I was lucky to get with Mike [in 2019] and remix our Horsecore LP, and that’s exactly what I said then.

M. HAAGA: I don’t think we should’ve done anything different. It captured the moment. That moment. It sounds good enough.

It flows really well. The songs are loose, but not shabby. Mostly, it captures a great range of human emotion: laughter, sadness, anger, fear and love. I think I’ll go listen to it. It’s been a while.

GUYOTE:

DECIBEL : FEBRUARY 2022 : 55

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his feels like a triumph. After having the 2020 iteration

There’s a certain perfect symmetry to both the routing and lineup of our latest tour, which will, due to border crossing complications, be restricted to the U.S. this time around. It kicks off in Tampa, FL on January 28 and ends in Richmond, VA on February 21, the respective hometowns of co-headliners Obituary and Municipal Waste. The two bands are also representative of the musical mix on the five-band bill, where Team Death Metal is represented by grizzled vets Obituary and Arizona’s alwaysboundary pushing Gatecreeper, and Team Crossover Thrash is represented by the Waste and their fellow Richmondites, Enforced. Kicking things off for most dates will be Las Vegas newcomers SpiritWorld, who dabble in both worlds.

As you’ll read below, this Decibel Tour finds each of the bands showing up with slightly different motivations. Sure, they all want to get back onstage, make some noise and reconnect with fans; but the time away from playing live and issuing new material regularly impacted each of them in different ways. Municipal Waste and Obituary have been sitting on pandemicrecorded new albums that you’ll likely get to hear something from. (Obituary are also eager to promote their official Decibel Books-issued biography, Turned Inside Out.) Gatecreeper no doubt seek some form of redemption after having the rug pulled out from under them just days before they were supposed to undertake the 2020 Decibel Tour and support their 2019 gem, Deserted.

For Enforced and SpiritWorld, it’s all about capitalizing on the buzz built by their pandemicreleased albums—Kill Grid and Pagan Rhythms, respectively—which they haven’t been able to promote in a significant way yet.

It’s been a long couple of years, but the return of the Decibel Tour in 2022 arrives as a welcome remedy for the disappointment, frustration, sadness and, well, bullshit we’ve all had to endure.

Yeah, this definitely feels like a victory. See you all in the pit, where we can celebrate together.

of the Decibel Tour cancelled days before it was set to lay waste to the U.S. and Canada for several weeks— and spending the last 18-plus months staring into the TOTALLY GUTTED It’s quite likely that every member of the four great unknown of an unfolding global pandemic—it’s other bands on this year’s Decibel Tour count hard not to see the return of our flagship tour as any- themselves fans and admirers of Tampa death thing short of a victory. After all, there was no guarantee when the shit metal progenitors Obituary. As elder statesmen—and vets of the 2017 Decibel Tour—they started to hit the fan that this magazine, the businesses that support it, are the perfect band to anchor the lineup. Not the venues or the bands themselves would still be standing, much less be only does their timeless take on Florida death in a position to put forth or take part in such an endeavor. But here we metal have broad appeal, the quintet brings three-plus decades of experience to the bill that are, goddammit. ¶ This obviously isn’t the first metal tour to cross the they can share with the younger bands, as well U.S. since live music slowly started to return in late 2021, but we’re con- as a grounded attitude about what touring is vinced—and, of course, we’re biased—that the lineup we’ve assembled going to look like as we transition out of the pandemic world. for the ninth iteration of the Decibel Tour is a top-to-bottom barnstormer, When Decibel catches up with drummer Donald with a balanced mix of established legends alongside the next generation Tardy via phone in late October, Obituary are of metal masters. And for only the second time in the tour’s history, we’ve actually in the midst of a six-week tour supporting Black Label Society, and boy is he glad to chosen to spotlight 100 percent homegrown U.S. talent, aided by two of be back out there. “Eighteen months at home, you’re going to appreciate anything and the biggest underground labels in metal, Nuclear Blast and Relapse.

• VFEBRUARY 58 : NO E M B E R 2 02022 2 1 : D• EDECIBEL CIBEL 58

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everything when it comes to being back on the road,” Tardy tells us. “For me, drumming-wise, I practice every day, and I did for that year and half at home … sitting in your garage and practicing and jamming by yourself, or even making a new album, that’s one thing; but to walk into a venue packed full of human beings that are just as excited to hear the music as you are to perform it, that’s what I’m really appreciating right now. It’s the thrill, the release, the challenge of performing live and doing your best, because you know that real human beings are watching.”

Despite getting a support-slot set time and playing to a crowd that isn’t “theirs,” Tardy and his bandmates—vocalist John Tardy (his brother), guitarists Trevor Peres and Ken Andrews and bassist Terry Butler—simply appreciate the ability to connect with those “real human beings.” “[Playing direct support to Black Label Society] actually makes it kind of cooler,” he explains, “because we know Black Label fans are not death metal fans—we know that—but we also know that we have the kind of groove that a lot of death metal bands don’t have. So, we’re stepping into a situation where people don’t want to like us. But it’s killer because [when we play] the first song, you see people with their arms crossed. By the third song, you kind of see them bobbing their heads. And by the end of our set, they’re standing up applauding us. It’s really cool seeing the transformation of people really not wanting to like what they think they’re about to witness, and then really digging it and accepting us and enjoying it. That’s really what I’m seeing every night, and that’s blowing my mind.”

Tardy and Co. are equally enthusiastic about the prospect of sharing headlining status with Municipal Waste on the Decibel Tour while promoting their new band-sanctioned, Decibelpublished biography, Turned Inside Out: The Official Story of Obituary. “It was a fun process [working on the book], for sure,” says Tardy. “It’s been a long time coming—three-plus decades. David E. Gehlke, the author, could not have been a cooler guy. He was extremely knowledgeable about the metal scene and especially Obituary’s history— from 1984 until now. We wanted to make sure to cover as much of that history as we could. For a band that’s been around for 34 years, it could have been a 1,400-page book, but we were realistic, and David covered as much as he realistically could with us. It came out killer. It touches on a lot of the things that fans have always asked over the years. It gives them a little insight of the early • VFEBRUARY 60 : NO E M B E R 2 02022 2 1 : D• EDECIBEL CIBEL 60

years of what they maybe don’t really know about us as kids, growing up and that kind of stuff. We covered all that ground, and even included some really cool super-old photos and stuff throughout the book that fans are really gonna dig. We’ll have copies for sale on the Decibel Tour that were personally signed by the band.”

The book wasn’t the only creative endeavor Obituary undertook during the lockdown. Like many artists, they completed a new album (for Relapse) that they’re champing at the bit to finally issue. Though the follow-up to 2017’s selftitled release won’t likely see the light of day until later in 2022, Tardy suggests that Decibel Tour attendees may get a preview of what’s to come. “I could not be more excited about the new album,” Tardy gushes. “It is finished, and it is unfuckingbelievable. This band is so stoked

I CAN’T GET OVER HOW THIS ALBUM CAME OUT AND WHAT A BADASS RECORD WE HAVE ON OUR HANDS TO GIVE TO OUR FANS. I THINK WE’D BE FOOLISH TO NOT BRING AT LEAST ONE OF THOSE BAD BOYS OUT AND

LET PEOPLE HEAR SOME NEW OBITUARY. —DONALD TARDY, OBITUARY

for our fans to hear it. I can’t get over how this album came out and what a badass record we have on our hands to give to our fans. I think we’d be foolish to not bring at least one of those bad boys out and let people hear some new Obituary. I’m unofficially saying that, absolutely, we’re probably going to pick one and go for it [on the Decibel Tour], for sure.”

In order to be able to deliver on this promise, Obituary realize that they and their touring partners will need to be disciplined in their approach to keeping everybody healthy and safe.

“To be able to go back to work, we had to be vaccinated—with the venues that we’re playing and the cities that we’re playing—in order to play by the rules,” Tardy explains. “Fans who are like, I guess I’m not going to come see you guys because you’re making me get vaccinated [should know] it wasn’t

our choice. It’s just at this time in the world, during this pandemic, we had no choice, and we are asking the fans to understand that. If you refuse, and don’t want to be vaccinated [or show up with proof of a negative COVID test], that is completely your choice, and we’re not gonna bash anyone for doing it or not doing it.

