BRUJERIA MELVINS MY DYING BRIDE FULL OF HELL MATANDO GÜEROS HALL OF FAME
DEACONS OF TRASH
NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS
BEACH BOUND
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EXTREMELY EXTREME
May 2024 [R 235] decibelmagazine.com
upfront 8
metal muthas Home is where the heart is
features 14 antichrist
siege machine Knives out
10 low culture For the people
16 witch vomit No rest for the wicked
11 kill screen:
18 skeletal remains Harder with age
imperial triumphant Under the influence
12 in the studio:
rwake
Don’t change that channel
20 ingested Black and blue collar 22 suldusk Going with the flow
28 vltimas Trvly themselves 30 my dying bride No time like the past 32 inter arma Holy mountain
reviews 40 q&a: melvins Guitarist Buzz Osborne and bassist Steven McDonald have no trouble talking trash cinema 44 the decibel
34 apparition Moving on from old haunts 36 full of hell Hometown heroes
24 couch slut A night (un)like any other
hall of fame With a little help from their friends, Brujeria cast a spell on the growing grind scene to conjur a persona of drug-fueled Satanists on debut LP Matando Güeros
69 lead review Inter Arma escape the doom of pigeonholing to craft something truly divine on new LP New Heaven 70 album reviews Records from bands that also don’t know what “onii-chan” means, including Bruce Dickinson, Folterkammer and High on Fire 80 damage ink Funny how?
26 jim jones and
the kool-ade kids W.W.J.J.A.T.K.A.K.D.?
Keep on Rotting COVER STORY COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS BY SHIMON KARMEL
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.
2 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L
www.decibelmagazine.com
May 2024 [T235] 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
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
MAIN OFFICE
albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief
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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 ISTOCK/ANNBALDWIN
Editing 235 issues of Decibel means a lot of things to me, many of which I’ll address over the course of the magazine’s 20th anniversary celebration throughout this year. One relevant consequence is the fact that I’ve been required to write something interesting in this small piece of real estate for 235 consecutive months, which has become the hardest part of my job. Honestly, I’m happy when I can barf out two quality editor’s notes in a row! Anyway, I’m not gonna lie; I haven’t got jack shit this month. Mind you, it’s not due to a shortage of special Decibel undertakings directly related to that two-decade landmark. We’re currently juggling more unannounced new books, exclusive live events and records than any reasonable group of people could handle, which, ironically, has almost certainly contributed to my inability to string together coherent thoughts this month. So, when every transition feels as forced as a Chris Barnes gurgle nowadays, I could resort to lukewarm takes on the past several weeks of manufactured metal scene drama: AI album art is good for literally no one; Slayer are making a mockery of breaking up and reuniting; Dying Fetus playing a hardcore show is only crazy if you exclusively listen to hardcore. But you actually paid for this magazine and Twitter still exists. I think. Besides, this issue offers plenty to discuss. We’ve got the latest in our perpetual series of J. Bennett interviewing Buzz Osborne in as nearly as many strange locations as there are Melvins albums. Inter Arma—a band I watched win a local Richmond battle-of-the-bands competition in 2009—dropping an early album of the year contender. A loooooooongin-the-making Hall of Fame induction of Brujeria’s legendary Matando Güeros by José Carlos Santos, and a harrowing, in-depth Necrot piece by Brad Sanders—both contributors authoring their impressive HOF and cover story debuts, respectively. Am I over 300 words yet? Thank Christ, because I gotta finish the parts of the magazine you actually want to read. Maybe the 236th time will be the charm.
Andrew K. Scherer Warwick, RI
You’re the Director of the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University. For the past decade or so, there’s been a tremendous growth in the field of “extreme metal studies” in academia, from coursework to full-blown conferences. What do you attribute this to?
In the early days of extreme metal, commentary on the genre as a cultural force was largely the work of writers who may have only had a vague appreciation for the genre at best. Fast forward to 2024 [and] we are in a very different place, with lifelong fans of metal music now occupying university positions around the globe—folks steeped not only in the methods and theoretical approaches of academia, but also possessed of a deep understandings of extreme metal music and the artists behind it. One area that this scholarship has really tapped into is the interplay between heavy metal music and understandings of the human past. Here at Brown, my colleague Tyler Franconi teaches a class “Somewhere Back
6 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L
in Time: Archaeology, the Ancient World, and Heavy Metal Music.” As I write this, we are just weeks away from the second Heavy Metal and Global Premodernity conference, organized by Charlotte Naylor Davis, Shamma Boyarin and Jeremy Swist. Courses and conferences like these recognize that metal, arguably more than any other genre, engages the human past. I argue this is because, since its inception, metal has been fundamentally about being against the status quo. Beyond Powerslave and a Nile album or two, can you discuss what you feel are some of the most interesting intersections between archaeology and metal?
While not the first to sing about the archaeological or historical past, Iron Maiden deserves credit for laying the groundwork for archaeology in metal music. Decades later, you find metal artists continuing that tradition, presenting us with views of the past that might be real, imagined or utterly fantastical. Want to hear about Vikings at the Byzantine court of Constantinople? Check out Turisas’ The Varangian Way. Interested in World War I? Listen to the latest Sabaton albums. While a lot of this work is made by European or European-descent artists writing about the European past, there have also been notable forays into other parts of the world. Perhaps the most exciting thing is that now there are Latino and Indigenous artists who are themselves singing about the ancient cultures of the Americas. While the bands focused on the
Maya, Aztecs and other cultures of Mesoamerica remain somewhat obscure, rising stars of the U.S. black metal scene, Blackbraid, tap into their Indigenous ancestry for inspiration. Vikings were at the heart of the rise of Nordic black metal, so it makes sense that Indigenous artists would use the genre as a vehicle to celebrate their own past. Between the Decibel Hall of Fame series and our Decibel Books imprint, we might—after a few drinks—refer to ourselves as “archivists.” Do we have a point or are we just coping with the fact that we never went to grad school?
