Decibel #240 - October 2024

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ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

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REFUSE/RESIST

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OCTOBER 2024 // No. 240

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October 2024 [R 240] decibelmagazine.com

upfront

features

reviews

38 unto others The key to the majors

83 lead review Blood Incantation continue pursuing their progressive agenda on their bold full length Absolute Elsewhere

14 metal muthas Someone to look up to

20 in aphelion Let them cook

28 high parasite An open relationship

16 low culture What can I say except, “you’re welcome”

22 anciients Opposites attract

30 bewitcher Shock to the system

24 glacial tomb Their time to shine

32 grendel’s sÿster Once upon a time

42 the jesus lizard A big black hole in their heart

26 unholy altar Not the Philly gritty you’re thinking

34 winterfylleth The foresight of hindsight

44 trelldom Expect the unexpected

36 amiensus Doubled over

46 q&a:

17 kill screen:

john romero Doomed to this life

18 in the studio:

the silver

The beginning and the end

40 oceans of slumber Fresh metal injection

the mountain goats Former Decibel cog John Darnielle is still more metal than you after 20 years

84 album reviews Records from bands that are old enough to remember the backwards “e,” including Deceased..., Melt-Banana and Satan 96 damage ink Rest in pieces

50 special report:

the last 20 years of metal Yes, magazines still exist

58 the decibel

hall of fame Candlemass long for their time to come with initially misunderstood debut album Epicus Doomicus Metallicus

Murder Party 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.

8 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

Throughout this issue, you’ll notice a

Red Flag Media owner and publisher Alex Mulcahy, who indulged my idea of making a metal magazine over 20 years ago and was rewarded with more knowledge of A.C., Shat and XXX Maniak than anyone in his peer group.

Customer service guru Patty Moran, who, in between routinely delivering our most anticipated Now Slaying playlists, has calmly answered the question “Where’s my copy of the new issue?” approximately seven billion times over the past 14 years.

www.decibelmagazine.com

October 2024 [T240] 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

Advertising director James Lewis, whose artful preservation of a great core of advertisers for nearly a decade is only matched by his unwavering enthusiasm for even the most mediocre early-’90s death metal imaginable.

Online DECIBEL WEB EDITOR

Albert Mudrian

Long-suffering art director Mike Wohlberg, who has designed and illustrated more stunning Decibel books, magazines and event logos in the past eight years than there are levels of Bubble Bobble.

DECIBEL WEB AD SALES

James Lewis

albert@decibelmagazine.com james@decibelmagazine.com

Marketing manager and Metal & Beer Fest brewery wrangler Aaron Salsbury, whose brain (and office whiteboards) are swimming with beer logistics, and whose office shelves are bursting with the most limited-edition cassette runs on earth.

Bookkeeper Tim Mulcahy, who, among other administrative responsibilities, makes sure we pay our bills on time while desperately hoping anyone acknowledges the fact that he’s been credited as “Bookcreeper” in the masthead for the last several years.

Copy editor and former managing editor Andrew Bonazelli, whose distinctive voice (and dick jokes) helped shape the tone of the magazine from its earliest days.

Nick Green, J. Bennett and Kevin Stewart-Panko, who have all

been here since issue No. 1, as well as all longtime (and recent!) writers, illustrators and photographers.

The advertisers (also overwhelmingly independent companies)

that have provided us unwavering support for decades.

The bands who have performed on our tours and festivals; the venue

crews who help execute those events; and the hundreds of thousands of fans who have attended them.

But no one is more deserving of reverence than you, dear reader.

Some of you have been here since September 2004, while a few of you weren’t even born then. The lives of everyone mentioned above would be significantly less fulfilling without you. Thank you for these 20 years. If you want 20 more, you got it. albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief

REFUSE/RESIST

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Anthony Bartkewicz Emily Bellino Adrien Begrand J. Bennett Dean Brown Liz Ciavarella-Brenner Chris Dick Sean Frasier Nick Green Raoul Hernandez John Hill 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 Brad Sanders José Carlos Santos Joseph Schafer Kevin Stewart-Panko Eugene S. Robinson Adem Tepedelen Jeff Treppel J Andrew Zalucky CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

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 Scott Kinkade Katja Ogrin Ester Segarra Hristo Shindov Gene Smirnov Hannah Verbeuren Frank White

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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.

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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

| USPS 023142

PHOTO BY SHIMON KARMEL

few of our contributors (and the artists they interview) throwing bouquets my way in acknowledgement of Decibel’s 20th anniversary. While I do genuinely appreciate the kind words, the truth is I don’t do all this shit by myself! There are several other folks who have significantly shortened their own lifespans for the privilege of bringing this magazine to your mailbox for 240 consecutive months. And if we’re celebrating anything this month, it should be them:

READER OF THE

MONTH The Decibel masthead is populated with a few baseball fanatics. You were an umpire for many years at various levels of organized ball. Talk a little bit about that experience.

Cory Just

Homewood, IL This is the 20th anniversary issue of Decibel.

When did you discover the magazine?

Back in the day, every Wednesday I would make the same rounds in the morning on my day off: hit the comic book store first, then head to Extreme Noise Records (I lived in Minnesota for most of my life) for new records, then rotate around between bookstores to look for zines, books, etc. I think it was at a Barnes and Noble that I found issue No. 2 (I think it was that one!). The cover had Converge on it, which drew me in, but I also couldn’t believe there was a rag out there that featured bands like that along with Slayer, High on Fire and Pig Destroyer all in the same space. I’ve been hooked ever since.

12 : O C T O B E R 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

How much time you got? Honestly, I could fill up this entire issue talking about umpiring. It’s something I deeply loved and cherished; it’s a craft that requires continued practice and study, and rewards so much in return. Along with teaching me a deeper appreciation for the game of baseball, it taught me so many life lessons that I continue to utilize in both my personal and professional life.

I was lucky to have some incredible mentors who worked with me at various levels and got to spend time with several MLB Crew Chiefs and pick their brains over the course of my time calling balls and strikes. When I go to baseball games now, I watch maybe 10 percent of what’s going on with the players; the rest of my time is spent watching the umpires. I’m a weirdo like that.

You’re the marketing director for 3 Floyds Brewing and WarPigs Brewing. 3 Floyds, in particular, has meant a lot to Decibel throughout our existence. What does it mean to you?

Back in 1998, 3 Floyds’ Robert the Bruce was one

of the first craft beers I ever had. I was working in a liquor store at the time, and the first craft beer boom was just beginning. The beer was unlike anything I’d tasted to that point, and certainly didn’t look like anything else on the shelves. Then, years later, when 3 Floyds started doing beer collabs with bands and Dark Lord Day began to feature metal bands, it just struck me as this truly unique brewery unlike anything else I had ever seen. Not only were they making incredible beer with the sickest packaging and artwork, but they were into the same things that I’m interested in, and did things their own way and on their own terms. It just resonated with me on a massive scale. I’ve been a fan since day one, and am truly fortunate I get to come to work here every day.

You’ve been at a number of Decibel live events over the years. What keeps bringing you out?

There’s an energy at every Decibel event that is unique. The lineups are always amazingly curated, and there’s just something different about these shows that you don’t really see outside of maybe one or two festivals here in the U.S. There really is a sense of community, and it’s not some manufactured bullshit either—it’s real, and that’s why I keep coming back. And of course, to give Albert shit about the Phillies!

ChuckBB.com / Instagram: @chuckbb_art

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

Well, here are the records that we spun most while offering a prize to any reader who can correctly tell us which issue of Decibel that this column debuted.

Just kidding, we don’t have any prizes.

It was issue No. 9.

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

This Month’s Mutha: Sandra Bennett Mutha of J. Bennett of Decibel and Ides of Gemini

Tell us a little about yourself.

After working in financial services for many years, I retired a few years ago. Following an initial period of feeling somewhat unmoored due to the lack of built-in structure in the life of a retiree, I learned that I am good at—and content with—accomplishing little. On the negative side, I have joined that group of people (we all know some) who get up at 4:30 a.m. to arrive on time for a 10:30 a.m. appointment that is a 20-minute drive from home.

Your son is a man of many talents. What were some of his aspirations growing up?

of the men are tall” 6’-6’3’’. Even J.’s paternal grandmother stood 5’10’’ or so. J., however, has us all looking up.

We’re told that you enjoy shooting firearms in your spare time. Are you a better shot than your son?

Surprising even myself, I did take up shooting last year at the ripe old age of somethingsomething. Classes, a few private lessons (to try to avoid humiliation in a classroom setting) and range time are all in the mix. Yes, I am a better shot than J. I just know it.

J. has always had many laudable plans and goals.

A small sample from his tender youth: trample everyone of every skill level playing Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers; transfer to a co-ed high school from an all-boys’ high school; stay out all night after prom; enroll in tractor trailer driving school; drive the big rigs for a living; and see his hometown of “Mayberry” in the rearview mirror.

Are you a bigger fan of your son’s writing or his music?

Inquiring minds want to know: When did J. hit his growth spurt? Is the entire Bennett clan that tall?

Leo is an apricot mini-poodle. He may bark frantically at ringing phones, dialing phones, animals (especially dogs and goats) who have the audacity to appear on TV and the occasional falling leaf, but he is not insane. How do I know? He lives with two Boomers whose mission in life is to assure that Leo has everything he needs or wants to live his best life every day. He is in full control.

And that is not crazy. —ANDREW BONAZELLI

J.’s growth spurt began in utero. As a newborn, he weighed slightly less than his sister did, but he measured four inches longer. During childhood, he outgrew shoes and clothes every few months. Before age 13, he was wearing men’s size 13 footwear. On J’s dad’s side of the family, many

I am a big fan of all things J. Bennett, especially his quick, sharp, but never mean-spirited sense of humor. My fandom may be ever so slightly less fervid when it comes to all the ink.

J. describes your dog Leo as “insane.” Is this a fair assessment, or is your son the crazy one?

Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f  Blood Incantation, Absolute Elsewhere  Undeath, More Insane  Maul, In the Jaws of Bereavement  The Black Dahlia Murder, Servitude  Dismember, Like an Ever Flowing Stream ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e  Tzompantli, Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force  Municipal Waste, Electrified Brain  Electric Wizard, Dopetrhone  Ufomammut, Hidden  Jesus Piece, …So Unknown ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s  The Black Dahlia Murder, Servitude  Deathevokation, “Black Blood” flexi disc  Blood Incantation, Absolute Elsewhere  Ripped to Shreds, Sanshi  Undeath, More Insane ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r  The Black Dahlia Murder, Servitude  Darkest Hour, Undoing Ruin  Undeath, More Insane  Summoning the Lich, Beneath the Reviled Throne  Ripped to Shreds, Sanshi ---------------------------------Aaron Salsbury : m a r k e t i n g a n d s a l e s  Stiff Meds, Tales from the Slab  Vile Form, U N E N D I N G  Rot Coven, Nightmares Devour the Waking World  Curl Up and Die, The Only Good Bug Is a Dead Bug  Insect Warfare, Evolved into Obliteration

GUEST SLAYER

---------------------------------Scott Hull : p i g d e s t r o y e r / agoraphobic nosebleed

Wormed, Omegon Warfuck, Dyptique Assück, Discography Mellow Harsher, Discography  Noose Sweat, Murder Suicide    

PHOTO BY

14 : O C T O B E R 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

SHANE GARDNER

Doom [ID SOFTWARE]

GAMING LEGEND

Twenty Years Ago I Was Almost 30 hard to imagine

almost anything lasting 20 years these days, especially a printed magazine, yet here we are.

I don’t need to use this space to give Albert the tonguing I’m sure he deserves, but who knows where it’ll go from here?

Around 15 or 16 years ago, I was reactivating Krieg after some time off due to a nervous breakdown and some bad decisions. At the time, there were more magazines in the printed landscape than now—which I guess should be fucking obvious—and for a bit after The Black House, I was a darling in most of them. So, I figured I might still have some good will left over years later, but I wanted to crack into Decibel, mostly after reading them on the shitter at Blake Judd’s place, but it proved to be tougher to reinsert myself into the global metal conversation than I expected.

A few years later, after making the mistake of signing to Candlelight, my first record on that deal was released and I was sure it was going to launch me into somewhere, which included a piece in Decibel. I don’t think we even got a review. It was a bit of a reality check. The aforementioned Decibel subscriber told me I would never, under any circumstances, get into Decibel. It was a combination of past mistakes, but also not being able to help sell copies of the publication. The entire reception of Krieg being “back” was not really going how I imagined.

By the next year, I was focusing on rebuilding my life after a decade of neglect, and I put the whole thing behind me.

Two years later, Justin Norton contacted me about writing a guest column for the Decibel website because I had spent the previous few years detailing my life managing a record store to my Facebook audience. My editorial on the state of record stores in America ended up being 16 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

the biggest fucking thing I’ve ever done or probably will ever do. I continued to write occasional guest pieces until 2014, around the time Krieg’s Transient was released. Earlier that summer, I found out that The Black House was being named to Decibel’s Top 100 Black Metal Records of All Time. By December, I was writing what would become the first Low Culture for the print magazine. Times sure can change.

I owe Decibel for a lot of things, but mostly for giving me the chance to live out something I had wanted to do since I was a child: be a published writer. Thanks to Decibel, people now have something to talk to me about other than not liking my music. They can read what an unlikable asshole I am as well! Decibel has allotted me the opportunity to write for other platforms, by providing me a seat at the table in the first place. It’s helped by giving me much more exposure than I deserve, as many of you would agree. And I’m given much more freedom here than anywhere else. Rarely have I been told “no” on a pitch or had something I wrote needed to be reworked or erased because I overstepped. As corporate as some of you want to say this magazine is, that right there is the hallmark of a publication still run by passionate metalheads, who provide the freedom for me to hang myself monthly.

Do I like everything that the magazine covers?

Absolutely not. Does that matter to Decibel? Also, absolutely not. But what I do like is that every month, for 20 years, there is a consistent light being shone on extreme metal, with the same dedication now as then. This is one of the last bastions of printed media, especially in a subculture that has never been the most profitable. While I think half the bands in this issue are lukewarm liquid shit, I am eternally proud to spew my feces in the same pages. Thank you, Albert. Here’s to as many more as you can take.

JOHN ROMERO LIVES FOR GAMES AND DIES HARD FOR METAL hile the co-nerds of Kill

Screen were too young to be heshers in 1993, we were definitely present during the shooter genre’s ascent from hell thanks to id Software’s landmark release Doom. So influential was this single game that before the term “first-person shooter” became canonized in gaming vernacular, other similar titles of the time were known by a different category: “Doom clones.”

Largely praised for its technological innovation, lightning-fast speed and coining the phrase “deathmatch,” those destined for a heavier path in life were enthralled by the game’s demonic, goresoaked visuals and, most importantly, its ripping metal-influenced soundtrack, pulling from bands like Slayer, Pantera and Alice in Chains. Previously interviewed musicians have cited Doom as a crucial element to their introduction to metal—and to be honest, likely ours, too.

Designer John Romero, id Software cofounder and co-creator of Doom, Doom 2, Wolfenstein, Quake and more, was absolutely a metalhead in 1993 and remains one in 2024. The company’s original office, lovingly named “Suite 666,” had a shared boombox that was regularly blasting riffs throughout the development of their masterpiece in the

the

anthology

I’m listening to [metal] when I’m making games… I’m not making something where I’m blowing someone’s head off

AND LISTENING TO SOFT JAZZ.

making. Romero even gave Doom composer Bobby Prince a stack of metal CDs as inspiration for the game’s shredding—albeit MIDI—score.