“Me, personally, I don’t see the big deal about [getting vaccinated]; it’s a smart thing to do. It helps the people around you, your parents and grandparents, if you’re around them after going out in public. We all know that; science is science. Politics is not a part of Obituary. I don’t preach to people. We had to get vaccinated to get back on the road, and we are having a fantastic time. I’m safer than I would be [without the vaccinations], and we are now moving forward and kicking ass.”

NOW 20 PERCENT LESS WASTED Municipal Waste’s return to the stage after a two-year absence took place at Decibel’s own return to hosting live bands at the Philadelphia edition of our 2021 Metal & Beer Fest in late September. That time away for the Waste, however, proved to be filled with many highs and lows—some completely separate from the pandemic bullshit we all experienced. It was the best of times; it was the fucking worst of times.

On the plus side of the ledger, the band saw their 2007 album, The Art of Partying, inducted into the Decibel Hall of Fame, a story that came together in short order due in no small part to the members having a great deal of unexpected free time on their collective hands. Around the same time, we were speaking to the Waste about making TAOP, they were actually writing the follow-up to 2017’s Slime and Punishment… without vocalist Tony Foresta, who had moved back down to Florida to be near family just prior to the pandemic. Writing for the new album actually started in late 2019 following a European tour, but they picked up where they left off.

“We [initially] had about four songs, I think,” says Foresta of the beginning of the writing process. “We were able to crank out another 15 during the pandemic time. I may be off in the numbers, but we had what we had, and we reworked some of [the first batch] and went back into it. They would practice and set the phone in the practice space and hit record, and then send [the audio] to me by text, and [I’d] have a new Waste song. Then I could go where I record my vocals, and I would be able to edit the songs and change the arrangement if I wanted to, or just write shit. We just made it as simple as possible, the way we were demoing. The demos sounded atrocious, but it would give them an idea of what I wanted to do, or what they wanted to do.”

Though the long-distance writing process was awkward, Foresta believes it actually helped the final product, an album called Electrified Brain, set for release on Nuclear Blast this summer.

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DECIBEL : FEBRUARY 2022 : 61

I HAVEN’T BEEN DRINKING, SO THAT’S WEIRD, TOO—

TO PLAY SHOWS WHERE I’M DEAD-ASS SOBER.

— TONY FORESTA, MUNICIPAL WASTE “The communication was probably better than when we’re all sitting in a room talking over each other,” he says. “I feel like almost every idea I had, they were into it, which usually gets pushed under the rug when everyone’s standing in the rehearsal space. It’s a lot more thought out, if that makes any sense.”

When it came time to lay down some tracks, Foresta’s bandmates—guitarists Ryan Waste and Nick Poulos, bassist Phil “LandPhil” Hall and drummer Dave Witte—decamped to Philadelphia in the fall of 2020 to record with Arthur Rizk, who’s gained a well-deserved reputation for his work with thrash bands like Power Trip, Cavalera Conspiracy and the Waste’s Richmond pals/Decibel Tour cohorts, Enforced. “We knew he was the right guy for the job,” says Foresta, “just because of his heavy metal background. He’s also into the weird shit that I like, too. We all just got along really well. I love all the shit he’s been doing lately.”

Though Foresta and his bandmates were thrilled with the results, they, like many bands, were forced to sit on the album indefinitely— • VFEBRUARY 62 : NO E M B E R 2 02022 2 1 : D• EDECIBEL CIBEL 62

one of several of the lows we referred to earlier.

Additionally, when the Waste were finally ready to reconvene last summer for rehearsals in preparation for their Metal & Beer Fest appearance, tragedy struck. Foresta was on his way to the airport to fly to Richmond when he received news that his brother had a “major heart attack” in his car and was pronounced dead. He was miraculously revived and—after being in a coma for 10 days—made a full recovery, leaving the hospital the same day Foresta flew to Philly for his first nerve-wracking show back.

Though Municipal Waste are inarguably one of the most entertaining and fun live bands out there, getting back in fighting shape took more than a couple in-person rehearsals. “Our whole stage thing is kind of ad-lib,” Foresta explains.

“We don’t have a set thing we say between songs or any of that shit. Bouncing back and forth with the audience is what we’ve always done. Doing that again was like, you’ve gotta kind of be on your toes a little bit. I was just so nervous about every other aspect about the show. Stuff like

[audience interaction] you don’t even think about [in advance]. I can appreciate it; it’s what makes our shows what they are, but you kind of forget about that shit until you get thrown into it.”

Foresta has also been doing it more or less on the wagon, which has been a new experience. “I haven’t been drinking, so that’s weird, too—to play shows where I’m dead-ass sober,” he notes.

“I haven’t quit [drinking] fully, but I’ve definitely curbed it immensely, to where I didn’t drink on the last eight shows we did. So, I’m dealing with a lot of the different ways I’ve been going about performing. I’m not blackout drunk onstage, like I used to be a lot. [Laughs] I feel like I’ve been focusing a lot on playing better and just having my wits about me a little bit more, and being less obnoxious to my bandmates, probably.”

All this sets up well for Municipal Waste in 2022, starting with their co-headlining billing with close friends and bands they admire on the Decibel Tour. “The lineup is so killer,” Foresta gushes. “I love Enforced. Iron Reagan brought them out on our tour with Sacred Reich, and they were great every night. When I lived in Richmond, [vocalist] Knox [Colby] helped me fix my air conditioning unit. He was the HVAC dude.

[Laughs] And, of course, Gatecreeper, I have a history with those dudes. I love those dudes. Seeing what they’ve done in the past few years, it’s like [they’ve] taken over the world. It’s pretty exciting to see that happen to good dudes, because those are some of my favorite guys. And, obviously Obituary—holy shit—we get to watch them every night. I live by those dudes [in Florida], so we can watch Bucs games on Sundays [while on tour] together!”

REALITY CHECK Forgive vocalist Chase Mason for being a little gun-shy as the lead-up to the Decibel Tour approaches. Gatecreeper are the only band on this year’s bill that was part of the ill-fated 2020 edition. Even as the Arizona death metallers prepared to do a fall 2021 run with Kentucky hardcore outfit Knocked Loose—Gatecreeper’s first dates in nearly two years—there were still some residual nerves.

“There was a little bit of walking on eggshells with the whole [Knocked Loose] tour,” Mason says, “because of what we experienced in 2020 for the Decibel Tour. So, in the whole preparation for that tour—planning it, physically getting ready to go, all that stuff—in the back of my mind, and the back of all of our minds—it was like, this could fall apart at any moment. Once we were out and we were on the tour, it was like, OK, it’s happening, but it could get cancelled. I think that we were just like all white-knuckling it, just trying to hold on and hoping that everything was gonna go well. And it did. We made it six weeks without anything happening, and nobody got sick. There were no cancelled shows, nothing like that. But it was definitely in the backs of our minds that things could fall apart at any moment.”

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definitely excited,” Mason says. “It’s a tour of a bunch of bands we already know and we already like. As far as styles, it’s two more death metal bands and two thrashier bands. I feel like it’s a really good lineup for us as a band.”

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Cell service can be iffy when you’re travel-

THAT’S SOMETHING THAT 14-YEAR-OLD ME WOULD NEVER DREAM OF. TOURING WITH OBITUARY AND MUNICIPAL WASTE AND GETTING TO MEET BACK UP WITH OUR FRIENDS IN GATECREEPER,

IT’S JUST A DREAM-COME-TRUE TOUR. — KNOX COLBY, ENFORCED

All anxiety aside, Mason and his Gatecreeper bandmates—guitarists Eric Wagner and Israel Garza, bassist Sean Mears and drummer Matt Arrebollo—ultimately found their groove once they were plugged in, powered up and performing. “It honestly felt like riding a bike,” he says.

“Once you got started, it felt like we’d never stopped. It didn’t feel like there was that much of a gap in between the tours. It felt pretty normal, all things considered, after we started to get going. The bands we were touring with kind of had the same feeling; once you step on the stage and start playing again, it feels like normal. It’s nice, it’s comforting.”

Gatecreeper’s big happened-during-the-pandemic news is that they’re now signed to Nuclear Blast, a deal that was in the works even as the band was making its surprise pandemic mini-LP, An Unexpected Reality, for Closed Casket Activities.

