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JANUARY 2023 // No. 219
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January 2023 [R 219] decibelmagazine.com
upfront 10 metal muthas Home movies 12 low culture Don’t worry, be happy 13 no corporate beer Better together 14 in the studio:
spirit adrift
16 xentrix Thrash from the past 18 hoaxed Into the shadows 20 high command Extended universe
It’s electrifying
features
reviews
22 spiritworld Dressed to kill
71 lead review John Cobbett and Sigrid Sheie, with the help of friends old and new, unintentionally revive Hammers of Misfortune to release the much anticipated Overtaker
24 q&a: scowl Vocalist Kat Moss would love to see you pushing up daisies 28 the decibel
hall of fame Reeling from the departure of a core member but fueled by contempt for the war in Iraq, Hammers of Misfortune restructure to forge their tried-and-true classic The Locust Years
41 special feature:
the top 40 albums of 2022
72 album reviews Records from bands that know the best part of being a metalhead is not defending lazy tone-deaf tweets, including Celestial Season, Exhumed and Monster Magnet 80 damage ink Family matters
Intentionally biased against you
Rise Above COVER STORY COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS 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. ISSN 1557-2137 | USPS 023142 Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited.
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STRIKER COLLECTION KRAMERGUITARS.COM
I was 20 when I started writing about music professionally. By “professionally,” I mean that someone was sympathetic enough to actually pay me to barf out pun-heavy Cannibal Corpse and Dissection reviews. As a broke college student who rarely had time to access the school’s 14.4 modem-adorned computer lab (this was 1996 after all), my often horribly misspelled editorial was also illegibly handwritten as a bonus. Backed by that impressive résumé, I managed to convince my editor at the time—who now happens to be Decibel’s publisher—to assign me my first interview feature. My pitch was simple: This Finnish band was about to release a progressive metal masterpiece, which was a massive creative leap forward from their early, cavernous death metal beginnings. Who wouldn’t want to read about that in a free magazine given out by a local record store that featured a substantial polka music section? I don’t remember much about my first Amorphis interview—and certainly guitarist Esa Holopainen will recall even less—but nearly three decades later, we’ll both celebrate much more about Amorphis: The Official Story of Finland’s Greatest Metal Band. Author Markus Laakso’s fully authorized band biography, released in Finland in 2015, has finally been granted a proper English translation, and Decibel has fully edited and redesigned it with exclusive new cover art as part of our bookshelfobliterating Decibel Books library. So, thank you to Alex Mulcahy for letting me gush about Elegy 26 years ago. Thank you to the late Joseph Lechleider, pioneer of DSL internet service. And thank you, dear reader, for your continued support of our bound, printed endeavors.
www.decibelmagazine.com
REFUSE/RESIST
January 2023 [T219] PUBLISHER
Alex Mulcahy
alex@redflagmedia.com
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Albert Mudrian
albert@decibelmagazine.com AD SALES
James Lewis
james@decibelmagazine.com DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND SALES ART DIRECTOR
Aaron Salsbury
aaron@decibelmagazine.com
Michael Wohlberg
michael@decibelmagazine.com CUSTOMER SERVICE
Patty Moran
COPY EDITOR
Andrew Bonazelli
BOOKCREEPER
Tim Mulcahy
patty@decibelmagazine.com
tim@redflagmedia.com CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
Chuck BB, Ed Luce Mark Rudolph
Online DECIBEL WEB EDITOR
Albert Mudrian
DECIBEL WEB AD SALES
James Lewis
albert@decibelmagazine.com james@decibelmagazine.com
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Emily Bellino Adrien Begrand J. Bennett Dean Brown Richard Christy Liz Ciavarella-Brenner Chris Dick Sean Frasier Nick Green Raoul Hernandez Addison Herron-Wheeler Jonathan Horsley Courtney Iseman Neill Jameson Kim Kelly Sarah Kitteringham Daniel Lake Cosmo Lee Shawn Macomber Shane Mehling Justin M. Norton Dutch Pearce Forrest Pitts Greg Pratt Jon Rosenthal Brad Sanders Joseph Schafer Matt Solis Kevin Stewart-Panko Eugene S. Robinson Adem Tepedelen Jeff Treppel J Andrew Zalucky CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief
MAIN OFFICE
P.O. Box 36818 Philadelphia, PA 19107 Tel: 215.625.9850 / Fax: 215.625.9967 www.decibelmagazine.com
Jason Blake Shane Gardner Hillarie Jason Shimon Karmel Ester Segarra Hristo Shindov Gene Smirnov Levan TK Hannah Verbeuren Frank White
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To carry Decibel, call 1.215.625.9850 x105 DECIBEL SUBSCRIPTIONS
Decibel subscriber service/change of address: 215.625.9850 x105 or contact@decibelmagazine.com To order by mail: Consult the subscription card To order by phone: 215.625.9850 x105 To order by fax: 1.215.625.9967 To order online: www.decibelmagazine.com VISA/MASTERCARD/DISCOVER accepted Subscribers: please alert us of any change of address 6-8 weeks before the date of your move. Decibel is not responsible or obligated to re-ship issues missed because of a move we were not informed of 6-8 weeks before the move took place. DECIBEL BACK ISSUES/MERCHANDISE
To order by phone: 1.215.625.9850 (10 a.m. – 5 p.m. EST) To order by fax: 1.215.625.9967 To order online: www.decibelmagazine.com 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.