Though no longer part of the company he helped found, his legacy is forever burned into gaming history with scorching hellfire, and Romero remains unwavering in his devotion to both video games and heavy metal, as he is still hard at work developing to this day. Whereas our extended online interview with the legendary designer explores these topics at length, it’s the following exchange that feels especially relevant for the issue that caps two extremely extreme decades of dedication that is Decibel magazine.

[In a previous interview with video game reviewer Ben “Yahtzee” Crowshaw], he asked you the question, “Why do you keep making games?” You don’t need to at this point, but you still do it. And you gave the very—I don’t know how else to say it—“correct” answer of, “Because I have to.” You’re a lifer in that sense.

Has that mentality always been with you?

Yeah, since I was making games. When I first listened to metal, like, really got introduced to it in ’83, that was a major turning point in my career, which had barely started because this is all stuff at home. But I had just learned the most important programming language that I would ever need to know. Without learning that language, I could not make games that were

impressive at all. Like, I needed to learn this thing and I did. And in 1983, I was writing code on paper because I didn’t even have a computer at the time. It was actually being sent from our house in California all the way to England, because we had just moved to England, so I had no computer for six months.

That’s how long it took that boat to get from California to England. Six months. And I just learned the key to the universe for me. And the only thing I could do is just write code on paper for half a year. All these games, I’m just writing hundreds and hundreds of lines of code. And as I’m writing all of this code, I’m listening to Black Sabbath. I’m memorizing “Warning,” every guitar note. I’m listening to everything.

Metal is the games that I make. I’m listening to that when I’m making games. For the games that have that kind of hardcore attitude, it’s a perfect match for that intensity and the veracity of what the game is supposed to be like. So, it’s kind of natural. The attitude and the aggression of metal and what I’m putting in the game that’s super violent, 100 percent they match. I’m not making something where I’m blowing someone’s head off and listening to soft jazz. I’m not doing that. Even though I love listening to jazz, it’s not that at that time. [If] I’m trying to put something that is primal in a game, I need to have the music match that. And so, that’s where metal comes in. That’s what it is.

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STUDIO REPORT

THE SILVER ALBUM TITLE

TBD

TO

craft their second album, Philadelphia genre chameleons the Silver took what was established on their debut LP, Ward of Roses, and decided to make it more: more grandiose, more challenging,

more unique.

STUDIO “The main goals were really just to make it bigger and Villa of the Deaf, bolder,” says guitarist and clean vocalist Matt Knox. “I always Philadelphia, PA had this image of leaving the cemetery and going to the opera ENGINEER house, essentially, and I think we got there.”

Richie DeVon As one quarter of Decibel faves Horrendous, Knox is no LABEL stranger to ambitious albums. But while that band’s most Gilead Media enterprising releases have always remained firmly in the realm of death metal, he says the Silver’s sophomore effort is much RELEASE DATE harder to classify—even for the people who made the record— Late fall 2024 veering further away from their blackened roots. “[On Ward of Roses] I felt that my voice was still kind of in the background and it was produced in a way that’s pretty reverbed out and fitting within the music,” Knox explains. “Whereas I think there’s a degree on this record of my voice being more out front.

“There’s a really interesting mix on this record,” he continues. “Some of it’s really grandiose, technical stuff and then there are moments and pockets where it is almost more pop-minded, too.”

Songwriting for the as-yet-untitled album began shortly after Ward of Roses was released in mid2021, with recording commencing in summer 2023. The band recorded at Villa of the Deaf with Richie Devon, where they also recorded 2023 Decibel Flexi Series track “The Vagrant Soul.” Originally 18 : O C T O B E R 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

hoping to complete recording in just over a week, their hopes were quickly dashed and a longer process began.

Only able to wrap drum tracking in that allotted time, the Silver recorded in chunks over the next year, blocking out a few hours every week with breaks for other obligations. It was an arduous process, one that Knox equates to “entering a dark abyss with a torch that can only be used once and just walking into the middle of it, lighting it and praying that the thing that is illuminated is the thing you want to see.”

Similarly, the lyrics on the Silver’s new album are more introspective this time around. As Knox explains, Ward of Roses was about facing difficult experiences and emotions with others by your side. This time, they’re looking in the mirror.

“It’s like a deep dive into self, to experience its memory, to question its identity,” he says.

The new album is currently being mixed and mastered by Damian Herring, for a hopeful late October release. It is slated to be the final release from Gilead Media, who are concluding a nearly 20-year run. —EMILY BELLINO

PHOTOS BY RICHIE DEVON

THE SILVER

IN APHELION

Necrophobic members aren’t afraid to try to new blackened things

T

hough in aphelion are a new band, discerning fans may find their melancholy melody and merciless aggression familiar—that’s because three-quarters of the band, including guitarist/vocalist Sebastian Ramstedt, pull double duty in evil melodeath legends Necrophobic. On their sophomore album, Reaperdawn, these Swedes maintain the anthemic qualities of their other storied project, but bend their blackened brutality into new shapes. ¶ “The idea of In Aphelion came to me during the first year of the pandemic,” says Ramstedt.

“I had wanted to do something that would not fit within the Necrophobic box for years, and now was the time.” ¶ Ramstedt has been a primary songwriter in Necrophobic for three decades, but the global pause allowed him to scratch musical itches long ignored. “In Necrophobic, I take no risks. It’s almost like cooking pasta with Bolognese. In Aphelion, [it’s] the opposite. It is the same kitchen, but all the ingredients are new to me.” ¶ Originally intended as a studio-only project, In Aphelion released their debut, Moribund, via Edged Circle Productions in 2022, 20 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

then quickly spun the project into its own performing unit. The expanded lineup includes his Necrophobic compatriots Johan Bergebäck and Tobias Cristiansson.

Their interplay, honed through years of shared musical ventures, creates a sonic tapestry that is both intricate and punishing. Lone outsider drummer Marco Prij, with his relentless precision, drives the onslaught forward.

Reaperdawn is the first In Aphelion record composed with input from Ramstedt’s compatriots, and their shared goal was to further evolve In Aphelion into its own unique beast.

“The other members’ contributions have widened the whole sound. We wanted to distinguish ourselves more from our other band, so finding our own sound was crucial.”

Ramstedt hasn’t sung in a live project before, and the prospect of singing his own lyrics was key in creating Reaperdawn. “I wanted to challenge myself and see if I

could both play and sing these songs live,” he says. “I was not very confident as a singer on the first album, but this time I knew what I could do and stretched my vocals beyond what I thought was possible on Moribund.”

Reaperdawn, therefore, is Ramstedt unleashed, blending elements of classic rock and hair metal into his honed chainsaw attack, exploring tempos both slower and faster than he’s ever done before, sometimes in the same song. “I think there are more moods—like euphoria, lunacy, sorrow, triumph and evil— in In Aphelion,” he says. “It’s more like life. It takes you in whatever direction it goes.”

The result is a carefully crafted journey through the hellish landscapes of despair and defiance, where the boundaries between black metal’s icy tunefulness, death metal intensity and other styles are obliterated. Chef’s kiss!

—JOSEPH SCHAFER

PHOTO BY LEO BERGEBAECK

IN APHELION

ANCIIENTS

A

nciients join metal’s opposing forces. The Vancouver four-piece, 15 years deep into progressive extremity, upshift to hovercraft on their third full-length, Beyond the Reach of the Sun. Blending melodic vox with barbaric gnashing and acoustic guitars with electrical storms—and extremely well—they execute a balance most ears take for granted, yet endless heshers won’t ever nail. ¶ “Whether it’s an acoustic passage or a crushing death metal riff, it’s important to focus on the transition between the sections and spend a lot of time on the build of the song,” emails singer, guitarist and bandleader Kenneth Cook. “Typically, we let the riffs decide what type of vocals will be used for any given part in our songs. Too much of one sound gets boring and stale to me.” ¶ 2013’s Heart of Oak deforested some of the lush British Columbia background the group models in photos, charging elements of sky and sea with raw DM, while sophomore launch Voice of the Void three years later quadrupled down on blistering prog.

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Eight years on and seven after losing co-founding guitarist Chris Dyck, Beyond the Reach of the Sun transcends genre boundaries by simply erasing them.

Eight-minute entry point “Forbidden Sanctuary” begins at a wide riverhead, deeply folk-blues hues thumbing steel strings until the uptick starts gushing white-water axes—hair, thrash, death—into clean vox, then dirty, until the entire runtime whooshes past. A naturalist lyricism weighs heavy on man’s abject idiocy. “Despoiled” next produces a Siamese dream wherein canonical rock and exhorted abrasion coexist in equal glory, all whilst reasoning about “utopian demise,” “paradise lost” and “won’t survive.”

Even deniers don’t deny our demise (“Is It Your God”), but grandeur such as that of Anciients— dual-guitar workouts with Brock MacInnes both lyrical and game, rushing rhythms deep and bold

by bass tributary Rory O’Brien and drum falls Mike Hannay, and exquisitely weighted vocalizing from Cook—washes us toward an oblivion baked by water and sun: “There’s no presence of god in the hell we live.” Message received by “Melt the Crown”: deny false gods.

“I’m a strong believer that art can reflect the surroundings of the artist,” writes Cook of Vancouver.

“Nature can be both beautiful and disastrous. It’s easy to be inspired by both aspects. We’ve written lots about natural disasters in the past.

Floods, fires, earthquakes, tsunamis are all very powerful, and humans are at the mercy of nature in those situations.

“We’re all very grateful to live where we do, and I’d imagine we could very well have a different sound being from a different area of the planet. Sonically speaking, we strive to have as earthy a sound as possible.” —RAOUL HERNANDEZ

PHOTO BY SHIMON KARMEL

ANCIIENTS

After an eight-year absence, Vancouver progressives reach beyond genre classification

GLACIAL TOMB

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ightless expanse, the new album from Denver death metal trio Glacial Tomb, has been a long time coming. Originally begun in 2019, Lightless Expanse showcases a revamped lineup—founding members Ben Hutcherson on guitar and Michael Salazar on drums, plus new bassist David Small—pushing themselves to the limit of their technical abilities while confronting the horrors of modern life. ¶ The biggest change for Glacial Tomb came in 2019, when Small joined the fold. The bassist was referred to Hutcherson for a tryout by a friend. Hutcherson recalls that Small showed up to practice with the entirety of Glacial Tomb’s debut album memorized and an entirely new set of basslines written. While it might seem presumptuous to some, Hutcherson and Salazar could tell within minutes that this was the musician they needed. ¶ Shortly after, the newly minted trio wrote the first version of “Worldsflesh,” which was released as a single in 2020. It signaled the band’s further descent into dissonant, technical death metal, a trend that continues on Lightless Expanse, their first album for underground mainstays Prosthetic.

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“With time and playing shows, you get a sense of what a project is, where the heart of it is,” explains Hutcherson. “In this case, finding that the stuff that resonates most strongly with us as players—sort of paradoxically as we’re getting older—is playing something a bit more technically demanding.”

Referencing bands like Gorguts, Suffocation and Covenant-era Morbid Angel, the guitarist—who splits his time with Decibel faves Khemmis alongside Small—says that Glacial Tomb are just playing the kind of music the members want to hear.

“For myself, that’s sort of been the guiding principle,” he explains.

“Make art that I want to experience, because if I’m trying to do it in anticipation of what other people want to hear or feel, that’s the most contrived bullshit I can imagine.”

Writing was also a different kind of experience this time around, with Small contributing to songwriting

alongside Hutcherson. According to the guitarist, Small plays at a high level that challenges his bandmates to push themselves to new limits on their respective instruments.

In addition to the heightened musicianship, Hutcherson produced and recorded Lightless Expanse, giving Glacial Tomb extra time in the studio to mess with tempos, try new ideas and really lock in the desired sound. Wrapped up in a loose concept of cosmic horror, Glacial Tomb explore suffering and the general monstrousness of humanity on Lightless Expanse.

“In the grand scheme of the cosmos, it’s a blink,” Hutcherson concludes. “We’ll be gone before the rest of everything out there even knew we were here, and there is a weird kind of peace to be found with that, which was like ‘Maybe I can feel a lot less overwhelmed all the time about this by zooming out a little bit.’” —EMILY BELLINO

PHOTO BY FRANK GUERRA

GLACIAL TOMB

Denver death dealers chisel their own identity

UNHOLY ALTAR

UNHOLY ALTAR

Raw Philly black metallers are worthy of your worship

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you may have gleaned from our sports fans (or witnessed at a certain magazine’s annual bands ‘n’ booze event), the good people of Philadelphia take their passions very seriously. It’s a city of assholes, not half-asses, and whenever a new Philly band crosses your radar, you can rest assured that they’ll be giving 110 percent of whatever it is they’re doing, whether that’s hip-hop or hardcore. In Unholy Altar’s case, their passion is second-wave black metal, and only three years into their tenure, the corpsepainted quintet has already emerged as a powerful force. ¶ The band was founded by guitarist Miserer and vocalist Desecrator in 2021, and is rounded out by bassist Cavader, drummer Lucifer’s Rage and guitarist Evoked Damnator. “We all appreciate raw lo-fi production along the lines of early demos such as Gorgoroth or Emperor, something that noise, thrash and black metal can all share,” Desecrator explains. “Each member comes from a different musical background, bringing their own personal influences while keeping true to the second-wave ethos.”

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The band members quickly coalesced around a shared love for all things primal, anguished and atmospheric, and released a self-titled demo in 2022. It was a lo-fi, crepuscular delight whose thick wall of Satanic sound hinted at greater evils to come. That moment came on July 5 of this year, when they released their icy debut LP, Veil of Death! Shroud of Nite (and for any word nerds out there who might be wondering, the spelling is very intentional—as Desecrator says, “‘Nite’ recycles the old-astime black metal diction, forging itself into something curious, gritty and new).

“Curious, gritty and new” may as well be a slogan for the band itself, as well as for their stellar new album. You only get one shot at a debut, and Unholy Altar made sure to nail theirs. They even ensnared a new soul for the occasion, inviting Evoked Damnator to join the band

in 2024. The addition allowed Unholy Altar to double its axe attack when they hit the studio.

“Once we introduced a second guitar into the mix, he and Miserer started working together to write leads, polish the existing songs and conjure some new ones, which ultimately made their way onto Veil of Death! Shroud of Nite,” Desecrator says. The extra firepower came in handy on more dynamic tracks like album highlight “Nefarious.” (“Although it was the hardest to perfect while recording, once it came into existence, it became the track that we were all the proudest of,” she adds.)

Veil of Death! Shroud of Nite was released on cassette by Liminal Dread Productions, and the band has been touring like mad to spread the pestilence. Desecrator shares that they’re already working on new material, too, so consider yourself warned! —KIM KELLY

HIGH PARASITE

HIGH PARASITE

Aaron Stainthorpe is fronting a band other than My Dying Bride—and he’s keeping it simple

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fter exclusively providing vocals for doom lords My Dying Bride for over three decades, joining another band feels like a momentous occasion. Aaron Stainthorpe, however, pretty much enlisted in High Parasite by accident “Danny is the main man in the band. He writes all the music,” Stainthorpe explains by way of introducing the group’s other main figure, a.k.a. bassist/vocalist Tombs. “He was part of My Dying Bride’s crew, and right now he still crews for Paradise Lost; he is Greg [Mackintosh]’s guitar tech, which is why Greg is involved.” ¶ So, origin story time. One day, around three years ago, “Danny wrote some music on his laptop, and he asked me if I wouldn’t mind singing on a couple of songs. I thought they were great, so I said yes. He already had his vocals there, and he asked me to death-metal the chorus. He gave me the lyrics, I death-metalled the chorus here at home and he absolutely loved them. Things happened very naturally, and when it came to going into a studio to record the full album… it was halfway through this process, with Greg there doing his production thing, 28 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

it was him who turned to me and went, ‘So, Aaron, are you in this band or not?’ I asked Danny, ‘Am I?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, if you want to be!’ That was it!”