“We had been talking with Nuclear Blast pretty much right before everything got cancelled,” Mason says, “so that [deal] was all being worked out. But in between [our former Relapse deal and our new Nuclear Blast deal] we had decided to do a thing with Closed Casket, which is kind of a one-off thing.”

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Don’t, however, look for the band to kick out a new album anytime soon. They had little opportunity to promote 2019’s Deserted before the pandemic, and until recently, none to support An Unexpected Reality, so expect their Decibel Tour gigs to lean hard on those albums for the immediate future. “It’s actually a good mix of the past three records,” Mason clarifies. “There’s some songs from both of the first two full-lengths in there, and then some of the shorter, fast songs sprinkled in there from An Unexpected Reality. The long song from that record, ‘Emptiness,’ probably won’t ever be put in our set list because it’s long and it’s slow. It would have to be a special circumstance. That’s why one of the things we did when we weren’t touring [during the pandemic] was to make a live video for that, because we knew we probably wouldn’t be playing it live very often, and people have been asking or wanting us to play it.”

Though Gatecreeper were obviously disappointed that the 2020 Decibel Tour didn’t pan out, their excitement to be back out on the road in 2022 (with a bill they feel suits them even better) is taking the sting out of that letdown. “When I found out the lineup, we were

ing through America’s breadbasket in a van.

Enforced vocalist Knox Colby sounds as though he’s trying not to disturb slumbering bandmates as his subdued voice crackles in and out, and portions of his answers to our questions disappear into the ether. His excitement about being back out on the road, however, comes through loud and clear.

Enforced are touring from their Richmond home to California to begin a fall jaunt with Exhumed, Creeping Death and Bewitcher, and Colby is finding the road work to be surprisingly beneficial to his mental health. “I’m a lot more patient and calmer now, now that I’ve gotten the aggression out [performing], that’s for sure,” he tells us. “I didn’t realize how much I needed it and thrived off of it until recently.”

His spirits are also buoyed by the response Enforced have received to their latest release— and first for Century Media—Kill Grid, which dropped early in 2021. Though the quintet— Colby, guitarists Zach Monahan and Will Wagstaff, bassist Ethan Gensurowsky and drummer Alex Bishop—was obviously unable to promote it at the time, they nonetheless got plenty of positive feedback for their second full-length, including a glowing review from this mag. “[It’s been] shocking and humbling,” says Colby. “This is the biggest thing that any of us as musicians has ever put out, in terms of audience and the number of people who would hear it.

It was really shocking to see how many people loved it and continue to love it. I’ve seen it on a handful of people’s top 10 for the best of the year and stuff. It’s just nice that it was well-received and that it has legs. We’re just extremely happy that people really, really enjoy it.”

More gratifying, however, has been the audience response to the band’s blistering, death metal-influenced crossover. “I can’t find any more of a compliment than every single person headbanging in unison,” Colby enthuses. “That feels nice. It seems like everyone’s real excited and really digging it. I have really low expectations, so seeing everyone get into it is always nice.”

Though Enforced had to wait several months to finally get audience feedback to the Kill Grid material, they used the downtime wisely. “We practiced once a week and were writing once a week, so we’ve got the bone structure of another album pretty much already done,” Colby says.

“We never stopped writing and we never stopped practicing, so we were always working hard at it, regardless of whether we [could] play or not.”

The band will be promoting Kill Grid tirelessly in 2022—including European dates in the

IT’S DECIBEL HALL OF FAME OR BUST!

— STU FOLSOM, SPIRITWORLD

summer—but they don’t plan to let the new material languish for an extended period of time. “We’re kind of on a timeline that we want to keep,” says Colby. “We’re hard workers with a pretty good work ethic, so we want to keep the momentum going. With the pandemic, at first, we were like, Let’s chill after Kill Grid and tour properly.

But [we] could tour off that for two years, and I don’t want to wait, and I don’t think Century Media wants to wait two years for another album.

So, we’re just going to keep chugging along.”

And as Enforced chug across the Midwest, we briefly get disconnected from Colby as the cell coverage wanes. Realizing that we’re fighting a losing battle, we see if we can squeeze in one last question before the line goes dead again: How does it feel to be part of this year’s Decibel Tour lineup?

“It’s kind of a dream come true, that lineup, honestly,” he says. “To be added onto that is insanity to me. That’s something that 14-year-old • VFEBRUARY 66 : NO E M B E R 2 02022 2 1 : D• EDECIBEL CIBEL 66

me would never dream of. Touring with Obituary and Municipal Waste and getting to meet back up with our friends in Gatecreeper, it’s just a dreamcome-true tour.”

PAGAN RHYTHM METHOD Las Vegas’s SpiritWorld are playing the role of wild card on this year’s Decibel Tour. Though their Slayer-informed/desert-inspired full-length debut, Pagan Rhythms, seemed to materialize out of nowhere in July 2020 (when it was selfreleased digitally), the musician behind it—guitarist/vocalist Stu Folsom—has a long history in the Vegas punk scene. He fronted the eponymous hardcore outfit Folsom in the ’00s, and launched an earlier incarnation of SpiritWorld in the late ’10s, which awkwardly merged alt-country/ Americana music with shouted hardcore vocals.

Suffice to say, the total reboot on Pagan Rhythms is what caught Decibel’s ear when it got a physical release five months later.

“I put out [Pagan Rhythms] with my homie Burt [Jenkins’] awesome label, Safe Inside Records, right in the middle of COVID lockdown [December 2020], and the response has been better than anything I could have ever imagined,” says Folsom. “I hope when people hear our story, they will be inspired to create something, push through that inner critic telling them they suck and go on an epic adventure.”

The Decibel Tour will be something of an epic adventure and coming out on a major scale for SpiritWorld, who have had virtually no opportunity to support Pagan Rhythms, which was recently reissued by Century Media, the band’s new label. By the time you read this, they’ll have played the L.A. edition of Decibel’s Metal & Beer Fest in December, but not much more, so Folsom and his band are primed and ready to play what he calls “the heaviest tour package” he’s ever been a part of.

“It is a little mind-blowing to get this opportunity, and a total honor,” he says. “Top to bottom, the bands are so good. Obituary is one of my favorites, and was a huge influence on Pagan Rhythms, and I’ve been super into Enforced since I got At the Walls a couple of years back. I’m the most excited to see Gatecreeper and hang out with [bassist] Sean [Mears] and the boys.”

Since Pagan Rhythms was largely the work of Folsom alongside some talented friends (including ex-Mars Volta drummer Thomas Pridgen), he’s actually had to assemble a touring lineup to reproduce the album live. “I don’t think I want to play guitar and scream live,” Folsom says, “so I’ll have my brother, Nick, and Matt Schrum playing bass and guitar, [respectively]. Our lead guitar player, Randy Moore, is going to be on tour with Dan Andriano from Alkaline Trio at the same time, so we will just have one guitar.

Justin Fornof from WristMeetRazor will be doing noise/samples and backups, and Preston Harper will be playing drums.”

Riding the momentum from the positive response to Pagan Rhythms, as well as a new record deal with Century Media and a coveted spot on the Decibel Tour, Folsom is pushing forward with some ambitious goals. “The new album is almost done, [and] we are on the home stretch of tracking with Sam Pura at Panda Studios,” he tells us. “I’m fixing to get this baby in the can and hopefully drop it next summer/ fall before we head to Europe. I had most of it written before things started picking up for us, so knowing that it would be out worldwide gave me a good kick in the ass to pick [my guitar] back up and make the riffage even more nasty.

This band isn’t my job; it’s my chance to make art with friends I love and try to craft something special that will be remembered. I want to make the records [motherfuckers] hear and then force down the throats of their friends all summer, just bangin’ that shit full volume everywhere they roll. It’s Decibel Hall of Fame or bust!”

"Should not be missing in any death metal collection!"