Special thanks to Vinyl Altar for hosting our Undeath cover shoot. Follow them @VinylAltar on Instagram and Facebook.
Copyright ©2022 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. PRINTED IN USA
ISSN 1557-2137
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READER OF THE
MONTH
Andrew Grizzle Braselton, GA
Congrats, you are our first returning ROTM. You were last featured in the November 2009 issue (No. 61), so it’s been a minute. You’re still here—why?
Buckle up. Back in ’04, Old Man Gloom’s Christmas was your #3 album of the year. I was a fan of both Cave In and Converge at the time, but I had no idea of this “supergroup” until I read that year-end list. Christmas was some of the strangest and heaviest shit I had ever heard, and I was an instant fan. Fast-forward to 2012. OMG goes on a short Northeast tour to surprise release NO. Virginia is the closest state to me that they would play; I planned for months to drive up for the show. My truck gets totaled by a semi the day before. I am concussed, get a rental, make the eight-hour drive, get blown away by the show, meet all the guys in the band when I get them
8 : JANUARY 2023 : DECIBEL
to sign the LP, eat falafel and drive back home with a splitting headache. Worth it. I try to play this new, amazing album for my future wife; she says it is horrible, I am sad. Fast-forward again to 2019. I convince my wife to accompany me to Las Vegas, make her watch this horrible band, she tells me she liked them after seeing them and is an instant superfan. I am elated! Now she is a straight-up metalhead, and I can now share all of this music that has meant so much to me for so long. Fast-forward one last time to earlier this year, and she is just excited as I am when I have the honor of being tattooed by [Aaron] Turner. If it weren’t for dB, none of that would have been possible. That is why I am still here. Your previous ROTM photo featured you standing on a giant windmill turbine, proudly holding an issue of Decibel. Are you still involved in that interesting line of work?
That job was great! It allowed me to travel the country, see some amazing shows in some amazing places, and opened up many doors. Life on
the road just wasn’t for me, so I moved on. Now I am a service engineer in the transport refrigeration industry. We deal with the temperature-controlled delivery of everything from pharmaceuticals to ice cream. Grim and frostbitten! You’re still located in Georgia. Who is the best metal band from the Peach State that we don’t know about yet?
As you have seen, it is difficult for me to make a single decision. GA is ripe with great talent! Check out Big Oaf, Lost Hours, Cemetery Filth, Dead Vibes Ensemble, and Canopy. If I gotta pick, I am going with Drifter, a power trio to be reckoned with. Get with them! Thirteen years ago, we asked you for your fave album of 2009, and you answered Isis’ Wavering Radiant. Does that still hold up in 2022? And what’s your favorite this year?
Yep, I am unwavering in my support of Wavering Radiant; it was a perfect swansong. This year I have to go with Cave ln’s Heavy Pendulum. I was gutted when the news of Caleb Scofield’s passing came, and I was prepared to never hear any new material from Old Man Gloom or Cave In again. OMG’s two albums after were great and cathartic, but when I heard the first few seconds of Heavy Pendulum, I got chills and the same kind of feeling that I got when I first discovered all of those Boston badasses. For me, it is a perfect album.
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
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