The unmistakable vocals on debut album Forever We Burn naturally beg for My Dying Bride comparisons, but the two entities couldn’t be more different. “I love the music precisely because it’s such a contrast to My Dying Bride,” Stainthorpe says. “They’re short, catchy little songs and everybody can sing along with the chorus, as opposed to My Dying Bride’s songs, which are epics. I’ve loved being in My Dying Bride for 30 years, but it’s hard work—the music is so technical. I think I didn’t realize I needed High Parasite, but it feels like a breath of fresh air and I’m really looking forward to the first gig.

I’ll be nervous as hell for that; I’ve never been onstage with any other band before!”

Finally, just to clarify potential speculation, High Parasite and My Dying Bride are perfectly compatible, according to our man. “There are so many spaces between the things My Dying Bride does, I can fit loads of shit in there—there’s no problem. I haven’t left My Dying Bride either; I have no intention of leaving the band I formed with [guitarist] Andrew [Craighan] 30 years ago. High Parasite never came up once in our conversations. Me and Andrew have worked together for a thousand years, right? It just got to a point where we’re a bit tired of each other and we needed a little break, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

As for the future of High Parasite, one thing is clear: “It’ll always be simple; no one’s interested in complicating it any further. If a song ever reaches five minutes, I will immediately complain!”

—JOSÉ CARLOS SANTOS

P H E N O M E N A

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“MASSACHUSETTS MOB WITHIN THE RUINS ARE SEVEN ALBUMS IN AND ABSOLUTELY EMBRACING DEATHCORE’S MORE CINEMATIC, PROGRESSIVE ELEMENTS… STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN FURIOUS, STOMPING BEATS AND NIMBLE, TECHNICAL GUITAR LINES THAT HAVE AN AIR OF THE NEOCLASSICAL ABOUT THEM.”

(BEST NEW SONGS – “CASTLE IN THE SKY”)

NEW ALBUM OUT 8.23.2024

BEWITCHER

BEWITCHER Speed metal merchants find an unlikely ally in the darkness

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decade into life as Bewitcher and vocalist/guitarist Mateo von Bewitcher (née Litton, a.k.a. Unholy Weaver of Shadows and Incantations) feels a deep satisfaction with all that his Portland-based trio of speed metal hellraisers has achieved. Their résumé includes a small stack of full-lengths (including forthcoming fourth, Spell Shock), inking a deal with Century Media, appearing on festival bills alongside some of their legendary favorites, having their profile and popularity ascend to small club-show headliner status here and abroad, and being granted “the access to do some of the things we dreamt of when we were younger … At this point, we’ve gotten further than we ever thought we would with this.

Everything now is just icing on the cake, and not knowing what’s next is the most exhilarating thing. It’s like, ‘Whaddya got? Bring it on! We’ll take it!’” ¶ What came next, as it applied to Spell Shock, was something Litton, bassist Andy “Infernal Magus of Nocturnal Alchemy” Mercil and drummer Aris “Aris Wales” Wales totally didn’t see coming. As the writing of the new album progressed through the isolation and frustration of 30 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

COVID lockdowns and subsequent variant uncertainty—a scenario Litton equates more to the creation of their 2016 self-titled debut as opposed to other albums that were “written under more positive circumstances and the result of us being out there, doing our thing and having a good time”—the trio deliberately worked to tap into their punkier influences. This resulted in the album being “more savage and menacing.”

What they didn’t see coming, or imagine would ever happen, was employing the services of a punk rock legend as producer. The pairing of Rancid’s Lars Frederiksen with a band whose social media presence is littered with hashtags like #blackmagickmetal and #heavymetalatthespeedofsatan might be curious at first glance. But opposites attract, as they say, even when they’re not so opposite.

“We met him when we played in Oakland with Charger, which is

Matt Freeman from Rancid’s other, Motörhead-ish band. He came out, saw us and gave us major props.

Fast-forward a couple years and our manager threw out Lars’ name as producer, and we were like, ‘Huh?’ And the rest is history.

“He’s more versed in metal than people maybe think he is,” Litton praises. “He’s certainly a punk guy, but he knows a lot about underground metal and tons about the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and we immediately gelled on that.

The whole thing was totally coincidental. The plan for the songs was already in place, and they were being conceived and written when the opportunity came up. It was like this divine—or infernal, definitely cosmic—circumstance which was perfect and couldn’t be turned down. When we actually got to work with Lars, it ended up being the smoothest, easiest record we’ve ever done.”

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

GRENDEL’S SŸSTER

GRENDEL’S SŸSTER German eccentrics journey into the underworld on debut LP

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would like to channel the creative energies of the cosmos without diluting them with mindmade rules and laws. You could also say that it’s simply an expression of awe.” ¶ Tobi [no last names here], the guitarist and songwriter for German primordial metallers Grendel’s Sÿster, has a highly conceptual Jungian approach to music writing. Since the band formed in 2015, they’ve been progressing in a delightfully strange way, merging disparate musical legacies into hymns delivered once in English, and again in German. ¶ “I conceive of Grendel’s Sÿster as a path to marry the melancholic catchiness of folk music (mainly Scandinavian) to the uplifting wrathful power of heavy metal (mainly U.S. metal from the ’80s). There are also some other ingredients to season this, such as Renaissance music.

However, they’re all in service of a certain atmosphere. There has to be something wholesomely primeval and archaic about it, like storm clouds or rainbows over the dark green sea.”

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This atmosphere is infused throughout Katabasis Into the Abaton / Abstieg in die Traumkammer. The full-length masterfully perpetuates the magic contained within 2019’s Myrtle Wreath / Myrtenkranz EP. One could describe both as blending folk metal act Otyg, metal experimentalists Vintersorg, epic metallers Lordian Guard and Manowar. Caro’s clipped, bardic vocals further elevate the band to transcendent.

“I grew up in a tiny village in Franconia,” offers Caro. “I remember many of the fairytales I was told as a child. So, it felt only natural to have this primordial, non-artificial feeling in the vocals. It doesn’t resemble any of the music I usually listen to, so there’s no obvious role model. Neither does it cater to the flavor of the weak. I think of myself simply as a vessel for the magic woven into the songs.”

Like their previous releases, Katabasis Into the Abaton features a

rich overarching concept. Katabasis, broadly speaking, means a journey into a mythological underworld, while Abaton is a sacred place.

“In the ancient Mediterranean world, people suffering from an incurable illness would descend into the sacred chamber [the Abaton] of a temple,” offers Tobi. “During their temple sleep in this chamber, many would receive a vision for a cure sent to them by Asklepios or some other entity. In modern terms, you could say that they gained access to the transformative and healing power of their unconscious [which appeared to them personified as the deity]. In some songs, the salvific aspect of the natural world—and plants and forests in particular—is more explicit than in others. However, all of them try to express the sense of wonder of a numinous encounter and the death and rebirth this can mean on a psychological level.” —SARAH KITTERINGHAM

WINTERFYLLETH

Fear and loathing on the imperious horizon with U.K. veteran black metallers

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week after the elections that ended 14 years of conservative rule in the U.K., Winterfylleth’s C. Naughton is cautious with his optimism. “When I think about the political landscape of the U.K. at the moment—not unlike elsewhere in the world—it feels very fractured, dangerous and uncertain. ¶ “Winterfylleth is somewhat of a political vessel as a musical endeavor—not from any one standpoint—but as a helicopter view of society from our perspective, and a means of trying to bring some sense to our modern society through stories of the ancient world,” Naughton continues. “We reference history, folklore, ancient texts, poetry, and prose to highlight parallels between then and now. As people, we’re technologically more advanced than the 15th century, but we haven’t evolved much in how we organize ourselves socially.” ¶ The Imperious Horizon serves as a metaphor for the certain knowledge that there are unknowns looming that we’re going to face. The choice before us is whether to pause, reflect and move forward informed by lessons learned, or recklessly charge into similar or worse mistakes.

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Four years after The Reckoning Dawn—twice the usual length of time between Winterfylleth records—it’s clear that the band has chosen the ‘pause and reflect’ approach.

“Before it was usually just Nick [Wallwork, bass] and I bouncing ideas back and forth across multiple iterations, often hitting walls on how we would finish a song,” Naughton continues. “Now, with four writing members, everyone has their own ideas, style and voice.

The writing process was the best I’ve ever experienced. It was very organic, very fluid.”

With longtime collaborator Chris Fielding (ex-Conan) back at the production helm, each of the nine songs on The Imperious Horizon weaves a rich tapestry, anchored by “In Silent Grace,” a standout featuring chill-inducing guest vocals by A.A. Nemtheanga of Primordial. “As that song was coming together, there was

an air in the pacing and sentiment in the riff,” Naughton notes. “We all agreed it needed a vocal delivery to crystalize the societal pain we wanted to convey. Alan’s performance is brilliant.”

Whether you’re a longtime fan of the band or just getting acquainted, like the stunning depiction of Mount Seceda by British landscape photographer Josh Bagshaw on Imperious’ cover, the eighth full-length in their catalog is certainly an apex. “I’ve always felt that each record was the best of our capabilities at the time,” Naughton notes. “Which is not to say I don’t go through various stages of loving and hating albums throughout their production and, after the fact, bemoan certain guitar or EQ decisions. But, having sat with this one for a few months before its release, there’s something special about this one. I believe it’s our best album yet.” —TIM MUDD

PHOTO BY LEE BARRETT

WINTERFYLLETH

AMIENSUS

AMIENSUS

Persevering through the years, labels and lineups, Midwestern metal crew stake their claim

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hile most bands don’t even make it five years, we’ll hit 14 this year, and we feel more confident in the material we’re making and releasing than ever before.” That’s Amiensus guitarist/vocalist James Benson on the band’s most recent work, a double dose of progressive heaviness called Reclamation, whose first part went public in April of this year, a mere four months before the second part’s August birthday. ¶ That confidence is well-earned.

Reclamation stands tall on its carefully arranged structures, passionate performances, lush recording quality and impeccable mix. The music is rooted in blackened soils, but transcends those gravitational constraints with layered vocal harmonies, assertive melodies, swooning bowed string lines and a generally restless intensity that turns every disparate part into an indispensable element of the whole. ¶ “We chose the title Reclamation because it was the most ambitious album we’ve done so far in many ways,” Benson explains. “It includes almost all the writers in the band across the last 14 years of our existence.

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It was also an exclamation to the world that despite how long we’ve been around, we’re still here progressing as musicians— and humans—every time we release music.”

When we compliment Benson on his band’s precise and emotionally evocative compositions, he openly discusses the ingredients that have made it work: “I must give thanks to our guitar player/multiinstrumentalist Joe Waller. Joe’s got about five years or so on most of us, and his maturity really was the reason we had this instilled from the beginning. Our philosophy has always been to ‘throw as much at it as possible,’ and then decipher multiple arrangements and compositions to see what evokes the most emotions for everyone. It’s really fun to write this way. Pretty much everyone in the band is capable of writing entire songs on their own, but seeing how everyone may interpret different parts—whether they be vocals, keyboard, strings

or guitar—is the best part of the creative process. The combination of influence and writing styles really is the strength of this band and always has been.”

Much of Reclamation scowls and growls savagely, but the clean vocal sections really highlight the musical prowess in Amiensus. “None of us have much formal training for vocals, but Kelsey [Roe, guitars/vocals] and Chris [Piette, drums] have guitar and drum performance-related education, and most of us grew up singing in choirs and listening to a lot of bands that stressed vocal harmonies a lot of the time.”

The question remains: Does Reclamation count as one of your favorites of 2024, or two of them?

Benson doesn’t know what to tell you. “I’m not sure if I categorize it as our fourth LP, or our fourth and fifth LPs. They’re technically two albums… but it is a double album.

I definitely suggest listening to all of the songs in a row to understand it fully.” —DANIEL LAKE

12”/CS/DIGITAL OUT 9/6

12”/DIGITAL OUT 8/13

12”/CS/DIGITAL OUT 9/20

CLOSEDCASKETACTIVITIES.COM ● CLOSEDCASKETACTIVITIES.BANDCAMP.COM

ROCK AND A HARD PL ACE Pan-genre Portland quartet

UNTO OTHERS

offer ageless metal on their third full-length, Never, Neverland

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story by AD EM T EPEDELEN

photo by KIM COFFEL

on’t bet against Portland, Oregon. It’s always been a dark horse:

second fiddle in the Pacific Northwest to Seattle, but a city with the kind of grit and gnar that you can’t fabricate. Portland is real in ways that Seattle will never know. It’s a city divided lengthwise by a river (Willamette) and latitude-wise by a street (Burnside) you don’t want to find yourself on after midnight. It’s fucking rough. But somehow it has produced a plethora of underground musicians who have had a quietly outsized influence on punk, metal, experimental, what-have-you worldwide. ¶ No surprise then that the creative force behind Unto Others, vocalist/guitarist Gabriel Franco, is a Portland native, born and bred in the Rose City. His résumé goes back more than a decade when he was playing bass in bands like Seventh Gate, Spellcaster and Silver Talon, before taking the reins himself in Unto Others (née Idle Hands) where he plays guitar, handles all the vocals and lyrics, and seemingly steers the ship. Safe to say that creatively where Franco goes, so go Unto Others. No disrespect to drummer Colin Vranizan, lead guitarist Sebastian Silva and bassist Brandon Hill, who’ve all played with Franco in previous bands, but Unto Others’ gothy trad metal is clearly driven by Franco’s vision.

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So here we are at album number three, after two acclaimed full-lengths, Mana and Strength— for Eisenwald and Roadrunner, respectively (and numerous singles and EPs)—with nowhere to go but up. Now on a new label, Century Media, with a new album, Never, Neverland, these Portlanders are ready to soar beyond whatever genres/ categories they’ve been pigeonholed into. Yeah, Franco’s deep, resonant vocals lean toward ’80s goth, but he and his band nod to those influences without succumbing to obvious cliché. This is an album about songs, not sticking to some sort of tag that’s been applied to Unto Others. Franco wants quality über alles. “We go from a major [key] song to a punk song to a super heavy thrash song, like almost speed thrash, and then back to a radio-rock kind of thing. There’s something there for everyone,” he tells Decibel on our Zoom chat.

And how do you get here so seamlessly, so effortlessly? Sometimes with a little help from someone who isn’t from Portland and maybe has a bigger, broader outlook, someone who’s

Stuff that surprises me, that I think are just totally insane artistic decisions,

PEOPLE SEEM TO HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH, OR DON’T EVEN QUESTION. GABR IEL FR ANCO worked with the Cult, Pixies, Killing Joke, Opeth, Ghost and more. Yeah, English producer Tom Dalgety was a godsend, but maybe not from the get-go. “After the first day it was like, I don’t know if we’re going to get along,” Franco tells us.

“But I feel like he figured me out. I feel like he’s a really smart guy. He figured me out and figured out how to work with me. At the beginning, I thought it was a rocky start, because he came in and was suggesting stuff like, Oh, we should add another segment here; we should lengthen this part; we should remove that. I go, oh no, no, no.

[Laughs] That’s not how I work.