-Deaf Forever

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INSIDE ≥

70 GLOVES OFF These hands are ready 70 HANDS OF DESPAIR These hands are not ready

ALL THE NOISE THAT FITS

72 HELMET Missed it, right?

76 PSYCHO SINNER Jeremy Spencer Shit Explosion 78 REBREATHER What's the story, respitory?

Sinister Incarnation

FEBRUARY

Rising neo-melodic death metallers VENOM PRISON bring some magick to the Chaos on their third proper LP

29

Records not written by Psycho Synner reviewed

9

Records written by Psycho Synner reviewed

5

Number of death punches given to ourselves while listening to Psycho Synner

0

Number of people who give a shit

T

here is a beautiful passage in Edith Hamilton’s landmark 1942 book, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, in which the (rightfully) celebrated classicist describes a time “long VENOM before the gods appeared… uncounted ages ago” marked only by PRISON “the formless confusion of Chaos brooded over by unbroken darkErebos ness.” Eventually, however—“but how no one has ever tried to CENTURY MEDIA explain”—two children “were born to this shapeless nothingness”: Night and Erebos. “In some mysterious way,” Hamilton writes, “from this horror of blank boundless vacancy, the best of all things came into being.” ¶ Now, whether or not Venom Prison had this particular interpretation of creation in mind when choosing to title their third full-length Erebos is, as this review goes to press, not yet clear. The atmospheric instrumental opener “Born From Chaos” would suggest perhaps! If not, though, it is an extremely happy accident. After two acclaimed and enjoyable—but nonetheless frequently Chaos-ruled, metalcore-infused, melodic death metal LPs (2016’s Animus and

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2019’s Samsara)—this Welsh quintet has fully incarnated its own sound and darkness. And while few would dismiss Venom Prison’s earlier efforts as “horror(s) of blank boundless vacancy,” Erebos is definitely where “the best of all things [come] into being” for the band.

It’s less a radical reinvention than a focusing, in other words—the sonic equivalent of sitting on some bluff overlooking Hell and finally twisting the rings on your melting binoculars just right. You always knew those flames were luminous and hot as fuck, but now you can see the details of the hues and the lithe way they leap and consume. Which is to say, Venom Prison founders Ash Gray (guitar) and Larissa Stupar (one of the best, most harrowingly honest active lyricists in metal) have never sounded so confident or in command of their respective instruments—or the songwriting process itself. Every one of these nine songs is a journey, staying mostly on a latter-day Carcassesque melodic death metal path, but taking detours into, say, near-industrial fuzz and syncopation; or soaring strains that straddle the line between traditional and alt-metal; or burly noise grooves. (The recording itself—especially the drums—can at times trend a bit too antiseptic, but it does sound very “modern,” so this might merely be a cantankerous quibble from your aging humble correspondent.)

In hindsight, the band’s decision to release re-recorded versions of early EP tracks with two new songs on 2020’s Primeval seems a wise decision, connecting its rooted, elemental past to an aspirational future that now has been fully actualized. Which is a beautiful thing. Obviously, Venom Prison—rounded out by guitarist Ben Thomas, bassist Mike Jefferies and drummer Joe Bills—has already amassed a rather rabid fanbase, especially among the younger metallic generation. We are, however, only beginning to glimpse how potent the band can be. —SHAWN MACOMBER

ABYSSUS

8

Death Revival TRANSCENDING OBSCURITY

Inside seven churches they rot, slowly

This Greek quintet turns back the clock to those scant few months between 1985-’86 when the line between thrash and death metal was razor-thin. ’Twas a time when, depending on who you talked to, bands on one side of the as-yet-to-be-truly-established divide could have easily hailed from the other.

And as it concerns Abyssus, their second album is either Possessed slamming head-first into Obituary/Xecutioner or Obituary/Xecutioner 70 : FEBRUARY 2022 : DECIBEL

wildly careening into Possessed. Depending on who you talk to.

The trick with Death Revival—and with titles like “Metal of Death” and “The Ten Commandments,” it’s no stretch imagining where their allegiance lies—is that despite how easy they make it to play Spot the Influence, the derivativeness is negated by killer riffs molded into awesome songs. All of which are propelled

by Jan Westermann’s two-beat pitter-patter, which owes as much to Tom Hunting as it does Sean Reinert getting his Sasquatch on. The manner in which Westermann urgently pushes the beat locks horns with Konstantinos Analytis’ clashing the vocal titans of Becerra and Tardy, while the stellar guitar work by Panos Gkourmpaliotis and Chris Liakos in “The Beast Within” and “Uncertain Future” barrels along with enough pep and power to have you forgetting about familiarity.

It’s always a good sign when a band manages to combine present-day vitality with the classic cassettes you’d find at Tom G. Warrior’s garage sale, without sounding like the dust collected on those cassettes. Death Revival knocks that battered ball out of the park.

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

GLOVES OFF

6

Life… and Everything After U P S TAT E

Northeast side kings

The promo photo sent along with this, the second album by these Pennsylvania metallic hardcore bruisers, oozes knuckledusting menace. Gloves Off’s five burly members are lined up in the shadows of an unidentified alley, ready to go Chris “Beastboy” Barnett on the asses of, well, anyone choosing to look at them sideways and/or deny that Earth Crisis, the Acacia Strain and Integrity aren’t the epitome of high-class art. Screw all that raisedpinky bunk Louvre patrons examine at the end of their noses when there are copies of Destroy the Machines to be listened to.

In the same way that MMA behemoth Barnett belies his size, girth and BMI to bust out breathtakingly agile head-high roundhouse kicks ‘n’ flips in the octagon, Gloves Off also (and often) pull from the worlds of lurching death and thrash to combine them with pages ripped from the tough guy hardcore playbook.

They love palm-muted breakdowns designed to open up mosh pits like black holes at the end of the universe, but are also partial to wideangled Immolation-style progressions. When they tritone up the riffing, borrow dissonance from Botch’s evil math rock and gallop along

like Seasons in the Abyss with its ass on fire (like on “Decay,” “Gloves Off by a Thread,” “Conqueror Worm” and “My Death Was a Banquet”), the energy injection can be felt as quickly as an EpiPen through the thigh of a peanut allergy sufferer.

Their approach still gets bogged down in jagged edges, though you can hear songwriting coherence slowly making its way into muscle memory. While the kinks are worked out, feel free to revel in the ground ‘n’ pound.

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

HANDS OF DESPAIR 7 The Crimson Boughs and Other Short Tales SELF-RELEASED

Clark Ashton Smith, eat our hearts out

Cannibal Corpse don’t mess around with keyboards when penning or performing their grisly murder anthems. Never say never, I guess, but after 15 records and 30 years of unadorned brutality, we’re not holding our breath. Nor would they brook any sort of Dissection-style acoustic passages, or Opeth-approved progressive excursions, or dramatic clean singing. In the past 10 years, Hands of Despair have reveled in all of these things, but on their fourth album the Quebecois collective pared away many of those inclinations while finding clever ways to integrate their wilder ideas more subtly and economically into the meaty churn that dominates these seven (admittedly still massive) songs. Or maybe they just tucked all the arty shit so deep in the back half of the record that first impressions (and seconds, and thirds) highlight the bloodthirstiest riffs, bruising percussion and bone-chipping vocal delivery.

Crimson Boughs’ dense, jagged sound suggests the Cannibal Corpse comparison, and the lyrics’ horrific content cements it. Human flesh meets all manner of depraved violation in vignettes about witches emptying nearby hamlets, holy men succumbing to the allure of craven old magics and abandoned houses that are far from vacant. That’s not to say that these storylines are readily accessible; they’re screamed and snarled out unintelligibly enough that you’ll need a lyric sheet to glean any of the narrative (though that’s hardly an unanticipated hurdle in the annals of metal).

There’s a hectic barbarism to this record that might have longtime fans wishing for a little more of the melodic melancholy found on the band’s earlier masterpieces Hereafter and Bereft.

But band leader Maxime Côté already wrote those albums, and who are we to deny him a turn at Lovecraftian terror? —DANIEL LAKE

T H E

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HEIRESS

7

Distant Fires S ATA N I C R O Y A LT Y

Keeping good cops out of the “good cop/ bad cop” equation

I’ve always appreciated how Seattle’s Heiress subvert—i.e., piss in—the genre pool they’re swimming in. In the 15 years and three full-lengths previous to Distant Fires, post-rock, post-hardcore, sludge and doom fingers have been pointed at the band. Indeed, they could be tarred with any one of those brushes as quickly and accurately as they couldn’t. Lurking around the edges of extreme music’s subgenre comfort zones hasn’t done them any favors in growing an audience, but there’s something to be said for playing a little catch-up in this day and age of saturation/competition for attention. In the same way it took us 182 issues to put Cattle Decapitation on the cover, now’s the time to latch onto how Heiress stick a stick in the spokes by being not “post” enough for some while being too “post” for others.

