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APRIL 2024 // No. 234
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April 2024 [R 234] decibelmagazine.com
Hell’s Heroes COVER STORY COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS BY GENE SMIRNOV
upfront
features
10 metal muthas Grappling with emotions
18 necrophobic Time is a construct
26 bruce dickinson Flying solo
12 exclusive:
20 brat It’s Kenough for us
28 midnight Stairway to Hell
22 coffins Sworn to the dark
30 q&a: judas priest The metal god himself Rob Halford has a sobering look at his band’s five-decade (and counting) career
maryland deathfest xix preview Back in black (and death, and grind, and doom)
14 low culture A bittersweet pill 15 kill screen:
dragonforce Up from the underground
16 in the studio:
terminal nation
24 chapel of disease Towards the light
reviews 34 the decibel
hall of fame Far from any snowy fjords or burning churches, Oakland city slickers Ludicra craft a thematic template for USBM on their final album The Tenant
46 exclusive:
metal & beer fest: philly 2024 preview Ready to win over Philly’s hearts and crafts
67 lead review Judas Priest may not be technological wizards, but the riffs are undeniable on 19th LP Invincible Shield 68 album reviews Records from bands that know better than to ask Albert for a list spot, including Exhorder, Ghoul and Skeletal Remains 80 damage ink Age is just a number (of the beast)
To the death
Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., P.O. Box 36818, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $34.95. 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. © 2024 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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April 2024 [T234] PUBLISHER
Alex Mulcahy
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Albert Mudrian
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James Lewis
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Patty Moran
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BOOKCREEPER
Tim Mulcahy
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tim@redflagmedia.com CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
Decibel featured Deicide on our cover. That 192-issue “break” between covers is the longest for any artist in the magazine’s history. That’s not to say the Florida death metal legends have been undeserving candidates for a not-so-sweet 16, but after the churn of several increasingly melodic albums— not to mention the churn of several guitarists—I felt a little, well, oblivious to evil. Sometime in the past couple years, however, a Deicide Renaissance had taken hold. Maybe it was when guitarist Taylor Nordberg slammed shut the rotating door on the band’s lead guitar position. Or when the group performed all of Legion on tour after saying no to similar requests for several years (trust me, I made some). Even Glen Benton appears considerably cuddlier, dropping in on the occasional podcast and regularly posting caption-less self-portraits on Instagram. It’s the new record (and debut for upstart label Reigning Phoenix), Banished by Sin, however, that really signals the third act in Deicide’s career. It’s easily my favorite since Scott Burns’ last engineering hurrah with the band, 1997’s Serpents of the Light, and as you’ll read in Justin M. Norton’s excellent story, they’ve managed to recapture that old-school Deicide feel that had eluded them since the mid-’90s. And with their April Metal & Beer Fest Philly headlining performance of songs from their legendary trifixion trifecta of Deicide, Legion and Once Upon the Cross—just one of four exclusive special sets you can read about in Kevin Stewart-Panko’s Metal & Beer Fest preview piece elsewhere in this issue—Deicide can comfortably acknowledge their legacy without entering the creative wasteland of a legacy artist. But rest assured: While the head demon may have “mellowed” with age, he’ll never stop hating Roadrunner, the Hoffman brothers or Jesus. He’s still very much the same guy who two decades ago, when I asked him what motivates him to continue the band, replied, “What else am I gonna do, go work at Checkers?” Glen Benton: Still the man behind the crooked (inverted) cross. albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief
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Albert Mudrian
DECIBEL WEB AD SALES
James Lewis
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Anthony Bartkewicz Emily Bellino Adrien Begrand J. Bennett Dean Brown Nathan Carson Liz Ciavarella-Brenner Dillon Collins Chris Dick Sean Frasier Nick Green Raoul Hernandez Addison Herron-Wheeler Jonathan Horsley Neill Jameson Kim Kelly Sarah Kitteringham Daniel Lake Cosmo Lee Jamie Ludwig Shane Mehling Tim Mudd Justin M. Norton Dutch Pearce Forrest Pitts Greg Pratt Jon Rosenthal Brad Sanders José Carlos Santos Joseph Schafer Kevin Stewart-Panko Eugene S. Robinson Adem Tepedelen Jeff Treppel J Andrew Zalucky CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
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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 $34.95. 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. Copyright ©2024 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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PHOTO BY GENE SMIRNOV
It’s been 16 years since the last time
Chuck BB, Ed Luce Mark Rudolph
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
BRAND NEW SOLO ALBUM RELEASED ON MARCH 1ST Across ten inventive, expansive and absorbing tracks, Bruce Dickinson and his long-term co-writer and producer Roy Z, have created one of 2024’s defining rock albums.The Mandrake Project is not just an album, but also a dark, adult comic book story of power, abuse and a struggle for identity, set against the backdrop of scientific and occult genius.
Available as limited edition blue vinyl with stencil, lenticular cover CD (both exclusive to Walmart), deluxe CD book pack with comic, CD and 180 black vinyl, digital and Dolby Atmos.
READER OF THE
MONTH You sent us a PDF of your top 30 albums last year, complete with cover art and editorial on each selection. The introduction to the list begins, “Hello, friends and relatives...” Is this an annual family tradition, and which relatives actually receive this? Does your cousin reply, “You forgot ____. Invalid list”?
Charlie Speicher East Glacier, MT
East Glacier, Montana: What the hell is out there besides Charlie Speicher?
It’s myself, my wife Sienna and our three boys. We live in a pretty remote spot in Montana on the Blackfeet Reservation, right where the prairies and mountains meet. I can run from my house and within 30 minutes be in pristine Glacier Park or the Badger-Two Medicine Wilderness. My wife is from here and comes from a big family, so there’s a ton of extended family around. I work as a school counselor in Browning at the Buffalo Hide Academy alternative school (shout-out, Blackfeet Nation!).
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I’m just a music nerd and I love metal and hardcore so much, so I make a top albums list every year and send it to my family and friends. I think like three people actually read it. I don’t usually get much feedback, but someone did comment this year that my support of the new Gridlink record was misguided. I beg to differ, as Coronet Juniper absolutely destroys! You’ve been a Decibel subscriber since issue No. 76, so that is a solid 13 years. Tell us another thing in your life that also has been a constant through that period, something even more surprising than sticking with an extreme metal magazine this long.
Well, I don’t know if this is a surprise or not, but my wife and I have been together that long. We actually started dating right around the time I began my subscription to Decibel. And I’m
happy to say that I like my odds to go the distance with both my wife and my Decibel subscription.
I’m happy to say that I like my odds to go the distance with both my wife and my Decibel subscription. This is our Metal & Beer Fest Philly preview issue. There are reasonably priced flights from East Glacier to Philly (albeit with a seven-hour layover in Denver). Are you pulling the trigger in April or what?
Sadly, I won’t be making it to Philly this year for Metal & Beer Fest, but I did make that trek once before, for dBMBF 2020 (turned out to be September 2021), with Pig Destroyer and Converge playing two of my all-time favorites in full. I somehow talked my brother and brother-in-law (two absolute non-metalheads) into going with me, and they had a great time. It really opened their eyes to see how, dare I say, evolved the heavy music scene is?
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