“I think once he realized that, it was like, Okay, we’re not producing the way the songs are written, or the way they’re composed. We’re finding fringe elements; we’re putting colorful strokes onto the blank house. That was Tom’s genius. He was able to really help us paint a beautiful house that we’d already built. Tom’s real value to me was that he understood what I wanted when I asked for it. I didn’t have to explain anything to him.

I’d say, ‘I want this part to sound like the voice of God,’ and he knew how to pull that off. You didn’t have to get technical with him. You’d say ‘bigger,’ and he’d make it sound bigger. That takes a really talented producer to understand what you kind of mean in layman’s terms.”

If you’re so inclined, you can find fault for whatever issue you might have with Never, Neverland. It is perhaps more commercial. Maybe Unto Others have refined their sound beyond their previous two releases. This is a normal progression. There’s always a focus on sophomore releases, but a truly talented band doesn’t necessarily find its footing until much later.

And sometimes it occurs when the musicians go beyond what they’ve always done.

“We knew we wanted to try something new [on Never, Neverland],” Franco tells us. “We’ve tried something new with every record. We have our first song that’s in a major key on there. We have ‘Butterfly,’ and we have another song called ‘Sunshine.’ A lot of the clean tones on there are

just really pretty-sounding; they’re twinkly. I don’t know how else to describe it. There is still some aggressive stuff across the album. It’s kind of, to me as an artist, wacky as hell. But stuff that surprises me, that I think are just totally insane artistic decisions, people seem to have no problem with, or don’t even question. I hope it’s not too eclectic to not sound like a cohesive record. It’ll at least have a cohesive production.”

And quite frankly, Unto Others, as Portland champions, will continue to do what they do, in spite of what the prevailing path might suggest is the easy way forward. Portland bands aren’t known for acquiescing. Franco and his comrades embody this. You can have your opinion regarding what direction they’re going down, but rest assured it’s 100 percent legit. “We’re not trying to put on a front,” Franco insists. “We kind of wear everything on our sleeves. I think as long as we stay honest with what we’re doing, any decision we make that’s honest will fit into what you’re getting from our band.”

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to the Emerging from their southern gothic phase,

Oceans of Slumber rediscover their metallic roots

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story by C H RI S D I CK // photo by Z ACH J OH N S ON

didn’t know coming into any of this that it was going to be so difficult,”

says Oceans of Slumber drummer/songwriter Dobber Beverly. Our man from Houston, TX, has been bewildered by his band’s inability to break glass ceilings. True, artists never have it easy. Everything is a barrier, roadblock or setback. There’s a formula for “success,” but that’s a perditious road not aligned to greater metaldom. Not that Oceans of Slumber haven’t tried to stand out. ¶ Betwixt what Beverly calls the band’s “Peaceville sound mixed with progressive music,” they’ve issued incredibly well-rendered covers of Emperor (“The Wanderer”), the Moody Blues (“Nights in White Satin”), Type O Negative (“Wolf Moon”), Candlemass (“Solitude”) and the Animals (“House of the Rising Sun”) to widespread acclaim. They hired Grammy-nominated producer (and ally) Joel Hamilton to widen their sonic gaze. And last but certainly not least, the Texans brought vocal talent Cammie Gilbert-Beverly into the fold in 2014. ¶ So, ascension attempts aren’t alien to Oceans of Slumber. “When we brought in Cammie, I thought this amazing singer would give us that connection—that we’d be able to touch anybody,” Beverly says. “It’s been harder than we thought. We wanted to reincarnate the ’90s Peaceville sound, but give it a progressive twist.”

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Across six full-lengths (including new album Where Gods Fear to Speak), Oceans of Slumber flexed their musical might into epics and crushers. Standout tracks “Winter,” “The Banished Heart” and “A Return to the Earth Below” touched hearts and souls—just not as many as Beverly had wanted. When the pandemic hit, Oceans of Slumber looked inward, writing songs about hearth and home, specifically the Texas Gulf Coast. The outcome of those sessions was Starlight and Ash in 2022. A detour at better and a departure at best, Beverly and Gilbert-Beverly eschewed aggression for a more subtle tumult. Brewing inside the album’s cauldron were stunners “The Waters Rising,” “Hearts of Stone” and the Animals cover “House of the Rising Sun,” a relatable story about the South and wry comment on Oceans of Slumber’s artistic plight.

“We made a record like artists are supposed to [with Starlight],” says Beverly. “We were interpreting our world at the time. Noam Chomsky has an interesting outlook when he talks about

EXCLUSIVE AND

politics. You’re encouraged to be as lively and colorful within very defined confines. You have the freedom to do what you want to do within those confines. When you go outside [those lines], you’ll have more pushback than expected.

We got unexpected pushback with Starlight. Even our team didn’t have our back.”

Though Starlight hit #11 on our Top 40 Albums of 2022 (and performed admirably elsewhere), it didn’t smash doors open for Oceans of Slumber. Discouraged but not discontinued, Beverly refocused his energy (again, aggression, but also frustration and hope) on writing a new chapter, a between-phases album putting Gilbert-Beverly front and center for obvious reasons while also reigniting the hellish fires of Beverly’s celebrated grindcore outfit Insect Warfare and short-lived death metal bruisers Malignant Altar. While Where Gods features vocal contributions from Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity) and Fernando Ribeiro (Moonspell), it’s Gilbert-Beverly empowering and punishing throughout.

From the title track and “Poem of Ecstasy” to “The Impermanence of Fate” and “Run From the Light,” she bolts us to our seats. Rife with dread, disquiet and aspiration, Oceans of Slumber’s cinematic journey is the movie score on rotation in Beverly’s head. “I wanted to make a record that’s essentially a soundtrack to a movie that hasn’t been made yet,” he says. “I see this movie in my head constantly. That’s what the record is. We’ve made a dark cinematic soundtrack, a crossover for metal folks into modern cinema music.”

Where Gods calls and responds, responds and calls. Previous albums also exhibited this trait, but the layout of Where Gods is conspicuous between Side A (which is more bellicose) and Side B (which has a Super 8 aesthetic). “When I was writing, it was 100 percent where the songs were taking me,” says Beverly. “If I was making a statement, I felt the need to respond to that statement. When I was writing ‘Don’t Come Back From Hell Empty Handed,’ the Discordance Axis-meetsthe Dillinger Escape Plan stuff needed a response.

That was more Yes-oriented, with a little doom in it. The synthesizer part at the end is the same part I used on ‘Poem of Fire.’ There’s interlinking between every song. My songs need one another.”

Beverly is hopeful, though. Oceans of Slumber have a new label in Season of Mist, who have been courting them for a while. The gripping interpretation of Chris Isaak’s smash “Wicked Game” indicates that Oceans are hung up on unrequited physical (and financial) relationships, Where Gods steps them back into the limelight, even if it means playing the provocateur (the Shibari-themed video for the title track notwithstanding).

“The world’s a show,” Beverly says. “The separation of crowd and performer is more important now than ever. We had face paint on the Lacuna Coil tour and people loved it. So, we don’t mind playing the game. We’re theatrical—now, we’re just more theatrical. There’s always gotta be an angle. In the end, I know I’m fortunate to have folks who want to put out my music. That’s liberating.”

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D E C IDBEECLI B: EOLC :T O JU BN ER E 2 0 2 4 : 41

noise rock GOATs

the JESUS LIZARD

return with their first new LP in a quarter-century story by

SHANE MEHLING photo by

J O S H UA B L AC K W I L K I N S OU CN TO : IDBEECLI B E L 42 : J E B2E0R 2 42 :0 2D4E C

W

e’re kind of an interesting band in that we’re not that big, we don’t

draw very large crowds or stuff like that. But we always seem to be well-respected. And I’m not sure exactly why that is, but I like it a lot.” ¶ David Yow, vocalist of the Jesus Lizard, laughed after saying this, but he’s right. Talk to people of a certain age and you’ll hear stories about the band in their ’90s heyday, the noise rock baptisms inside packed, humid clubs. New devotees would leave, stunned by what they experienced, ears ringing and bodies drenched in sweat, beer and fluids from Yow after one of his multiple stage dives. And this doesn’t even touch what’s on their records, at least a couple of them about as close to universally beloved as you can get.

It’s been 25 years, though, since their initial what, don’t stop. It doesn’t matter what you’re breakup, and despite reunions and other brief writing, whether it makes any sense or not, returns to the stage in the intervening years, the and you get a pretty fair amount of stream of band hasn’t put out any new material since The Big consciousness, weirdness. I’ll find a nugget of Lebowski was in theaters. That changes with Rack, a story or just maybe a line that I can build a proper full-length the band was able to cobble off of.” together despite some geographic challenges.

He’s also continued taking stories and ideas “The four of us used to live in a three-bedroom from others. Opener “Hide & Seek,” with strikapartment,” Yow says of the band’s closeness ing lines like “Her claws carved a beautiful mess back in the day, noting how everyone is now into my back,” were sparked by lyrics from the scattered throughout the country. “This wasn’t late singer Lhasa, which leads to a conversation nearly as hands-on or organic as it had always about another artist who had a history of inspirbeen in the past. It was ing Yow: Steve Albini a good collaboration, “Yeah, well, it’s funny just not ideal. Well, I take because about a week that back: It worked out before he died, [Albini] fine. I’m really fucking texted me,” Yow says of happy with the record. his longtime friend and I think we recorded 14 engineer for the band’s songs and none of us hate first four full-lengths. any of them.”

“He heard that we were Eleven of these ended putting out something up on Rack, a collection new and he said, ‘Dude, of wiry, angular guitar you guys are making a hooks wrapped around record; people will just one of the sturdiest shit themselves.’ rhythm sections in “I was talking to history; bass and drums Corey [Rusk, owner of that could lead an army, the band’s previous label but instead lay a foundaTouch & Go] and said I tion that Yow convulses can’t… I can’t believe on top of, brandishing his that I’ll never see him hallmark caterwauls, the again. But I told Corey manic fits of someone in I have a greedy little a psych ward with only thing,” Yow says, briefly DAVID YOW a mic to protect him. So, choking up, “because I yeah, it sounds like a so wanted to hear Steve’s opinion of this record. But then he fucking Jesus Lizard record. died like an asshole. For whatever it’s worth, “We just do whatever the fuck we want,” Corey said that he thinks Steve would have Yow says casually. “We’re not trying to impress liked it.” anybody. I think we’re better now than back Regardless of what that answer would’ve in the old days, because those guys have had 20 been, Yow and the rest of the band have heard more years of practice. So, without trying to from plenty of well-wishers, some close to impress people, we’re probably going to impress shitting themselves over Rack, others looka couple.” ing forward to upcoming tour dates, whether To keep up with his bandmates, Yow had to announced or badly hoped for. Then there are not only wail and gnash in the studio, but write those who were already able to attend some of the kind of lyrics that could stand up to the legthe recent shows and once again feel that transendary derangement of his previous output. formative experience of being in the same room “What the average Joe would think of my lyrics is probably that if the song is two and a as the Jesus Lizard. half minutes, then it took me three minutes to “The last show we did a couple weeks ago, write them,” he muses. “But that’s really not the there was a huge contingent of friends of mine case. They go through a whole lot of revisions who came from other parts of the country,” Yow and tweaking. And I get pretty finicky about it.” says. “A lot of them hadn’t seen each other for like 35 or 40 years. It was just a magical, wonderHe’s also had to contend with bouts of ful day. And afterwards, several of them, they’re writer’s block, relying on solutions such as as old as I am, were saying, ‘How the fuck did automatic writing. you do that for an hour and 20 minutes?’ And I “You just set a time, like 10 minutes or said, ‘What else am I gonna do?’” whatever, and start writing; and no matter

WE JUST DO WHATEVER THE FUCK WE WANT. WE’RE NOT TRYING TO IMPRESS ANYBODY.

D E C IDBEECLI B: EOLC :T O JU BN ER E 2024 : 43

story by

JOHN HILL

photo by

VEGARD FIMLAND

…and justice for

GAAHL Norwegian black metal OGs

Trelldom

AT

unveil a new guise via their first new LP… in 17 years this point, the image of the mysterious black metal musician

living in the middle of the woods, disconnected from modern society, is all but dead. Still, it’s very strange to talk to Gaahl over Zoom. ¶ In a lot of ways, Gaahl is the model black metal musician, whether it’s calling for more church burnings, his prior prison sentences or the still incredible image of him sipping wine and uttering “Satan.” He’s got aura. He hopped on, figured out how to make Zoom’s video work on his phone and walked into a back room of Galleri Fjalar, his art gallery in Bergen, Norway. As he sipped his beer (shockingly not red wine), he spoke with mellow happiness about the new Trelldom album …by the Shadows…. It’s the first of many more records the band is putting out, along with the many other projects he’s got in rotation. He’s a busy man. ¶ “I’m a very lazy character by nature,” Gaahl says. “I need to keep myself going; otherwise I will just fall into an extreme slumber, so I kind of like to keep myself on my toes.”

44 : O JU CN TO E B2E0R 2 42 :0 2D4E C : IDBEECLI B E L

Before Gorgoroth, Gaahl’s Wyrd and his many other projects, Trelldom was the first band Gaahl ever joined. The last record they released was 2007’s Til Minne…, making this the first new release in 17 years. Their previous records are the platonic ideal of black metal: raw, fast and totally evil-sounding.

“Stian [Kårstad, guitarist] got tired of touring; he has small kids back home,” Gaahl says, explaining their break. “But for some reason, we both [independently] wanted to grab the torch at the same time and make music again.” Trelldom today sound much different from the by-thebooks black metal they previously dished out. … by the Shadows… is a wonderfully strange record that dissects black metal’s parts and recontextualizes them into an unexpected new form.

Opener “The Voice of What Whispers” sounds like a blackened Ennio Morricone composition, creating a high-water mark of unexpected twists for the rest of the record.

Most unexpected is the inclusion of a saxophone, courtesy of Kjetil Møster. “I wanted to have something that we were kind of working against,” Gaahl says. “But there are a lot of similarities to the frequencies that I often use when I use my voice in a harsh way.” Crazy enough, the sax works, sounding like the dying cries of an animal being choked out by the rest of the band’s instrumentation on “Hiding Invisible” and like the sounds of a portal into an unknown dimension on “Exit Existence.”

“I’ve always had a kind of difficulty with brass instruments and flutes and everything,” Gaahl says. “It’s always kind of been a disturbance to me. [Laughs] But what you don’t communicate well with is maybe something you should confront and communicate with.”

The album sounds like being on another planet compared to their earlier records, though Gaahl doesn’t find it too out of left field. “Maybe people don’t recognize it, but there are a lot of musical refrains, especially with the riffs, connected to Trelldom patterns,” he says. “That’s of course thanks to Stian’s skillful hands and mind. But I’m not very fond of repetition. Repeating the same sounds and stories is not interesting. You should allow the past to be the past.”

Of course, there are fans who want the band to stay totally frozen in amber, sounding exactly as they did in 1994. But it’s the evolution of art and artists that excites Gaahl. “Bowie changed constantly,” he says. “Even though he had a kind of recognizable energy throughout his career. I

remember when he came out with Outside and Earthling, a lot of the old Bowie fans weren’t too happy about it. But then it took a couple of years and they suddenly understood the connection.

The great ones always need to change.”

Still, he remembers how pivotal an experience it was for him to join Trelldom as a teenager and pick up a microphone for the first time.

“I’m very shy by nature,” he says. “I’m not a character who would normally end up behind a microphone or on a stage at all, but meeting and performing with [original guitarist] Tyrant, we got along very easily. It started to make sense to dare to scream.”

Though he’s been making music for more than half his life now, that emotional energy he felt in those early days are still as necessary as ever.