Distant Fires whittles the band down to a quartet, and as the remaining six-stringer, founding member Wes Reed takes advantage of the expanse afforded, as well as producer Scott Evans’ knowledge of how to work the notes that aren’t played. The result fluctuates between the sparsity of Slint’s Spiderland and the choking density of Neurosis’ Souls at Zero via the clattering rehearsal room warmth of Kowloon Walled City (Evans’ day gig, it must be mentioned).

The lack of dexterity to John Pettibone’s bray is the only sticking point, as he washes away spots calling for gentler hammers and velvety nuance. He sounds perfectly at home hollering his heart out on the stentorian Americana twang of “All Ends” and the thunderous “Once Was,” but mismatched when the band gets all Isis and Explosions in the Sky on “Unsettler” and “Surviving You.” That the phrase “stentorian Americana twang” is cause for celebration and not alarm is indicative that Heiress are bringing something novel to the mix. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

HELMET

9

Live and Rare

REV UP THE TRANS AM and turn up the radio! Oh, wait… nobody listens to the radio. And only Swedes still drive the 1980 Trans Am without a lick of shame. Where others keep it true in old jeans and beat-up Chevy Rally 30 vans, this lot (minus Soto, of course) have productions slicker, more bombastic and more dangerous than the Deepwater Horizon spill. —CHRIS DICK Beast in Black

Temperance

NUCLEAR BLAST

N A PA L M

Dark Connection There’s nothing—nothing!— good about metal that comes packaged in N64 video game art. Dark Connection, the third album from multinational (Finland, Greece) outfit Beast in Black, wantonly repeats the soulless laser light show fluff of the first two.

Produced with ultra-gloss, Beast in Black find themselves at the cutesy ass-end of heavy metal’s candy corn. Indeed, there’s more in tune with the Eurovision Song Contest than anything heavy metal. If Kamelot had gone kawaii and tripped dicks-first into a Wicked musical, it’d be this gag-inducing stuff.

Eternity’s End Embers of War PROSTHETIC

Guitarist/songwriter Christian Münzner has had his Teutonic hands full lately. First of all, the fleet-fingered German released his first solo album in 2020; then he ripped sheds apart to appear on not only full-lengths by Obscura and Paradox, but also his own ultra-power metal outfit Eternity’s End. No rest for the wicked, it seems. Embers of War is the third full-length from Eternity’s End, a band whose sound isn’t too far removed from Lost Horizon, Cacophony and Legendary Tales-era Rhapsody. Fans of fretboard-burning twin guitars and high-flying Euro power metal with an aggressive edge will find themselves on the fortunate side of a D2 roll.

Diamanti

Five albums in, Italians Temperance have found the magic formula to Jerry Bruckheimer Metal on Diamanti. Certainly, there have been and currently are blockbusterstyle bands—Nightwish, Epica, Xandria—like Temperance on the big screen, but the dual vocals of Alessia Scolletti and Michele Guaitoli are 4K/Dolby Digital histrionic. There’s nothing inherently negative about planet-sized explosions, impossible landscapes, massive robots and gratuitous cleavage shots. Still, when it’s every breathing second of Diamanti, it all feels, well, overwrought. And, more importantly, underthought.

Jeff Scott Soto

The Duets Collection Volume 1 FRONTIERS

Heavy metal celebutante Jeff Scott Soto (currently Sons of Apollo; formerly Yngwie Malmsteen, Axel Rudi Pell) is a voice we need to hear more of. OK, the capable skills of Mr. Soto can be heard in holiday rockers Trans-Siberian Orchestra, but we could all do with more “Now Your Ships Are Burned” and less Christmas ornament stuff. The Duets Collection - Volume 1 shows that Soto still has the pipes (and connections) to pull off a bunch of high-octane covers (most of which he sang on before) with other throat-warriors of the day, like Russell Allen, Johnny Gioeli and Erik Mårtensson.

EARMUSIC

When it was Helmet’s world and we just lived here

Live albums are usually a completist thing, additions to the shelf for the superfans. And it’s not that Helmet’s first live album is necessarily more than that. But if there is any question why this band created a massive smoking crater in their early years, Live and Rare explains it as best as anything.

72 : FEBRUARY 2022 : DECIBEL

The arrangement here is pleasingly simple.

Two sets, almost exactly three years apart.

One’s at CBGB’s in 1990, right before the release of Strap It On, and the other is from Australia’s Big Day Out festival in ’93, about seven months post-Meantime. Both include the original lineup that lasted until Betty, and both are fantastic in their own ways.

The first set is piercing machinery, guitars that at times sound closer to angle grinders

against rusted iron. You can only imagine the migraines for those who stood up front. The second set is less caustic, due to the venue and the band’s more defined, influential tone. But each set strikes that perfect balance between frenzied attack and musicianship. Only a band this finely tuned, with John Stanier’s metronomic drumming, could maintain the incredible precision that makes such bracing, erratic noise so consistently compelling.

A R e volu tion of iden tit y in A mer ic A n Bl Ack M e ta l

by DA N I E L L A K E foreword by TOM G A BR I E L WA R R IOR

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There can be discussions over how long Helmet resonated after this, but it’s hard to deny how singular, revelatory and focused they were during this run. At the very end of Live and Rare, vocalist/guitarist Page Hamilton says, “We’ll see you soon, I hope.” But they never did, not quite like this. —SHANE MEHLING

INFINITE SUN

7

Abnormal Lifeforms F I R S T B L O O D FA M I LY

Infinite fun!

The cover art makes this look like it’s going to be more psychedelic trance than psychedelic rock, but never fear: You’re not going to have to trade in your magic mushrooms for MDMA to enjoy this. Unless you want to. We won’t judge.

No, Infinite Sun play the kind of satanic space rock you’d find on labels like Man’s Ruin and Small Stone, not Twisted UK. Their sophomore release, Abnormal Lifeforms (a self-titled debut was self-released on Bandcamp), retains the core duo of Chris Walker and Pat McCauley while adding new vocalist Devin Baker, whose bluesy howl falls somewhere between Glenn Hughes, Chris Cornell and Ian Astbury. These self-described “geezers of the St. Louis music scene” indulge their love of queen-sized boogie rockers like Mountain and space ritualists Hawkwind. Even if the rumble on songs like “Satanasaurus” and “Isonaught” feels familiar, that brand of fuzz never really goes out of fashion. They do find an unusual new form of life on one track: “Humandroid” combines propulsive “Mr. Roboto” electronics with a crunchy Fu Manchu van drift riff for an original future shock freakout.

Baker isn’t exactly the weak link here— he can sing—but his enthusiasm sometimes borders on histrionic and can distract from some perfectly good grooves. It doesn’t always feel like he’s working with the song. Otherwise, Infinite Sun serve up some tasty jam.

Definitely better than psychedelic trance!

—JEFF TREPPEL

MALIGNANT ALTAR

8

Realms of Exquisite Morbidity DARK DESCENT

For the death metal epicurean in your life

Let it be known for the record that this fivestrong band of Texan death metal sickos are pushing at an open door if they’re looking for a favorable review from this esteemed organ.

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Realms of Exquisite Morbidity? What a title. Functional poetry, aptly describing a morbid sound that is indeed exquisite, a particularly gourmet treat for a generation whose pop-cultural critical faculties were calibrated circa 1989-’93. The instrumental jingle of horror synth that opens the record had us momentarily reaching to see if a Stuart Gordon commentary track accompanied. The knotted fuzz of downtuned guitar suggests that the new school of old-school has plenty of evolutionary mileage. All it needs is atmosphere and ideas.

Malignant Altar have both in abundance, and also the talent for sustaining them when the jam is dominated by a super-sized beast riff. To whose lineage does this belong? The beyond-rotten guitar tone owes something to Incantation and early Swedeath; the crude riff architecture is surely informed by Tom G. Warrior. Wilson Prevette’s Captain Caveman howl is pitched for enthusiasts of Barnes-era Cannibal. And yet, this is still appetizing in the extreme.