Absolutely! I continue to pore through the latest Decibel Books [titles], most recently the updated version of Dayal Patterson’s invaluable Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult. I was lucky enough to get into extreme metal just as the key genres were coalescing in the early ’90s. At that time, ska, another underground genre, was also in ascendancy. Here we are, 30 years later and metal is bigger than ever. I have no idea what happened to ska. My point being, I am certain folks are going to be listening and making this music for decades and even centuries to come. Since so much of the early history of extreme music exists in fragile forms of media (fanzines, traded demo tapes and the letters that accompanied them), the books being produced by Decibel imprints will be invaluable resources for future generations of fans and scholars alike. I should probably make sure Brown adds them to our library!
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
NOW SLAYING Wonder what Decibel world HQ has been rocking for the past month? Well, here are the records that we spun most while we take the clothes, cash, cars and homes—just stop complainin’.
Because not all of us were spawned in the darkest recesses of hell
This Month’s Mutha: Elizabeth Fulmer Mutha of Ellis Ray of Exulansis
Tell us a little about yourself.
I have worked in the nonprofit sector most of my life, at YWCA Women’s Health Services in Oakland, Planned Parenthood of Sacramento, Friends of the River, Citizens Who Care and Davis Community Church. Currently I have a private practice in Davis as a Reiki Master Teacher and Spiritual Director.
You’ve been to exactly one Exulansis show. What was the experience like for you?
The experience was totally immersive! There is an energy in the performance that goes beyond “sound.” It was a vibrational whole-body experience, all the way to my toes! I found Exulansis’ music to be gut-centered and often gut-wrenching. It was a unique musical experience for me.
We’re told that you home-schooled Ellis until their senior year of high school. What were some of the benefits?
We understand your father was an actor and a musician. What can you tell us about his creative life?
The biggest benefit of home-schooling was having the freedom to create an environment to support my children’s deep love of learning. In Ellis’ case, it provided them the ability to engage in constant music and theater opportunities.
In junior high, he was a featured trombone soloist with the Oakland Symphony. He also was an actor, director and writer. After World War II, he founded the Straw Hat Theater in the Bay Area during his college days at Cal Berkeley. He later created, wrote and performed as the Professor in Jack Daniel’s Original Silver Cornet Band, touring in community centers nationwide, at the Sacramento Jazz Festival, at Lincoln Center and the White House. The band had a PBS television special and released four albums. Ellis resembles their grandfather in many ways, most notably Ellis’ musical abilities and theatrical gifts.
At what point did you realize that Ellis had musical inclinations, be it singing or performing?
As a young person, Ellis had an auditory memory that was stunning. They could recall movies with nuanced voicing, accents and timing. After watching their older sister in The Davis Children’s Nutcracker four times, they could recite the entire production verbatim. Ellis could sing the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute with perfect pitch when they were 3. They were singing in choirs and performing in community theater at age 5. When Ellis graduated high school, they had been involved in more than 50 productions. Ellis taught themself the guitar at age 12. They played piano, mandolin, banjo, bass… whatever was available! 8 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L
What’s something about Ellis that the average Exulansis fan would never suspect?
Ellis was very perceptive of others’ feelings. I recall them saying to me, “Mom, what’s the matter?” and I would honestly respond, “Nothing’s the matter, I’m fine.” Upon further reflection, I would realize that there was something bothering me. So often Ellis could sense what I was feeling before I did! —ANDREW BONAZELLI
Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f Terminal Nation, Echoes of the Devil’s Den Inter Arma, New Heaven Autopsy, Severed Survival Hulder, Verses in Oath Worm, Bluenothing ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e Electric Wizard, Witchcult Today Black Flag, In My Head Black Sabbath, Vol. 4 Can, Tago Mago Neu!, Neu! ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s Necrot, Lifeless Birth Deicide, Banished by Sin Apparition, Disgraced Emanations From a Tranquil State Imperial Triumphant, Vile Luxury (Redux 1924) Brat, Social Grace ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r Imperial Triumphant, Vile Luxury (Redux 1924) Animosity, Animal Mastiff, Deprecipice Antichrist Siege Machine, Vengeance of Eternal Fire Necrot, Lifeless Birth ---------------------------------Aaron Salsbury : m a r k e t i n g a n d s a l e s Various Artists, NEF100: Burn After Hearing Deadguy, Fixation on a Coworker Deaf Club feat. HIRS Collective/ Fuck Money, Split EP Fright, Cesspool Destructor, Blood Bone and Fire
GUEST SLAYER
---------------------------------Tom Draper : h a n d s o f g o r o / pounder / spirit adrift
Young Gun Silver Fox, Ticket to Shangri-La Donald Fagen, The Nightfly Cory Wong, Motivational Music for the Syncopated Soul Tom Misch, Geography Mayer Hawthorne, Man About Town
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