“I’m still afraid of the microphone,” he says.

“I need to be afraid of the microphone before I start an album; otherwise I will never be pleased with it. I need to punch a hole in that fear. So, no matter how many times I’ve entered the studio, I have to always have this kind of fright of breaking the silence and the communication with the microphone.”

As we end our call, I ask him if people are ever surprised by what he’s like. The emotional and musical complexities on …by the Shadows… feel like a parallel to who he is as a person. The album title reflects not darkness, but the fact that shadows exist because of light. In that way, it makes sense that Trelldom include genuine moments of exuberance, just as Gaahl has always been thoughtful and complex. Still, people have their assumptions. “People often have expectations of things and are in need of meeting the unexpected and not what they predicted.”

He chuckles. “I’m happy to disappoint.”

Bowie changed constantly.

Even though he had a kind of recognizable energy throughout his career. I remember when he came out with Outside and Earthling, a lot of the old Bowie fans weren’t too happy about it.

THE GREAT ONES ALWAYS NEED TO CHANGE. Gaahl

D E C IDBEECLI B: EOLC :T O JU BN ER E 2024 : 45

interview by

QA JOHN j. bennett

WI T H

DARNIELLE MOUNTAIN GOATS mastermind, best-selling author and Decibel’s OG back-page columnist on writing, not writing and the allure of Cannibal Corpse

46 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

YOU

meet George Fisher, and you wanna buy public presence. But in

him a beer. You wanna buy him two.” John Darnielle is in full Cannibal mode. We’ve been chatting with the fearless leader of indie rock champions the Mountain Goats and New York Times bestselling author for about 20 minutes so far. The catching up is done, the serious artist questions are out of the way, and it’s time to talk death metal.

Specifically: Cannibal Corpse. ¶ Way back in 2008, Darnielle wrote about Cannibal’s Centuries of Torment retrospective in these very pages, which had received a perfect 10/10 review based on the three-hour documentary alone. He was our back-page columnist at the time—in fact, he was Decibel’s original back-page columnist, a position he held for a dozen years with his hilarious and freeform South Pole Dispatch.

Given that you’re holding the 20th anniversary issue of Decibel in your greasy paws, we thought it only appropriate that we check in with one of the mag’s OGs. ¶ As for the obligatory latest-and-greatest plug? The Mountain Goats’ 22nd album (!)

Jenny From Thebes came out last year. It’s a highly literate rock opera that revisits a character first introduced on their 2002 album, All Hail West Texas. Darnielle’s third novel, Devil House, was published in 2022. It shares a setting (Milpitas, CA) and subject (murder) with the crime that inspired the 1986 hesher classic River’s Edge, with some porn and satanism thrown in for good measure. Read it.

When we were setting up this interview, you were saying that you wish you had more time to write, but that music takes up so much of your time. That seems like a good problem to have.

Oh yeah. I was talking writer-to-writer when I said that, but it’s funny: Because I have the two hats, whichever one I’m working on, the other one starts to look real good. When I’m grinding music super hard, I wish I could write. If I’m writing five days a week, I’m thinking about being on a bus making music with my friends.

There’s so many worse problems to have. But I think about these residencies that writers get to go someplace to sit and write for six months. Oh god. That would be the ticket right there.

Do you ever get to a point where you feel like you’re neglecting one or the other?

No, I can’t. I really am a workaholic. Not in an unhealthy sense, but I won’t neglect anything.

What I neglect is me. The work gets done, but I go a little crazy. I’m at a point where I don’t really enjoy that anymore. I used to kinda get high off it. But now when I feel like I’m overextending myself to the expense of my mental health, I think, “Come on. Your mental health isn’t worth this.” I’m saying all this because I’ve been home for three weeks and feeling how wild it is just to be a person. But like I said, I can’t complain.

PHOTO BY L ALITREE DARNIELLE

I read an interview you did in 2022 with The Creative Independent, which is a wonderful outlet I recently interviewed Andrew Eldritch from Sisters of Mercy for. You wrote a song about him—“Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds”—a few years back. I know you were a teenage goth, but what else drew you to him as a subject for a song?

Well, feel free to make yourself a sandwich because this might take a while. Eldritch is one of these guys, he says things about contracts and so forth, but you get the sense that his relationship to making stuff or writing stuff underwent some sort of shock or change or hurt that made it different for him. Who knows what that thing was. It’s interesting at a remove, but there are few people who are as diligent at not making new stuff as him. Most people relent and put out an EP to tour behind or something. He doesn’t seem to write books, either. I wonder what he does for a living. I wonder what his deal is, like what does his actual life look like?

But by not releasing new music—and I don’t know if this is something he’s thinking about— you kind of preserve your old work from the glare of new work. It’s not set in amber—he’s still touring and existing—but it gets to have a context. The obvious counterexample is Nick Cave. When you listen to Nick Cave now, it exists in the context of all his work—and his

the case of Eldritch, he’s found a way to preserve the character of Andrew Eldritch.

That’s a great way to put it—as is “the glare of new work.” I think that’s part of why our mutual friend Scott Carlson won’t make a new Repulsion record, and I think he’s right.

[Laughs] Scott’s one of those guys that I think of when I get mad at the mainstream music press for not covering certain stuff. Here’s this guy you should be talking about. Scott Carlson keeps himself busy in great work always and everywhere. He’s a towering figure in our music who nobody who doesn’t pay attention to heavy metal can name at all. But we have to be able to name pop figures, right? We have to keep up with that shit.

In the meantime, here’s a super interesting guy who’s universally respected. I mean, his stuff with Church of Misery? And he’s got such broad taste. His cinema knowledge alone should be getting him routine profiles in the Times. If he was a minor indie star, his cinema knowledge would [be] getting him that.

There’s a bunch of people like this in metal.

It’s funny, metal has had this surge in acclaim in the last 15 years, but its people don’t get to be figures outside of the scene. The scene is the only place where guys like Scott Carlson or Wino, whose stories are huge and impacts are seismic, get any attention.

That’s a great segue into your work with Erik Rutan from Hate Eternal. The Mountain Goats recorded some songs with him at his studio in 2010. Several years later, he joined you onstage to play a solo on the Mountain Goats’ “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton.” I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that most Mountain Goats fans aren’t listening to Hate Eternal, but you’re trying to make them aware of these characters that loom so large in our world.

[Laughs] I suspect there are more Mountain Goats fans who listen to metal now than there ever were in the past, but I don’t think Hate Eternal are on the list. I think they listen to Tomb Mold, and I think funeral doom has made a lot of inroads. And I think every indie guy alive knows Gorguts’ Obscura. The hurricane death metal that Erik does, I think most indie people don’t engage with that, even though his take on it is so distinctive. He’s not a gore guy at all—that’s not his shtick. He sings about power. The second Hate Eternal album, King of All Kings, is one of my favorites. I, Monarch is amazing, too.

D E C I B E L : O C T O B E R 2 0 2 4 : 47

 Jenny from the block

Darnielle presents a compelling case for a hammer smashed... er, chiseled face

“I have a new favorite band: Cannibal Corpse.”

They became a subject of total obsession in our band. On our first bus tour, we put the Cannibal doc in the bus DVD player and just kept it running for the entire tour. We can quote it at great length. We’ve all at times been obsessed with [original Cannibal Corpse guitarist] Bob Rusay, who’s another guy who stopped writing.

But you know, every band has its own culture, and the Cannibal Corpse documentary really shows you their way of being a band. It shows you how they made their creative vision manifest in a way that’s not like anybody else’s.

I really don’t think anybody would’ve pegged them to be the last ones standing from the Western New York metal scene, but it’s amazing how they’ve kept going.

This interview is appearing in Decibel’s 20th anniversary issue. You and I were both there at the very beginning. How do you feel about that— besides, you know, old?

I suspect there are more Mountain Goats fans who listen to metal now than there ever were in the past.

What was that moment like when you brought him onstage?

Well, you’ve interviewed him, right? He’s the best hang. And a lot of what’s happening when you see musical guest appearances is a band going, “How can we hang with that guy again?” We’d already recorded with him, and he’d come out to some shows. He saw us at the Crowbar in Tampa and threw the horns when we played that song. I was so pleased. But I think it was [Mountain Goats drummer Jon] Wurster’s idea to have him sit in with us. He’s good at keeping track of who we’re gonna see on tour.

So, Erik comes down with his rig, which was easily the most powerful amp that’s ever been on a Mountain Goats stage. We did two songs— “Autoclave” and “Best Ever Death Metal”—and he really connected to the songs on a deep level.

We talked about it, and it was really moving to me. He really engaged the song as a text and played a solo from his gut that really spoke to the content of the song in a beautiful way.

And he can play his ass off. I don’t think most people outside of the scene understand that these are some of the best players in the world.

48 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

Any one of these guys could be a jazz guy, but they play what they like.

Erik has been in Cannibal Corpse for a few years now. I know you’re a big fan. How did you get into them?

Cannibal came along when the New Times would pay you $100 for a first-run review and $35 every time it got syndicated. You could get a nice income from doing that. Not rent-paying income, but certainly utility bills if you were diligent.

And I was: I’d do three or four reviews a month for the L.A. outlet, and they’d get syndicated by St. Louis and Phoenix and one in Florida. So, that was my thing. I was really pounding it and I was proud of the work I was doing.

I was in that mode when the Cannibal documentary came out. Jon Wurster was a new member of the Mountain Goats at that point and had told me the only thing he liked to watch is rock documentaries. So, I told him he should watch the Cannibal Corpse documentary. At the time, I didn’t have any friends who would’ve watched a three-hour documentary on Cannibal Corpse. But Jon called me the next day and said,

Yes sir, since issue number one. I’m very proud of that. You know, the older we get, the more people say we don’t have good stuff like we used to. It’s very tedious, but it’s also hard to stay positive when you see more and more things that suck and more cool outlets stop publishing. It’s incredible to me that Albert started this when we were well into the age of people going, “This shit is over.” But Albert is a guy with a passion for a certain kind of metal and a love for all of it who was in publishing. I don’t know how he did it. I don’t know how he got it off the ground. It’s amazing. Because I’ve been getting Decibel since issue one, they’re everywhere in my house. I have stacks in every closet.

I’m always wanting to argue that work isn’t necessarily an expression of somebody’s character in the way that you would traditionally think it is. Like, Cannibal Corpse’s music is not an expression of their desire to kill and eviscerate people. It is an expression of their work ethic. It is an expression of their desire to make something that bears their creative voice. It’s an expression of their diligence in that, and of their love for the people who like their stuff. That’s what it tells you about them.

And Decibel tells you about Albert in so many ways without bearing some “here’s how you know it’s Albert” signature in every issue. He’s got a broad vision, which every editor needs, but also a tailored aesthetic. He’s not trying new things constantly, but he’s open to new things when they present themselves. This is the punk side of Decibel to me: When they put on a festival, it’s not because other people are doing festivals. They’re not making moves they don’t mean and that they won’t be happy about if they don’t make money. I think that really sums Decibel up.

heavy metal THE 6 (66) WAYS METAL CHANGED DURING TWO DECADES OF STORY BY JUSTIN M. NORTON

A new metal magazine called Decibel hits newsstands, joining dozens of other music

magazines. The biggest metal band in the country is Lamb of God; their record Ashes of the Wake—a stridently anti-war album that is sharply critical of the Iraq occupation—sells 35,000 copies in its first week. Metal is amid a resurgence powered by a new generation of bands like Slipknot and Mastodon and the continued presence of the old guard like Black Sabbath. The largest and only music streaming site is Rhapsody. Customers snatch up the fourth generation of Apple’s iPod. Silicon Valley developers test a new video streaming service called YouTube. ¶ Fast forward to September 2024. Decibel isn’t an upstart magazine, but a festival and tour promoter, website, magazine and book publisher, and record label. There are a handful of other music magazines and no domestic metal magazines. One of the reasons Decibel has thrived is that it never lost sight of what made it special: long-form journalism, authoritative histories of defining albums, a commitment to writers and a shared passion for extreme music. Rather than catering to shortened attention spans and the lowest common denominator, the magazine has used new tools to enhance and share the storytelling, conversation and criticism that began in the first issue.

50 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

Nonetheless, much of the world has changed.

Album sales are less significant to artists.

YouTube is a kingmaker for bands and musicians. Black Sabbath are long retired, and elder statesman Ozzy Osbourne has Parkinson’s.

Some consider record reviews obsolete; fans can stream upcoming releases and make up their mind. Black metal evolved from European export to American obsession to a global cultural commodity, leading to countless memes and a Hollywood film (Lords of Chaos). Metal embraced both post-everything and tradition and orthodoxy—simultaneously. Cannibal Corpse vocalist George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, who shouts about blood shooting from cocks by night, is a familyfriendly Instagram sensation by day. Metal is no longer a confined universe governed by the laws of a subculture, but a global tribe.

It’s been quite a ride.

Progress was halting in metal’s first two decades (from Sabbath’s eponymous debut to the rise of death metal in the late ’80s and early ’90s). When there were steps forward, they happened once or twice a generation. A handful

RIGHT PHOTO BY TRAVIS SHINN

DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2024 : 51

Two Decades of Metal

1

A CONNECTED WORLD THE BIG PICTURE: Digitization changed

every element of metal music and culture.

Joseph Schafer, the vocalist of Seattle crossover 52 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

Phillies ’08 Repla

Tony Dolan @Venom_Inc

Find the right people, make connections and think of yourself as a label, manager, press agent and musician.

I embraced the change and figured out a new map. band Colony Drop (and a longtime Decibel contributor), attributes much of the change and growth in metal music and culture to the rise of streaming services and democratization of back catalogs. “I don’t think you get to where we are without Spotify,” he says. “When I was coming up, finding information and albums was difficult. I tried to find Carcass albums in 2004, but a lot of shit was out of print. Now you can listen to everything.” The upside is that bands like Autopsy, Bolt Thrower, Cynic and many more can finally play at large venues and reach fans.

“Emperor never played in amphitheaters before streaming services,” Schafer says. “They toured the United States in 300-capacity rooms. Now they can play in huge auditoriums.”

The downside? Progress flattens. “Many great leaps in metal happened because someone didn’t understand or couldn’t play their influences,” Schafer says. “Those workarounds or mistakes opened up new gateways of sound, like the Swedish death metal tone and the chainsaw sound. Today, artists can go to YouTube to learn how to get the Meshuggah tone. The homogenizing effect of having access to all this information slows the pace of innovation.”

The world has changed, and metal has become a more accepted part of the larger culture. Enrique Sagarnaga, a Relapse Records publicist and drummer for neo-traditionalists Crypt Sermon, recently worked with publicist Jon Freeman to place a CNN story about Donald Tardy’s work on a feral cat sanctuary. A feelgood tale about Obituary’s drummer would have been unthinkable in 2004. “The biggest catalyst for change is digital,” he says. “It’s made a lot of artists and personalities in our sphere more accessible. That is true across almost any creative platform. Growing up in South America, Sepultura was mythological. Now, I can follow Igorr [Cavalera] on Instagram and message him.

The downside of all of this is that a lot of the magic of metal has gone away. A lot of that is the

result of proximity. But it also helps us appreciate artists as human beings with feelings.”

“Twenty years ago, nü-metal was all but dead, and metalcore was quickly becoming all the rage,” says Andreas Magus of the Portland black/ speed metal band Bewitcher. “While we dug into a few of the newer bands—Children of Bodom, Shadows Fall and God Forbid being on steady rotation—it’s funny how, even then, our listening preferences were stuck in the early ’80s.