Drummer Dobber Beverly does a laudable job of capturing this on tape, giving guitar solos an inter-dimensional quality, as though they are both background and foreground, of this world and the next. It’s hard to be heavy these days, but what it takes is a sense of the uncanny and a keen ear for the primitive. Tracks like “Channeling Impure Apparitions” and “Ceremonial Decapitator”—the latter first having appeared on their 2019 demo—sound like they’ve walked human evolution back a step. That’s how you take death metal forward. —JONATHAN HORSLEY

MIZMOR

7

Wit’s End GILEAD MEDIA

Urge to edit title to “Wits’ End” driving us mad

The latest release—hell, every release—by Mizmor (‫ )רומזמ‬should come with this health disclaimer: “If you are currently feeling in any way psychologically fragile, please refrain from exposing yourself to this music.

Possible side effects include, but are not limited to: complete mental and physical breakdown; total loss of your spiritual belief system; rapid increase in nihilistic tendencies; deep existential despair, and/or death.”

Multi-instrumentalist/producer A.L.N. is all too real. Having gone on a spiritual journey across two highly esteemed LPs (2016’s Yodh and 2019’s Cairn), A.L.N. seemingly arrived at the destination of complete and utter nothingness.

Some may find the void a bit much to comprehend; others might take solace in a possible reality that after this life and its many periods of

personal and societal suffering, the soul simply dissipates along with the body.

The 30-minute, two-track EP, Wit’s End, is a fitting sonic mirror held up to reflect mental agony and confusion in pandemic times. The first track plays to the extreme doom that has made Mizmor a frightening proposition since emerging on the scene—its grim spoken-word opening, sadistic amplifier abuse and array of self-immolating shrieks coalesce into a bitter death rattle. The second piece, a spider-walking soundscape, draws more on the baleful ambient approach taken on Mizmor’s 2020 collaboration with experimentalist Andrew Black. Come the next Mizmor exorcism, we might just see both complementary styles showcased here merged in cataclysmic fashion—a tantalizing prospect to say the least. —DEAN BROWN

OZZUARIO

7

Mental Hell DISTORT DISCOS

Mental malware remover

Seems like the more ridiculous the world outside of my headphones gets, the harder these two Chicago maniacs go at making their pixelated blackened punk. Like some kind of duo sent back from the future to save us from ourselves—or at least from a stagnant underground metal scene— Ozzuario, as on their previous two full lengths, crunch out blackened heavy metal/punk like the Metroid gal slays her two-dimensional alien foes.

As tracks like “March of the Pigfucks” and “Infection” explosively demonstrate, when Ozzuario lean hard into their Beherit Teenage Riot tendencies, they make some of their best music to date. Instead of forcing riffs into these tracks, guitarist RLW lets vocalist/everythingelsist CE control the vibe with a bionic grip, and the result feels like a long shiny headjack going straight into the base of the skull. Hence, when the title track’s massive and rocking megariff comes in, the unsuspecting listener is all the more obliterated for it.

On Mental Hell, rather than trying on different gimmicks or adding a third member like some sitcom in its half-life, Ozzuario opted to explore the boundaries and possibilities of their own established sound. Thus, nine tracks of their darkest material to date, although not at the expense of their own unique and unabashed energy. At many points all over this record (“Attack and Dethrone God,” for instance), it’s clear that the fun’s over—well, not completely over, but you have to marvel at how these two can make the audio equivalent of the Nokia ringtone sound menacing and heavy. —DUTCH PEARCE

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PANTHEIST

8

Closer to God MELANCHOLIC REALM PRODUCTIONS

Our whole existence is flawed

Decibel listened to all nine new Psycho Synner albums

Greek multi-instrumentalist Kostas Panagiotou formed Pantheist at the turn of the century.

Twenty-two years later, the funeral doom project has shapeshifted along with its creator’s whims.

In 2018, Panagiotou imbued Seeking Infinity with grandiose prog rock leanings and wintry ambience. Closer to God is the project’s sixth studio fulllength, and it also deftly maneuvers between genres and textures.

Closer to God is Panagiotou’s creative response to the doldrums of the pandemic. Inspired by Skepticism’s epic “Aes,” opening track “Strange Times” melts away almost 24 minutes with its rich arrangements and sense of high drama.

The album unfolds with dream logic, connecting disparate strands of music with a narrative you can’t quite recall. Still, it makes sense. The gothic choir and organs. The sun-kissed melodies drenched in distortion. The nods to Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western desertscapes. Hell, if Alejandro Jodorowsky directed another surreal western like El Topo, “Erroneous Elation” could be the soundtrack.

Four tracks totaling 47 minutes may scare away those with less patience and shorter attention spans. But Closer to God doesn’t chew on the same riff for 10 minutes and call it funeral doom. There are whispers of Paradise Lost and Type O’s velvet-lined goth rock in the album’s finale. The music is expansive, not claustrophobic. Sure, Panagiotou’s voice isn’t the strongest or most impactful option for spoken-word and cleanly sung passages, but that critique misses the point of Pantheist and Closer to God. The album feels deeply personal while channeling the universal shared trauma of the pandemic. These songs are Pantheist’s universe; we just live there temporarily among the stars.

—SEAN FRASIER

PHRENELITH

7

Chimaera

SO YOU NEVER HAVE TO

PSYCHO SYNNER,

0

There’s this anecdote. Person A gets 30 days to make a vase. Person B has to make a vase every day. At the end of the month, the person who’d been churning out vases ends up better at their craft. If you’re looking for a counterexample, direct your attention towards Psycho Synner and the nine albums/94 songs they released simultaneously.

This is the passion project of Jeremy Spencer, a founding member of Five Finger Death Punch. Back pain issues forced him to retire from the band in 2018, but he was able to persevere by transforming into Devil Daddy, the masked deviant and frontman of Psychosexual.

After a failed 2020 debut album, he rebranded and he’s now the Grym Synner, re-releasing most of those original songs along with literally dozens and dozens more.

Listening to all of this is the aural approximation of a Chicago sightseer having 800 pounds of raw sewage dumped on them

from a Dave Matthews tour bus: It seems to never end, and it never gets better. But it also never gets worse. The most impressive thing here is how similar these songs are. There are no segues or skits or experimental jams.

Every song is your basic structure—sometimes heavier, sometimes more pop metal—and aside from the occasional drum machine backing track, it’s all the same cookie cutter inanity. The worst part about these albums (aside from them destroying my Spotify algorithm) was trying to remember if I’d heard a song before or if it was a nearly identical track on a different record.

And it’s crucial to make clear how much music is here. They put out more studio albums in one day than Led Zeppelin did in their entire career. It took Metallica 25 years to write this many songs. To have a talented lyricist pen this much material so quickly would be a monumental ask, but these are more what you’d expect to see scribbled in the margins of a burnout’s biology textbook.

Sometimes they are so innocuously evil you’d think they were written for a skit in bible school. Other songs seem built specifically to say “fuck” as much as possible. You also get turns of phrase, like “I Just Called to Say I Hate You” or “Die and Let Die,” that would make the Crypt Keeper wince. And then, of course, there’s all the rape fantasies. Considering the vile misogyny that runs rampant through metal, it may be unfair to identify one band’s lyrics as particularly offensive, but when a stalker says he’ll “break every single law” to “fuck you blind,” I’m not sure if there’s much room for nuance.

In 2019, Spencer created LadyKiller TV, an adult horror parody series. And that makes sense, as this music seems tailor-made for a bunch of dumb spooky pornos. But if you happen to stumble on one of those videos and hear Psycho Synner playing in the background, the only chance of enjoying yourself is to watch it on mute. —SHANE MEHLING

bestial inbreeding than the Greek mythological monstrosity the Danish band has named its latest record after. Well, kinda. You see, these Copenhagen cave-dwellers barbarically sutured together Bolt Thrower, Incantation, Autopsy and Asphyx appendages before they rose from the primordial ooze with demos and 2017’s suitably brutal Desolate Endscape. And just like that fulllength, with the Neanderthal-pummel of their guitars and drums as heard on Chimaera, Phren-

elith still cave skulls and guzzle the gelatinous nectar within.