Twenty years later, here we are again. Nü-metal is returning, metalcore stalwarts are making reunion festival appearances and death metal is all the rage. The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

“It seems to me like it’s gone both forwards and backward at the same time in terms of reference points, which is purely an observation rather than anything judgmental,” adds Barney Greenway, vocalist of scene legends Napalm Death. The band has been active since the ’80s, but recorded some of their best work during Decibel’s first two decades, including Time Waits for No Slave and Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism.

“Ultimately, how anybody expresses their art is entirely their affair, but at the same time, I can’t pretend that seeing yet another variant of Death or Judas Priest or whatever is in any way exciting for me at this point as a prospective listener.”

2

A NEW BUSINESS MODEL THE BIG PICTURE: Bands—both new

and old—adapted to a new world of streaming services, social media, meet-and-greets and online advertising.

Perhaps the biggest change to metal hasn’t been to music or culture, but business. Extreme musicians likely never counted on albums to pay rent, but now it’s not even nice extra cash.

Festival culture helps make live music more profitable, but making a living on music is enormously challenging—even if bands go on the road all year.

TONY DOLAN PHOTO BY FERNANDO SERANI

of titans dominated the ’70s, some stylistically closer to classic rock than metal. Metal became infinitely more popular in the ’80s with the rise of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, thrash, crossover and formative grindcore.

Metal in the ’90s was a mixed bag; death metal and the second wave of black metal took off, but commercial metal waned until nü-metal in the late ’90s.

Cataloging the growth and development of metal during Decibel’s first two decades is far more challenging. Dial-up internet was still common in 2004. Phones now boast countless apps, artificial intelligence and high-definition video cameras. Fans scoured bootleg DVDs for metal performances in the early ’00s. Today, almost every metal concert is streamed or recorded. There is a vast global catalog of extremity. Every metal fan is everywhere all at once.

Metal has also navigated profound cultural shifts in the United States and globally. Donald Trump was elected in 2016, leading to many years of division and an attempted coup in early 2021.

One of the first people to contract COVID-19 in the United States was a metal musician (drummer Will Carroll of Death Angel). COVID-19 shuttered the music business and touring, depriving metal artists of their lifeblood. Musicians started streaming concerts and playing songs from their garages and backyards to make ends meet. When touring started anew in early 2022, the market was flooded with tours and unexpected reunions.

“A lot of good things have happened in the past 20 years,” says Guy Kozowyk, vocalist of the Red Chord. In 2004, Kozowyk was working on material for the Red Chord’s Hall of Fame album Clients, released a year later. “Twenty years ago, there was a direct line between bands and their influences,” he says. “You could understand how Black Sabbath turned into Pantera. Bands had their influences on their sleeves. When I listen now, I hear bands that sound like Entombed, but might not even have heard Entombed. The influences are so mixed, and there are no rules. People just pick up music and run with it. Everyone is a cyborg and can play anything and everything.

“In 2004, when people were curious, you needed to wait for someone to introduce you to more,” continues Kozowyk, who is now a police officer and plays with the reunited Red Chord.

“Now you can click on Wikipedia to see every release, EP and catalog online. You can become an expert in moments.”

Blabbermouth

“Music and media have become far more accessible in 2024 than in 2004,” says Katy Irizarry, who owns the boutique firm Suspiria PR. “When I was a freshman in high school 20 years ago, I would discover new music through videos on MTV’s TRL, magazines, and both active rock and college radio stations in the New York area. Not long after, MySpace and PureVolume became the first social media platforms useful for finding new music or keeping up with bands, while podcasts were new and underutilized.” Irizarry claims social media and digital platforms now dictate everything— from trends to tastes.

Nathan Carson, who founded Nanotear Booking the year Decibel started publishing, says the internet has changed how bands grow and evolve. Bands once got popular at home and then regionally. The right band can now take off in days, if not hours. Ghost rose to prominence in 2010 thanks to strong songs on their debut, Opus Eponymous, catchy aesthetics and intelligent guerilla marketing. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats were (once) largely anonymous and became almost overnight sensations with similar tactics.

Carson said many of the changes have benefitted artists. “Everyone I worked with for 20 years is doing better than they were because of festival incomes,” he says. “But I don’t work with bands that would sell so many albums that it would be a key income stream.” Bands can also disregard old methods for building a following. “We don’t have mall chain stores where everyone went to buy albums in 2004,” Carson adds. “There’s not a metal monoculture. Being on a label is no longer a necessary component. Publicists have lost a great deal of power. Using social media, you can reach your entire fanbase.”

The changes can be challenging for legacy bands reared in the days of big labels. Michael Brandvold helped KISS launch their first website in 1998, and now works with legacy artists like W.A.S.P., Accept and former Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di’Anno. “[Legacy artists] need to understand social media,” he says. “And they need to understand fans. It can be challenging. The bands that continue to succeed are the bands that realize they need people on their team who understand the new world. They need people who understand social media, direct marketing to fans and media.

These artists grew up in an era when their record label told them what to do. But record labels will not build your fan base now.” Brandvold says some legacy artists turn over social media accounts to their fans, with often disastrous results.

Other artists—both legacy and emerging bands—have found luck doing it all in-house.

“When you sign with a label, they’d advance you money based on predicted sales,” says Tony Dolan, who joined Venom Inc. in 2015 and has toured and recorded with the band steadily since. “You’d use that money on the band and have some as a wage. Now? There’s little investment in developing a band. Tour-supporting money doesn’t exist.

Everything is more difficult and requires you to consider a budget to make it all happen.”

Dolan’s advice is helpful for both legacy acts and new bands. “Find the right people, make connections and think of yourself as a label, manager, press agent and musician. I embraced the change and figured out a new map.”

3

TWO SIDES OF LEGACY THE BIG PICTURE: Legacy bands navigated

a new world. Legacy sounds reigned, from OSDM to new-school crossover to ’70s revisionism.

Nothing ever goes away in metal. But in the past two decades, metal has doubled down on its legacy while pushing into new and untested

Enrique Sagarnaga @CryptSermon

We pay attention to things that excite us, but the key component is maintaining authenticity.

The term tourist is used more now than poser, and you see fly-by-night bands. Other bands carefully craft an identity.

54 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

’90s Death Metal

’00s “Death” Met

directions. Legacy artists are busier than ever playing classic albums on tour and promoting reissues. Even bands that were never commercial successes release deluxe, limited-run vinyl editions of old albums. At the same time, entire metal scenes have emerged in the past two decades based on vintage sounds like old-school death metal, thrash and crossover.

“Certain aspects of metal will always be timeless, no matter what genre,” says guitarist Leila Abdul-Rauf of Vastum, one of the Bay Area OSDM death metal resurgence architects. “There is something about the riff that is just timeless.

People now just have a million different takes on these things. I don’t want to stray too far from the formula that has worked. Metal is inherently regressive in some ways. The fact that it is regressive makes it recognizable as a genre. That regressiveness is part of Vastum and will always be there because it’s fun to be a Neanderthal.”

Artists contend there is nothing wrong experimenting with old sounds if they are played with authenticity and sincerity.

“Be intentional about your art and the vision,” Crypt Sermon’s Sagarnaga says. “If we made Crypt Sermon a prog jazz fusion band, it wouldn’t be received well. We just try to look at what makes us genuinely excited. We pay attention to things that excite us, but the key component is maintaining authenticity. The term tourist is used more now than poser, and you see fly-by-night bands. Other bands carefully craft an identity.”

“We just try not to overthink it,” says Undeath vocalist Alexander Jones, who helped write Decibel’s 2022 Album of the Year, Time… to Rise From the Grave. “We are fans of death metal, so we always try to play what we want to hear as fans of our genre. The genre is pretty farstretching. There is a Bolt Thrower, Cannibal Corpse and Cryptopsy. Now we have 200 Stab Wounds and Phobophilic. We try to draw from all sides of the death metal spectrum.”

4

METAL AS MEMOIR THE BIG PICTURE: Metal artists told

new stories from various perspectives.

Metal has never been afraid to tackle big-picture issues like war, injustice, conformity and mental illness. In the past two decades, metal has become even more personal and confessional due to a culture where limitless sharing via social media is encouraged. In the early 2000s, albums like Converge’s Jane Doe and Pig Destroyer’s Prowler in the Yard were outliers.

Honesty is now routine. This honesty has taken many forms, from Pig Destroyer’s first-person lyrics to confessional black metal like Krieg and Xasthur to memoir albums like the Keening’s Little Bird, based on Rebecca Vernon’s creative transformation at midlife.

“Metal is beginning to share more vulnerable things, more confessional things,” Vernon says.

“Metal has almost become a safe place to talk

ENRIQUE SAGARNAGA ILLUSTRATION BY MARK RUDOLPH

Two Decades of Metal

Two Decades of Metal about those things.

People are being open with their struggles.

Twenty years ago, they wouldn’t have.

They would have kept it to themselves. Part of this is that society is becoming more open.”

Melissa Moore, fired from the black metal band Absu when she revealed she was transitioning, wove elements of her life story into Sonja’s 2022 breakthrough Loud Arriver.

She also layered genre ambiguity into typically masculine hair metal sounds and riffs. “It’s low risk to talk about fake shit,” she says. “I’ve been in bands where I wrote lyrics telling made-up stories. A lot of metal is like that. But the best metal or rock has articulated lyrics that mean things. You can only really write lyrics about what you know. So, it’s simple—write about what you know about it. Music is an emotional language. For me, it made total sense to write from this perspective.”

“Metal has involved emotional vulnerability and confessional themes since the beginning— we all remember Black Sabbath’s ‘Changes,’ says Doug Moore, vocalist for Pyrrhon and Scarcity.

Moore’s lyrics for Pyrrhon betray modern poetry and flash prose influences. “As time has passed, there’s come to be more room for that kind of thing and less of a fixation on posturing as an ultimate badass. As to why that’s happened, the demographic makeup of metal has broadened a lot over the years, and even the average straight white guy in a metal band is likely in closer touch with his interiority nowadays than in 1990.”

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you are just discussing artistic choices, you can do whatever you want. Look at the opera I’ve done—we came from two different continents, and I come from the countryside in Switzerland.

I don’t see any creative limitations. What I love about living in New York now is that it’s where all sorts of people converge. Music styles almost don’t matter anymore if the music is enjoyable.”

“It’s an exciting time,” Kozowyk says. “The fact that anyone can now record in their bedroom and sound better than in a studio 20 years ago means there will be a metal equivalent of Beethoven.

There will be someone to push the limits.”

There are downsides, however. Perhaps the biggest drawback of our connected scene is that it’s easier to sound like everyone else when all music is available simultaneously. A true breakthrough like early black metal (Bathory and Venom), early thrash (Metallica), grindcore (Repulsion) or early death metal (Death and Possessed) is unlikely. “The flattening effort is

Rebecca Vernon @theKeening

Metal is beginning to share more vulnerable things, more confessional things. Metal has almost become a safe place to talk about those things.

People are being open with their struggles. Twenty years ago, they wouldn’t have.

THE BIG PICTURE: Metal, once an insular

scene, fought the same some of the culture wars raging in society.

It's hard to take metal as simple escapist entertainment anymore. Cultural battles are part of the turf. Certain fans resist politics, and others embrace social issues to the point where music seems secondary. Musicians can see promising careers derailed in moments with one poorlytimed post on X. Some fans demand that musicians share their values—a stark change from the ’80s and ’90s when fans could listen to anything and claim ironic distance.

“Metal is at a crossroads,” said ethnomusicologist Laina Dawes, author of What Are You Doing Here?: A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal. “There is a diverse listenership, but some still want traditional benchmarks. Newer bands have more flexibility, both in terms of musical and cultural changes. These people are more willing to look at things differently and not be judgmental. There will always be resistance to these things by edgelords who like the nihilistic 56 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

6

GLOBALIZATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION THE BIG PICTURE: The definition of

“metal” became even more amorphous as bands adopted everything from opera to experimental jazz. There are no limits.

Orthodoxy and legacy are part of metal's foundation, but in 2024 metal is more limitless than ever in many ways. An example of this new breed is Andromeda Anarchia, a Swedish metal musician who guested on Imperial Triumphant’s pandemic-era breakthrough Alphaville. Anarchia has performed in a metal opera (La Suspendida) and is the frontwoman for Folterkammer, a band that combines opera, classical music and black metal. At the same time, the autodidact Athenar of Midnight is one of the most prominent figures in underground metal.

“It depends on where you want to go,” Anarchia says. “If you want commercial success, there are certain things you need to respect. If

very real,” Jones says. “All I needed to do was type Opeth into Last.fm, and it gave me 20 other bands that sounded like Opeth.

“The human aspect of discovering music and finding stuff and happy accidents is more or less gone,” he adds. “People are trying to become metal media celebrities. There is gross social climbing, and I even see metal going down the same path. It’s about getting attention from a Twitch streamer and not the music. But who knows [where the music goes] until it’s just around the corner? Artists will take the art where they feel it needs to go for them.”

The big bands from the fall of 2024? They are still big bands. Lamb of God and Mastodon will team up for a huge arena tour this fall. They could be doing the same in 20 years into retirement age. As for Decibel, change is inevitable, but a commitment to covering it with purpose and integrity is unflinching. Metal—in all of its iterations and forms—is eternal.

REBECCA VERNON PHOTO BY JARED GOLD & ANGELA BROWN

5

CULTURE WARS

aspects and want to keep it that way. Some people don’t want to give up that sense of danger and say you can’t strip that away from metal.

But some say we can utilize this culture and music in new ways.”

The cultural wars have been especially prevalent in black metal, which was initially a misanthropic genre. Many fans have retconned the music, including everything from hip-hop to liberal politics. Black metal has been mashed up with classic rock (Nachtmystium), American pastoral themes (Panopticon) and queer themes and feminism (Feminazgul). Decibel contributor Daniel Lake, the author of USBM: A Revolution of Identity in American Black Metal, says that more than any genre, black metal has a revolving identity in 2024. “People started importing all these benchmarks from black metal into other music,” he explains. “The cult people say that black metal doesn't change, but it’s been exported into all other sorts of music.”

Re: blast worshi

the

definitive stories

behind extreme music’s

definitive albums

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust the making of Candlemass’s Epicus Doomicus Metallicus OCTOBER 2024 : 58 : DECIBEL

by

josé carlos santos

R

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CANDLEMASS

Epicus Doomicus Metallicus BL ACK DRAGON JUNE 10, 1986

We pledge our allegiance

DECIBEL : 59 : OCTOBER 2024

arely can a single album claim responsibility for kickstarting an entire subgenre.

Often these origins are the subject of heated fan discussions via a few candidates who are bestowed prefixes like “proto-” to describe their style. It’s a fun metalhead exercise, but when it comes to epic doom metal, there is no space for arguments. It’s right there in its delightful dog-Latin title. Candlemass’ Epicus Doomicus Metallicus carved a new road off the main doom highway even if “doom” itself wasn’t really a common term back then—and it was precisely with this album that it became a more crystallized, defined concept. With a short line of predecessors (notably the ubiquitous Black Sabbath, though Candlemass also admit Trouble was an inspiration that came before them), Epicus has birthed an interminable number of spiritual children who have appeared since and attempted to replicate its unique vibe.

Much like, for instance, Napalm Death’s Scum, Epicus is the primal source of the entire subgenre and, arguably, still its unsurpassed example of brilliance.

It’s the absolute foundation of the Swedish band’s long and illustrious career, which continues to this day, ironically now featuring the very same vocalist who helped give the record its unique personality as a session member, but who then declined to stay with the group all those years ago. It’s also the heart of their other remarkable material, all of which orbits around these songs. Five of the record’s tracks remain in the live setlist, which naturally elicits the strongest crowd reaction—even from fans who were born decades after music was released.

Clearly, there was magic brewing over the Upplands Väsby area outside Stockholm—a municipality which, besides Candlemass, also gave the world ’80s pop metallers Europe, not to mention a certain nimblefingered gentleman named Yngwie. The dark portion was surely all condensed in the trio of Candlemass bassist and songwriter Leif Edling, guitarist Mats “Mappe” Björkman and drummer Mats “Matz” Ekström, who despite only having made this solitary record with the band, was an instrumental piece in getting the whole puzzle assembled.

Decibel naturally felt that it was essential to also involve that certain session vocalist, Mr. Johan Längquist, so important in transporting us to lands of wizards, crystal balls, gates to demon lands and crimson skies crackling with sinister spells. And to think all this genre-forging majesty transpired beneath a tube station while peeing into a bucket. Yeah, read on.

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CANDLEMASS epicus doomicus metallicus  Opening ceremony (From l to r) Edling, Ekström and Christian Weberyd as Nemesis, prior to their career of doom

The origins of this record are entwined with the origins of Candlemass itself, even if a few of the songs already come from the Nemesis days in one form or another. Can you tell us a bit more about that transition? When you switched from Nemesis to Candlemass, did anything fundamentally change other than the name and part of the lineup?

LEIF EDLING: It was a forced change at the time because I really wanted to keep the name Nemesis. I thought it was a great name, super good for a metal band! But some time after we released [1984’s] The Day of Retribution, I got a phone call from a music lawyer from down south in Sweden, who said that he represented a company called “Nemesis Hi-Fi and Electronics” or something like that. He said we had to change our name as soon as possible or they would sue us. I was a young boy at the time and I got scared, which of course was the whole point of the lawyer’s call, but I had no clue the guy was just bullshitting. Music and electronics are two different “markets.” I don’t think any court would have judged in their favor. Also, just how lame is it to threaten to sue a young band called Nemesis just because you got a place selling stereos in a small town down south in Sweden? Idiots! But they actually did me a favor.

Candlemass is a grrreeeaaat name for this band, and I couldn’t have asked for a better logo! The name and the skull alongside each other make a perfect pair! Bone-chilling!

It also allowed you to bring in some people who would be very important for the band, right?

EDLING: Yeah, the name switch was the perfect

opportunity for me to form a band with my good friend Matz Ekström. We went to all the metal shows in Stockholm together, and he was playing drums. We were actually together in Witchcraft briefly in 1981 or thereabouts, but that band

didn’t really represent what we wanted to do.

Matz and I wanted to play the heaviest music possible. We wanted to be the heaviest band in the world! We loved Sabbath, Dio, Accept, Venom, Angel Witch, Trouble, Pentagram, Manilla Road and so many others, so this was a chance to get together and take a stab at the heavy, heavy side of metal. [Laughs] Matz liked what I did with Nemesis, but didn’t like the drumming. He was a much better drummer, of course! And Nemesis was already falling apart anyway; there wasn’t much left of the band when I had this phone call from the lawyer, so it wasn’t a biggie to disband Nemesis and form Candlemass instead. I already had some sketches to new songs like “Under the Oak,” “Crystal Ball,” “Into the Unfathomed Tower,” plus a riff that would form “Demon’s Gate,” so we definitely had cool material to build from.

MATZ EKSTRÖM: We actually did a demo together that was also recorded at Thunderload Studio, the same one where we did Epicus in. We even entered a rock band competition organized by one of the biggest newspapers here in Sweden.

I think we came second in one of the competitions; Rising Force with Yngwie Malmsteen won that night anyway. I can’t remember what our band was called—Battleaxe, maybe? I just remember we knew we had good songs and we wanted to get a record deal. We were trying to find another guitarist who could play solo and we wanted a good singer. We found many guitarists, but no one wanted to play with us. The way the music scene looked then, almost everyone thought we sucked. It was practically only us who thought our songs were good.

MAPPE BJÖRKMAN: Yeah, that was really stupid.

[Laughs] We asked so many singers to try and play on that album, but everybody said no, sorry, this is not my cup of tea. They just wanted to sing songs that sounded like Europe or Treat or OCTOBER 2024 : 6 0 : DECIBEL

whatever we had in Sweden at the time. Matz was actually the one who said, hey, I know a guy who’s a taxi driver and he’s a good singer as well. I can call him. That ended up being Johan, who came in and said he’d do it. He just did it and it was amazing. We asked him many times to be in the band, but he didn’t want to. It wasn’t his kind of music. He had his own band at that time, and it was really good and very popular in Sweden, and they were supposed to get a major record contract on a really big record company.

That was his band, and he was really keen on that. But that ended up not going well, and it’s a complex story on its own—the record company went under, a bunch of things happened.

Basically, things didn’t go the way he wanted, but even still he wasn’t interested. The music wasn’t his thing at the time.

How did you join, Mappe?

BJÖRKMAN: I met Leif through Matz, who was

already a good friend; we did some jam sessions every now and then. I was in a Swedish band that was quite big at that time. We were on Vertigo/PolyGram; it was a pop band or whatever you can call it. A bad version of UFO or something. [Laughs] We played the big amusement parks in Stockholm and stuff. At one point, though, I felt that I was fed up with playing music and I sold all my gear; this was 1984. I told myself I’ll stop playing music and I’ll do something else. But Matz had a place just outside Stockholm where he had his drums set up, and he kept asking me, “Please come and play some riffs with me, let’s just jam, we can play some Accept riffs or whatever.” I told him I didn’t even have a guitar anymore, but he had some gear there, so I went anyway, and we had a great time there, just me and him.

It was purely for fun; we had a beer and we played some metal riffs. That’s when he told

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me he was friends with a guy called Leif who was in a band called Nemesis, and that they were doing a new band with old-school Black Sabbath riffs and stuff, if I could please come down and just play some riffs because they didn’t have a guitar player. I told him if it’s under those circumstances, sure, I’ll go. I didn’t want to be in a band at all, but I still liked playing with friends for the pure enjoyment of it. I went, we sat there drinking beers and stuff, and the day after we went to the rehearsal place.

Leif showed me the riffs he had, and he was so excited; he kept saying, “We’re going to play so loud, it’s going to be so heavy!” I think it was either “Demon’s Gate” or “Crystal Ball” that he showed me first, and I was like, what the fuck is this? I had never heard anything like it!

EDLING: When it was just the two of us in the band, me and Matz spent every day together.

Talking metal, buying metal, sweating metal! But we desperately needed a guitarist that was into what we were doing, and that wasn’t easy. We talked to several mates that were good on guitar, but they were all into more commercial stuff like Lizzy, UFO, Whitesnake, Gary Moore. But Matz found Mappe and he got it; he became the perfect rhythm guitar player for us. He already had the doom tone that you can hear on Epicus. It’s in your fingers. Either you have or you don’t!

EKSTRÖM: Christian Weberyd must have felt that our music was for him, so he kind of just disappeared into the periphery, which is why we brought in Mappe. I got to know Mappe through a classmate of mine when I was in high school.

He was an obvious choice and it fit right into the band. It was me, Leif and Mappe who scratched everything together. For a while, we were looking for another guitarist who could and who wanted to play lead guitar, but we had a hard time finding someone we either felt comfortable with or liked our music. We ended up just getting a session player.

Klas Bergwall, wasn’t it?

BJÖRKMAN: Yeah, he was from the same area out-

side Stockholm as we were. He’s actually a really nice guy, I haven’t seen him in many years, but he’s cool. But yeah, he was just a session guy who came in and did a few solos. I was opposed to it, but it happened anyway.

EDLING: He was a friend of mine and he was actually the only one to be okay with it. In Väsby in those days there were great guitar players everywhere! Many bands formed a great metal scene.

Klas was looking for recognition with his band Arrow, but since we were mates, he said yes to put a bit of his guitar on Epicus, and he didn’t do too bad either.

CANDLEMASS epicus doomicus metallicus

How did those loose beginnings start to take shape? For instance, what is the origin of the title of the album and the artwork, which has become so iconic?

EDLING: Me and Matz used to sit in his room and

play the latest metal releases, mainly NWOAHM, since the British wave was over by 1984, but also all the new releases by Accept, Anvil, Dio, Trouble and many more, of course, and we would just talk and talk and talk about our (not yet invented) style of metal and our upcoming world domination. [Laughs] During those chats, I came up with the name Candlemass, and Matz came up with the Epicus Doomicus Metallicus title.

I have no idea where he got that from, but from the very start we actually called our music epic, doom and metal! So, a few weeks after forming Candlemass, our music was already epic doom metal, and I guess he made the title sound Latin after that expression. Genius!

EKSTRÖM: That title actually comes from the fact that we had no idea what to call it! [Laughs] When we had to explain our style of music, there weren’t as many styles of music then as now, and as Leif said we just told people we played epic doom metal. Once we decided on a title that reflected that, I thought it would be fun if you could make the title sound like it was old, like Latin, by just adding “us” at the end. I think that’s called dog-Latin nowadays.

EDLING: I must admit that I didn’t like the title at first; I thought it was really lame. But it grew on me and eventually I gave in. The skull originally came from a skull that I drew for a Mötorhead contest. I became a member of the Mötorheadbanger fan club in 1980, and they had a competition for fans to create a T-shirt for the club. So, I drew this skull with spikes through the head. Unfortunately, I don’t have this image anymore, but I have the later ones that I used for Candlemass. I improved the skull with the horns and made it look a bit better. Not professional in any way, but it looked cool as a letterhead anyway!

Matz also liked it and we took it to Åke, his father, who worked at a printing company. Åke and a co-worker there made my skull look a thousand times better, and when they showed me what they did to it, the final version, I was totally blown away! It was the coolest thing I had ever seen! Still today that skull can give me chills down the spine!

EKSTRÖM: My father was phenomenally good at drawing. R.I.P. How did the actual writing of the songs go? Did anything change with Candlemass as compared to how you did things in Nemesis? What was, for example, the first song you wrote as Candlemass specifically?

EDLING: Probably “Warchild” and/or “Crystal

Ball.” Those were on the first demo that we sent out to a few labels and to some metalheads, like [Future Solitude Aeturnus guitarist] John Perez OCTOBER 2024 : 62 : DECIBEL

down in Austin. That demo was, of course, also sent to Black Dragon in Paris, since Manilla Road was on that label. “Into the Unfathomed Tower” was on that demo and “Sorcerer’s Pledge,” too.

That one was a bitch to finish, same as “Crystal Ball.” I worked really hard on those and I think you can hear it. They came out pretty complex and “weird.” My then-girlfriend was pretty pissed off at me because I was sitting up all night playing guitar and working on those songs. We had a very small one-room apartment, and she had to get up very early in the morning to get to her job.

Black Dragon liked what they heard on that first demo, but they wanted to hear more. So, we decided to put the two last songs on tape, the ones that we’d just finished, which were “Demon’s Gate” and “Black Stone Wielder.” We put our money together and went into the great O.A.L. studio on the north side of Stockholm.

It was located in Sollentuna, close to Upplands Väsby, and it was a full pro studio. They actually managed to make us sound good! [Laughs] I love the sound of that demo! Fat, punchy, great echo on the vocals, and Matz is doing some fantastic drumming here! Apparently, Mark Shelton was in Paris when Black Dragon got the tape and said, “Sign these guys immediately!” Thank, Mark—love you. Rest in peace, my friend.

What were your main inspirations as a songwriter at this time, Leif? Your love of Black Sabbath, especially the first album, is very wellknown, but was there anything else going on?

Or even in non-musical areas—like in literary terms, for example—that might have contributed to the elaboration of your personality as a songwriter? As for Mappe and Matz, who did you guys look up to, musically?

EDLING: I read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi at the

time, like Asimov, Tolkien, Donaldson, Le Guin, Heinlein, Clarke. I saw all the movies I could, and I got inspired by some of the early horror movies like The Beyond, Zombie, The Boogeyman or The Toolbox Murders. Many of those got slaughtered by the censorship board in Sweden, but we had ways to see the imported uncut stuff. Also, movies like Legend, Conan [the Barbarian], Warrior and others also gave inspiration to Candlemass stuff. I read all the theology and religious books I could get my hands on. Even tried to get through my family Bible, but gave up halfway. I borrowed the Satanic Bible from a friend, but realized it was a waste of time. Same with the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran: The more I read, the more I realized I didn’t need religion. I don’t want to live in the past. Science is what will get us to the future and make our lives better. Not fairy tales! And love is the only thing that can unite mankind.

EKSTRÖM: Apart from the fact that I always listened a lot to the heavier bands, I never liked mainstream music. Bands like Trouble,

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CANDLEMASS epicus doomicus metallicus

Black Sabbath, old Judas Priest or old Scorpions were my inspiration. Rush was one of my favorite bands, too, so of course I was inspired

by Neil Peart. It was absolutely impossible to be as good as Peart, but I got inspiration anyway. There are many good drummers that I had as idols, like Barriemore Barlow, Les Binks, Simon Phillips and a bunch of others.

BJÖRKMAN: I’ve always liked things out of the box. I’ve been a punk rocker since the beginning, and I love Kraftwerk. Kraftwerk, Sex Pistols and Ted Nugent are my biggest heroes. Everybody thinks it’s Black Sabbath, but no. I mean, I do love them, but I love everything that’s unusual and unexpected, and the music Leif showed me when I met him was exactly that. Here was something new for me, something we were just doing amongst ourselves for fun. I got back to the right feeling with myself; now playing felt like fun again.

Johan was also quite important to the creation of this album. Would you like to tell the “Johan tale,” the chronology of his involvement with Epicus?

BJÖRKMAN: I remember the time leading up to

that was really stupid. [Laughs] We asked so many singers to try and play on that album, but everybody said no. Everyone was like, “No, this is not my cup of tea, sorry.” They just wanted to sing songs that sounded like Europe or whatever we had in Sweden at the time.

JOHAN LÄNGQUIST: Matz was living in the same suburb as I was, Jakobsberg. He knew I was a singer in a band and Candlemass was looking for one. I was given a demo and I listened to it—to be honest, I had never heard anything like that before. I was more into traditional heavy metal, but I realized there was room for exciting vocals, to make one-chord riffs feel as alive as possible.

My only problem was that I had my heart set on my own music and band at that time and I told them that, but they wanted me to stay anyway.

EDLING: Back then, Johan’s time in Candlemass was just a month or two. We had already started the recordings for Epicus in Thunderload, which was owned by Ragne and Styrbjörn [Wahlquist] from Heavy Load, and we desperately needed a singer. My vocals weren’t good enough—I totally agreed—so we searched the Stockholm area for a vocalist. Nobody was interested. That’s when Matz mentioned Johan, a local guy who had a band called Jonah Hex. I listened to their demo and liked what I heard, but I thought they were too commercial, so I wasn’t totally convinced he was the right guy for us. I was a metal purist in those days. Nothing that even smelled commercial was allowed! [Laughs] Even Thin Lizzy were too commercial for me—today

“No one called Black Sabbath doom, or even Pentagram, for example.

There was probably one band that we were listening to that we were like, ‘Fuck, we should do it like this.’ It wasn’t the same, of course, but the spirit was similar, and it was Trouble!”

MA PPE BJÖ RKMA N I love Lizzy, of course. But yeah, Johan came down to Thunderload, and as soon as he opened his mouth to try one of the songs, my jaw was on the floor! He was amazing! Over a couple of days, he did all the tracks and it was fantastic! It was unbelievable; he was born to sing this stuff!