Musically, Phrenelith stay just on the right side of loose; you won’t find dazzling displays of technical prowess here. Deathly grooves hack and slash wildly, decipherable growls spit bile, and the band’s blunt force songwriting style recalls the subgenres’ ’90s heyday in all their gut-spilling glory. As was the case with the aforementioned DM grotesqueries in their prime,

Unholy Hymns for the Children Bite the Snake As the Demon Dances Under the Blood Red Sky Fuck in the Fire Killing You Softly 666 BC Volume 1: The Burning Years 666 AD Volume 2: The Scorched Years Dying to See You The Devil Made You Do It 6EX RECORDS

NUCLEAR WINTER

Mixed breeding death

As described by Homer in The Iliad, the Chimaera “was of divine stock, not of men, in the fore part a lion, in the hinder a serpent, and in the midst a goat, breathing forth in terrible wise the might of blazing fire.” While that fire-belching abomination may sound like some Cronenbergian headfuck in contemporary terms, Phrenelith’s death metal is less like the hideous results of 76 : FEBRUA RY 2022 : DECIBEL

there is a powerful directness to Phrenelith’s songwriting that is, at times, startling. And yet, interestingly, atmospheric otherworldliness remains apparent without relying on gimmickry.

The evilness just emanates off the stark arrangements, mythological lyrical themes, dank guitar tones, raw-yet-resounding production and chilling artwork by the sadly missed Timo Ketola.

—DEAN BROWN

REBREATHER

7

The Line, Its Width, and the War Drone AQUALAMB

Ex-hails

With their first full-length since reuniting five years back, Rebreather are taking a heady hit on that inhaler and hacking up the ol’ lung sludge. It would be crass to comment about a band called Rebreather coming back when we’re all masked up, but with opener “Sick Sick Sick,” they’re writing the script themselves.

As with many bands, the pandemic may have kicked this Ohio noise trio’s plans down the line, but joining forces with Brooklyn label Aqualamb (and its COVID cover series) breathed new life back into vocalist/guitarist Barley Rantilla and his two Steves: Wishnewski and Gardner. Their downtuned, murky cover of R.E.M. banger “Orange Crush” is sadly missing on The Line, Its Width, and the War Drone, but a nostalgia-inducing take on Porno for Pyros’ “Pets” is tucked between seven tracks of swampy, pounding, reverb-heavy doom that reminds immediately of the late-’90s scene that birthed them and their peers in the seismic wake of Fudge Tunnel, Harvey Milk, Helmet, et al.

Aptly, Rantilla sounds like he’s singing while sinking in a tar pit while the rhythmic Steves pound their way through the polluted mire.

“Silent H” and “Choke on It” only add to the gasping, airless despair, whereas the meditative, captivating “Drown” betrays its name and provides a glimmer of glistening brilliance—pulling the listener to the surface rather than the depths, with the sultry siren-esque aid of labelmate Frayle. Offering both a memory-inducing trip back three decades and reason to look to the future, Rebreather are a breath of, well, not exactly fresh air (in genre or vibe), but damn do they feel good. —LOUISE BROWN

TOE TAG

8

Hide the Knives/ Throat to Scroat F I R S T B L O O D FA M I LY

Blade runner

Until the day comes when all the key former members of Seattle splattercore 78 : FEBRUARY 2022 : DECIBEL

masters the Accüsed—guitarist Tom Niemeyer, bassist Alex “Maggot Brain” Sibbald and vocalist Blaine Cook—can put aside past differences and get down to making music together, we’ll just have to satisfy ourselves with the confusing array of bands and releases that are issued every so often featuring various configurations.

Toe Tag were formed in 2007 in the wake of the final Accüsed bust-up—post comeback/ reunion album Oh Martha!—and features Cook and Sibbald, though the latter switched from bass to guitar in the new outfit. Without Niemeyer’s nervous, amped-up riffing, however, Toe Tag established a unique identity that had musical links to the players’ past, but certainly didn’t sound like a cheap imitation of previous glories.

This full-length, which combines the band’s self-released 2014 Hide the Knives mini-LP and 2017 Throat to Scroat EP, is loaded with thrash-inspired trad-metal riffing and Cook’s throat-scraped vocals. The tunes are generally more mid-tempo and loping/groovy rather than flat-out frantic, which suits this lineup just fine. This ain’t the Accüsed, and it doesn’t try to be.

That said, fans of that band will definitely dig Toe Tag, who lean more on the “splatter” and less on the “core,” thanks to Cook’s always evocative lyrics. If you missed these limitededition releases back in the day, this collection, via the relaunch of First Blood Family Records, offers a good opportunity to get caught up.

—ADEM TEPEDELEN

WIEGEDOOD

7

There’s Always Blood at the End of the Road CENTURY MEDIA

Still I can’t let go…

Based on the ghoulish sounds seeping from There’s Always Blood at the End of the Road, I think it’s safe to assume that the past few years have really done a number on these Wiegedood fellas. Sure, their De Doden Hebben Het Goed trilogy was steeped in plenty of pissed-off intensity, but on their fourth LP, the Belgian trio has dragged its black metal benchmarks kicking and screaming into an entirely unmapped realm of sonic madness.

It only takes three seconds to find an apt metaphor for Wiegedood’s new direction, as guitarist/vocalist Levy Seynaeve kicks off opening track “FN SCAR 16” by literally gasping for breath before unleashing his inhuman shriek over an increasingly angular sequence of searing riffs and blast beats. Things keep getting weirder from there, as Seynaeve, guitarist Gilles Demolder and drummer Wim Coppers tear through eight more songs that

feature everything from menacing electronic noise (“Until It Is Not”) to unnerving samples (“And in Old Salamano’s Room, the Dog Whimpered Softly”) and hypnotic throat singing (“Carousel”).

Of course, an album that embraces this much experimentation is bound to stumble here and there—adding mid-paced, arpeggiated riffing to Wiegedood’s usual tremolo attack exposes the monotony of some of the material, and the “drunk cousin flubbing his way through ‘Welcome Home (Sanitarium)’” instrumental “Wade” is wholly unnecessary—but it’s all presented in such a chaotic, disturbing way that it ultimately suits the record’s overall ethos. As a selfproclaimed “firsthand look into pure disgust,” There’s Always Blood at the End of the Road hits all its marks. —MATT SOLIS

WILDERUN

6

Epigone

CENTURY MEDIA

You’re close to the final word

There are some highs I just can’t stop chasing. One of those is the feeling I get from brooding and emotional progressive metal from the late ’90s and early aughts— bands like Anathema, Opeth and Porcupine Tree.

Many bands try to tickle that dopamine receptor; few succeed. Enslaved did, sometimes. And on their 2019 album Veil of Imagination, Wilderun came close. So close that I hoped their newest, Epigone, would hit the mark.

It comes closer, but still doesn’t quite get there, which makes for a more frustrating experience. I’m lucky that Albert let me review this record—as lucky as the band is to still have a Metal Archives page. That’s because most of the “metal” on Epigone is restricted to a few big power chords and distant roars, as on “Woolgatherer.”

Instead, the band sticks mostly to pastoral acoustic passages, lush synth arrangements and founding member Evan Berry’s gorgeous plaintive singing. These are strong suits, and dialing back the metal doesn’t inhibit Wilderun’s songwriting. They kept my attention even during big swings, like tripartite standout “Distraction,” which is essential listening.

Two things hold Epigone back. First, for as lush as its arrangements are, it sounds too pristine and digital—the occasional bizarre volume dips don’t help, but that may be an artifact of the promo I received. Second, Berry has pipes, but sings no great vocal hooks, which are essential to this style of music. I can’t remember a single lyric on Epigone.

Yes, it’s beautiful. Yes, it’s sophisticated. Yes, it’s ambitious. Yes, it’s worth your time. It could just be more memorable. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

Heruvim The Riddle of Steel Continuing on that note, my Canadian passport risks revocation upon admitting that even after a lifetime of drinking maple tree sap and top corner wrist shots, the combination of ice dancing, bocce ball, crokinole, sweeping and gardening that is curling remains a mystery. This Ukraine band streamlines a confounding mix of styles into something they call death metal, but it could be black, thrash and/or a handful of others.

Idle Remnants Through Entropy When we last met here in Decibel’s broom closet, I was blah blah blah-ing about bands and the Olympics. That got me thinking about other sports that fly under the radar because you’ll only see them on ESPN 8, if you’re lucky.

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

Antim Sanskar Antim Sanskar Antim Sanskar is a long-distance collaboration that summons the power of Glima, a combat sport incorporating various Nordic folk wrestling disciplines.

Despite members being spread across the U.K., Austria and India, these fellas are all about feeding their depressive folk/black metal through a Scandinavian wringer as they work on throws and holds perfected by Beyond Dawn, the 3rd and the Mortal, Katatonia and Tiamat.

Blood Sun Circle Deep Cuts For some dumb reason, I felt the need to watch the director’s cut of Das Boot last week. It was three days of claustrophobia, underwater anxiety, sonar pings and terrifying screams one minute… and silent boredom the next. From Syracuse comes Blood Sun Circle’s final release, a collision of soundtrack spaciousness, noise rock and a neutered Oxbow reminiscent of deep sea shenanigans and the sport of deep diving where beneath-sea tranquility is offset by the danger of crushing water pressure and hungry great whites.

Dying Sun Doomsday Cometh Most people are probably with me in thinking, “Why can’t they walk like normal? How did the simple act of walking develop into this? That’s gotta grind hip cartilage into dust?” when witnessing race walking. These Aussies merge the relative simplicity of doom with lots of melodic hard rock, heavy metal and even the occasional bit of grunge to create something you definitely won’t see/hear much of during a High on Fire gig. At the very least, we’re praising Dying Sun, not laughing at them.

Head of Jeddore How to Slaughter a Lamb This Canadian supergroup’s lineup and guest list reads like a roll call of people I’ve either played shows with, hung out at shows with or met in passing at shows in ’90s Toronto. The mix of thrash, death and doom as purveyed

by Canadian metal veterans is what you’d expect: straightforward, but varied. It’s a quintessential Canucklehead twist on metal, similar to how the U.K. has made underwater hockey (a.k.a. Octopush) a thing, but at least Head of Jeddore avoided sacrilege.

Did you know that pistol dueling used to be an Olympic sport? Fucking hell! Competitors wore the turn-of-thecentury equivalent of Kevlar and fired wax bullets at each other from 20 and 30 meters. As one might imagine, it only lasted one game before someone flicked the common sense switch on. Much like 1906 gold medalist, France’s Léon Moreaux, the world only needs to know him to know this was once a thing. Similarly, one slam band is enough to acknowledge the genre’s existence. I don’t know who that band is, but it’s not this one.

Maranatha Maranatha Featuring a wealth of experience in its lineup, Columbus, OH’s Maranatha have come together as a distillation of their hardcore, doom and sludge backgrounds via livewire energy and grizzled maturity. The result is a sonic battering à la Godflesh, Xibalba, Bolt Thrower and Gatecreeper, and is the equivalent of zorbing, which is “the recreational sport of rolling downhill inside an orb made of transparent plastic.” Undoubtedly a ton of fun, but you’re going home bruised and disoriented.

Moloch What Once Was Jai alai. What speed-loving metalhead wouldn’t love a hard rubber ball careening around at 180+ mph with only a hand-mounted wicker basket for protection and support? This ripping blackened death outfit from Germany would, and we’re assuming they wrote three songs about it and called it What Once Was.

Overtoun This Darkness Feels Alive Bossaball is a sport that incorporates volleyball, soccer and gymnastics, and is played on a padded and inflatable court with teams’ corresponding trampolines separated by a net. Apparently, music plays a role in this obviously high-flying burst of acrobatics, and we can guarantee this ridiculously sinister death thrash act from Chile isn’t part of the bossaball league soundtrack, though they should be.

Prime Rage Desecrated Faith Chess boxing is a thing, and exactly what it says it is.

Folks engage in alternating rounds of a) pummeling each other the old-school, sophisticated way, and b) an ongoing chess match. The ultimate display of brains and brawn that’s seemingly scripted for death metal like these Bangalorebased newcomers, who actively sound like they’re thinking of ways Incantation and Immolation could pound more metal than they already do.

All of the above can be found seeking fame, fortune and free beer on Bandcamp and Facebook.

DECIBEL : FEBRUARY 2022 : 79

by

EUGENE S. ROBINSON

MY BREAKFAST WITH

DAVE WITTE S

ometimes some shit is so

exceedingly strange precisely because it’s so excessively normal that it’s hard to believe it ever really happened. Like that time LSD guru Timothy Leary corralled me at a Hustler magazine anniversary party and figured the easiest way for us to have a conversation was with his forehead touching mine.

He chatted about what a genius Larry Flynt, the porn publisher, was before he wafted out into the Beverly Hills night. I was saddened to hear he had died when he died.

Or almost getting into a fistfight on the set of a photo shoot with Samuel L. Jackson because, of course: If you were almost going to get into a fistfight with someone, is it any surprise that it was with Samuel L. Jackson?

But about 10 years ago, Scott Kelly from Neurosis asked me if I wanted to open for him on his acoustic tour.

“Sure. But after I do ‘The Sound of Silence,’ I’m tapped.”

I could almost feel Scott sigh as he explained that HE would be doing the acoustic. “I” would

80 : FEBRUARY 2022 : DECIBEL

do whatever my limited skill set prepared me for. I was unemployed, needed the cash and loved Scott enough that, well, yeah, I’d tell stories from my novel A Long Slow Screw.

(And yeah, I know the title was lifted from Swans. I also know I told Gira I was going to do it before I did it. His comment in response: “I don’t give a shit.”)

The tour was sponsored by Scion, so I won’t say that, despite the car having teeth spray-painted on the hood, we ditched the roof rack in some Midwest parking lot.

I won’t say that. I will say that we don’t know how it ended up in a Midwest parking lot, though. That we do not know.

But the tour was going swimmingly well. Brunch with cats from Lamb of God. Sleeping on the floor at Bill Collins from Fang’s house.

Shooting the shit with John Dyer Baizley from Baroness. A steady stream of cats we hadn’t seen, or in my case, had never even met before. I’ve been touring America since 1981, and it’s always been, like Eudora Welty once said, broadening.

Virginia, though?

Look, this is where we originally

hung with Dave Brockie, which was great. It was also where we hung out with a brother and sister that were living as husband and wife.

So, there’s that.

“You Eugene?”

A question I never answer directly, but the guy knew. He was an MMA fan, and slid into the booth I was sitting in as I watched Scott play. The guy talked loudly and for too long.

“Hey man, I’d like to watch my friend play.”

“FUCK your friend. He SUCKS.” This was loud enough that Scott heard. So, I whispered the best I could, “I will knock you unconscious where you sit if you say one more thing to me.”

I got the quiet I wanted, but loadout was deep, heavy paranoia time.

People also get shot in Virginia.

In any case, the disquiet continued during a drive through a suburban Virginia night. Scott driving, me checking the rearview for reprisals. I passed out either on a couch or the floor in front of the couch.

Morning hit and the house was lit up with dudes. None of whom I knew. I wandered into the kitchen.

“Coffee? Tea?” Nice guy. Seemed like maybe it was his place. Over tea, we started chatting.

“Sorry. My name is Dave.”

And he kept talking about music, so I twigged that he was in a band, and then he started talking about a Swiss friend of mine who lives in Berlin: Manuel. Former sound guy and tour manager for OXBOW. “Wait. What band are you in?”

“Melt-Banana at the time.

Municipal Waste now.”

“DAVE WITTE?!” Outside of the fact that I had once freelanced for a magazine on municipal solid waste (re: shit), something I thought first out, Witte himself, had been whispered about to me like he was Keyser Söze. A crush-kill-destroy drummer who was like if Dave Lombardo actually hung around guys as broke as us. “I KNOW YOU!” Twenty minutes turned into an hour, and just as quickly as it started, Scott woke up, Witte disappeared and we were back on the road again. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him again. I, in actual fact, am totally unsure that I saw him then.

Damn that Timothy Leary.

ILLUSTRATION BY ED LUCE