EKSTRÖM: I remember all three of us just checking each other out and saying, “Wow! This singer is right for us!”

EDLING: Of course, we tried to convince him to be the singer of Candlemass. But he couldn’t be persuaded. He did it as a favor to Matz and as a OCTOBER 2024 : 6 4 : DECIBEL

side job for a bit of money, which wasn’t even that much. But that wasn’t the point. He was the singer for Jonah Hex and they were trying hard to get a record deal. He didn’t want to leave his band for Candlemass, period. Couldn’t be persuaded.

LÄNGQUIST: I have to be honest: I don’t regret that I didn’t continue on to become a full member of Candlemass at that time. To be a fulltime member of a band, especially as lead singer, takes it all out of you. It’s not fair to do it just for your own ego. At that time, my own music was my dream, and I had to follow it.

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How was the atmosphere in the studio? The place wasn’t particularly luxurious, was it?

EDLING: I think we got a check from Black Dragon for 18,000 Swedish krona, so about $2,000. We spent every dime on the recording. I think Ragne gave us two weeks for it; that’s what I remember anyway. After one week of recordings, we went to the studio and [Heavy Load] were recording. We were perplexed.

Like, what? It was the last Candlemass week!

But Ragne just said that they needed to record a new song or something and we had to wait. So, the week after, or even two weeks after, we could get down there and start over. But still, Ragne was cool to work with! Got no complaints. It was his studio and we were guests there. He and Styrbjörn helped us a lot during these weeks, and without their invaluable help, Epicus wouldn’t have turned out as great as it did. I’m eternally grateful for that!

BJÖRKMAN: There are so many fucking memories of that studio, it’s beyond everything, I don’t even know where to start. It was in a tube station, and there was a big iron door you had to knock on.

EDLING: Yeah, it was located on a sublevel to the subway at the University of Stockholm. First you took the escalator down far below, then there was a door to the studio; you had to ring, and it opened, and then there was a whole bunch of stairs even further down.

BJÖRKMAN: You basically went in through the cellar, and it was all made of stone. It was so humid inside that the guitars tuned out and everything was chaos. It was a low-budget studio and it looked like one. We didn’t even have toilets there!

EDLING: You had to pee in a red bucket and flush it down a drain far back of the studio!

BJÖRKMAN: And if you came late and you rang, you might have to wait because Matz was recording drums and you had to wait for him to be done so they’d open the door. But yeah, we couldn’t even tune the guitars right; they tuned out all the time. We just played through it. Because of that, when we have people doing sessions for us—like when we need a live bass player or something like that, and they’re going to learn and rehearse the songs—you can’t listen to Epicus and try to tune the guitar to it, because the tuning is different on every song.

Let alone the bass. There was no reason for us to tune the guitars; we just played and that’s the way it is.

If you listen to Epicus and you try to tune the guitar to it, to see if it’s in E sharp or C sharp or whatever… no, there’s nothing. What is [the] “Demon’s Gate” tuning? I don’t know! [Laughs] It

“We played it to our mates and they didn’t like the record at all, and Black Dragon dropped us due to shit sales not long after the release.

Doesn’t matter if we loved it—we really did— but Epicus bombed!”

LE IF E D LING was the most ridiculously low-budget album ever made, but it turned out incredibly well. There was so much love and energy put into it, we didn’t care about those circumstances. We just felt it was fantastic for us to be doing an album.

EDLING: It was so cold down there we had to wear long johns, and frost came out of our mouths when we breathed. We had winter gloves on as well. It wasn’t an easy recording, but it was fucking great if you ask me. Legendary! Ragne built tunnels of blankets to give the guitars as much natural dry compression as possible; even Matz’ bass drums got the same treatment.

He also borrowed Styrbjörn’s drums that had a chicken net and blankets over them to get as little ring as possible. I think Mappe’s guitar was given an automatic dub—Ragne bounced it over to another channel with a small chorus in between. The studio was a bit primitive, but there was much knowledge and metal love OCTOBER 2024 : 6 6 : DECIBEL

down there. Just listen to Yngwie’s demo from Thunderload. Best thing he ever did!

BJÖRKMAN: It was all made with love. That’s the main thing, love and respect. If you don’t have that when you’re making your music, you can have a budget of 10 million krona, it doesn’t matter.

You’ll be out of the business before long.

We all know the importance and influence this album has had. Did it ever cross your mind in any way you might be building a sort of landmark?

LÄNGQUIST: No, not in my wildest dreams. But

it makes me very proud that I have been a part of something that has inspired so many people.

The first reactions, the other guys have told me, were not very good. Some people were even laughing and wished them good luck. But a couple of years later, when I was reading a newspaper and a popular band on a big

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two-page article said that Epicus had been a great inspiration to them; that’s when I realized that things had changed and that it had become really popular and influential.

EDLING: Absolutely not! We played it to our mates and they didn’t like the record at all, and Black Dragon dropped us due to shit sales not long after the release. Doesn’t matter if we loved it—we really did—but Epicus bombed! I couldn’t believe it when I got the letter from Black Dragon maybe a year after the release. We were dropped like a hot potato! We got a bunch of lukewarm reviews of it. Of course, some writers loved it, but most were like eeehhhh…; they didn’t know what to make of it.

Nobody sounded like Candlemass in 1986. We were the forerunners of doom when everybody else were listening to hair metal. Then when we released Nightfall, Ancient Dreams and Tales of Creation, death metal was the thing! We were always wrong in time in those days. We sold okay, but we were always a bit “offside” in the ’80s. But we were a good live band, so we survived. Groups like Paradise Lost and Cathedral, for example, that came after us and were inspired by us, sold more and became more popular. I guess we opened a door for bands that came after. It was only when we had our reunion, in the summer of doom with Messiah, plus the white [self-titled] album in 2005, we felt that we finally got the recognition that we deserved. We kind of knew it from lots of high chart places in the metal magazines when they did their millennium lists, but it wasn’t until we finally took the stage again with Messiah that we knew for sure that people still loved our music.

BJÖRKMAN: No one called Black Sabbath doom, or even Pentagram, for example. There was probably one band that we were listening to that we were like, “Fuck, we should do it like this.”

It wasn’t the same, of course, but the spirit was similar, and it was Trouble! At that time, thrash metal also emerged big-time, with all the American bands: Exodus, Forbidden, Slayer, all of them. They played very fast and everybody loved it, and we just played really slow. That was the opposite of what mostly every other band was doing. There was Trouble, of course; Saint Vitus, too; and Black Sabbath from the beginning, but that was it. We were something different, and at that time we were so different that it was hard to get respect for us. We were seen as “fun.” Oh, the funny guys who do this slow shit. We didn’t think about getting the band further at all; it was just doing this album and that was it.

EDLING: We were totally bummed when we got dropped by Black Dragon. I actually lost interest in the band a bit until we met this mad monk

CANDLEMASS epicus doomicus metallicus

that called himself Messiah [Eddie Marcolin]! We hadn’t played for months, but he dragged us to the rehearsal room and surprised us by not only knowing the Epicus songs by heart, he also sang them in a great way! So, the time after Epicus was really difficult. We nearly called it a day, and would have if it wasn’t for Messiah. Then we got our shit together, recorded the Bewitched demo, sent it to a new label—Axis, in London—landed a deal, and the rest is history!

How has it felt, throughout time, to play the Epicus songs live? Do they occupy a special place in your heart?

EKSTRÖM: It feels very strange, at least for me, as

I left the band at an early stage and never got to do that. I am proud of what we have achieved, of course! But I have the memories that I was there and coined the term “doom,” and that’s super fun.

BJÖRKMAN: When I go out onstage and I look at a sea of people who are, many of them, 20, 25 years old or something like that, and they sing along to every song on our setlist, especially the ones from Epicus… I’m like, this is fantastic! We have five songs from Epicus on the setlist, they sing

along to every single one of them, and they were decades away from being born when these songs came out, some of these kids! It’s a mindfuck.

It’s the best thing you can have in your heart as a musician. We did it with love and respect, we did it because we loved doing it, and I think people can feel that.

EDLING: I still love to play those songs live! That album certainly had a special place in my heart!

But it’s the same with Nightfall, Ancient Dreams and Tales of Creation. They are all my children. But the firstborn is, of course, special! I can’t do Epicus 2.

People have asked me this many times through the years. Can’t do Nightfall 2 either, even though there are many good songs on that one, too. I can only do what feels natural for me, and thankfully the records featuring [ex-vocalist] Rob Lowe have all been hailed greatly by fans and press, and the same with the recent ones with Johan.

These days we headline festivals, sell out bigger clubs and get lots of appreciation for what we do, especially the live shows. If you ask me, Candlemass have never been better or bigger than we are right now, and I feel very honored to still do it nearly 40 years after Epicus Doomicus Metallicus started all of this.

 Not lonely, forlorn or crying (From l to r) Not everything was doom and gloom for Ekström, Edling and Björkman

OCTOBER 2024 : 6 8 : DECIBEL

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IT’S

been about two years since Decibel last spoke to the Black

Dahlia Murder, for a cover story that nobody wanted to happen. Don’t get us wrong: It’s a pleasure anytime the Detroit melodic death metal monsters grace these pages.

But the circumstances—to wildly understate things— were not ideal. The band had just begun putting the pieces back together after the shocking death of their beloved frontman, Trevor Strnad, and our story was as much an extended obituary as it was an introduction to the next chapter of the Black Dahlia Murder. ¶ That chapter, in which founding guitarist Brian Eschbach has taken over lead vocals and Dahlia expat Ryan Knight has returned to the fold, is now well underway. When we reconnect with the band, they’re crisscrossing Europe with Suffocation and Khemmis. It’s already their fifth full tour since firing the engines back up last spring, with plenty more on the horizon.

They’re also preparing to unleash the scorching Servitude, their 10th album overall and first without Strnad. It’s a fucking beast of a record, not to mention a full-throated repudiation of those who questioned the band’s decision to soldier on. The newly minted songwriting brain trust—Eschbach, Knight and co-guitarist/producer Brandon Ellis—ensured that Servitude is the most sonically varied Dahlia LP to date. Eschbach proves himself a vocalist who can approximate Strnad’s range, but also one with a grit and a verve that’s all his own.

His lyrics, too, push the band to some unexpected places. The Black Dahlia Murder had to go through the most painful thing a band can endure. It’s a small mercy, but Servitude at least 72 : SEPTEMBER 2023 : DECIBEL

suggests that they’ve come out the other side stronger for it.

On the tour-bus bunk where all five members have set up camp for our Zoom interview, the mood, mercifully, is lighthearted—even normal, a word that comes up again and again during our chat. Dumb jokes and good-natured shit-talk fly freely, and the bond between these lifelong friends and collaborators is visibly strong. They’re in mid-tour form, ripping nightly through a setlist drawn from their first nine records. But they sound almost riotously excited about the near future, when they’ll get to bring Servitude to audiences all over the world. The Black Dahlia Murder machine is up and running at full speed again, in other words. Try and keep up.

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“If you want to do something, the time is now, always,” Eschbach says. “If you want to do something, you’ve gotta do it, because you don’t know how much time you have. Everyone’s losing time, at all times, and with the pandemic and not being able to get out there and play the material from [2020’s] Verminous as much as we wanted and really push that album, we already lost time. And then we lost Trevor. For us, we’ve got shit to do, and you’ve got to go now.”

HURLED BACK

INTO CONSCIOUSNESS

On October 28, 2022, about a month after our

last Black Dahlia cover story went to press, the band played a memorial gig for Strnad at Saint Andrew’s Hall in Detroit. It was their first live show without the late vocalist, and Eschbach’s first time occupying the frontman role. It was also the first Dahlia show with the reinstated Knight and his onetime successor Ellis sharing guitar duties onstage. (Drummer Alan Cassidy and bassist Max Lavelle, the band’s rhythm section since 2012, were a sturdy, grounding presence amid all that change.) Even with the knowledge that this new configuration of the Black Dahlia Murder was the right way forward, that night’s set was still a leap into the unknown. For Eschbach and the rest of the band, there was no better place to take that leap than their hometown.

“So many people came out who we know because of what we do, and what we’ve been

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doing,” Eschbach says.

“Colleagues, friends, family. There were so many people that came there to pay tribute to Trevor, but also to support us. You can’t really get a better environment for trying something crazy.

“I was six weeks into healing from six broken ribs, so I was pretty happy that Saint Andrew’s doesn’t have a lot of space onstage,” he adds. “I didn’t really have to worry about jumping. I wasn’t gonna be able to jump anyway. But I didn’t have to worry about running around or moving around too much, because you can’t. It was a safe space to have the launch.”

Once Dahlia got up there and commenced shredding—opening their set with Ritual favorite “A Shrine to Madness,” which hadn’t been played live since 2017—any perceived strangeness quickly started to dissipate. Even Knight, who had been out of the band for six years and had to learn the songs from a pair of albums he didn’t play on, says he settled in with relative ease.

“It felt pretty normal to me, nothing too crazy,” the guitarist shrugs. “Actually, it was easier, because there were less leads for me to play. When I [first] came into the band [in 2008], I had to learn three albums’ worth of stuff I wasn’t on anyway; [it was] pretty much the same process.”

One longtime Dahlia fan who got to bear witness to their live resurrection was Darkest Hour guitarist Mike Schleibaum. The D.C. melodeath/ metalcore stalwarts were direct support on the bill that night. The bands have had a close friendship for two decades now, galvanized by their shared history as two of the most enduring acts putting an American spin on Gothenburgstyle melodic death metal.

“They were the pioneers,” Eschbach says. “I think they had two or three albums out before we got going. We got to play with them and do a handful of shows during festival season in Europe one year, and it was cool. We were all fuckin’ passing around an apple, smokin’ weed, and you find out everyone’s cool and pretty much on the same page. That’s some of the fun shit in life.”

“We had an immediate connection with the way Brian and Trevor were and the way [Darkest Hour vocalist] John [Henry] and I were,” Schleibaum says. “A lot of the things in the way they communicated, and in their friendship, were just so similar. From that moment on, we made this connection. There was a throughline, forever, throughout our relationship.”

Schleibaum was on tour when he heard the news of Strnad’s death, and either by coincidence or providence, he had a couple days off in Detroit. “I initially was hesitant to hit up Brian at all because it’s so sensitive,” he says. “I had no idea if he wanted to talk about it. I had no idea if it was too soon. I had no idea if he would just ignore me. But then he wrote me back right away, and was like, ‘Oh my god, I’ll come down to your hotel after work.’”

Once Eschbach and Schleibaum finished hugging, crying and smoking by the van, Eschbach pulled his old friend aside and soft-launched what was still an uncertain next step for Black Dahlia. Schleibaum was thrilled to hear that Eschbach planned to keep the band going, but he still had to ask him the obvious question: “How are you gonna replace Trevor?”

“And then he dropped on us: ‘I’m gonna do it,’” Schleibaum recalls. “He played me, in the car, some practice recordings of him doing [vocals], and it sounded incredible. I remember having this moment of being like, ‘Oh my god, yes. You can do this, man.’”

A few months later, at the memorial show at Saint Andrew’s, Eschbach got the chance to prove Schleibaum right. Before he took the stage with Dahlia, he jumped up during Darkest Hour’s set to perform Tomas Lindberg’s guest vocal from “The Sadist Nation.” Schleibaum fretted over it a bit before surrendering to the magic of the moment: “I was like, ‘Is this his first performance as a fucking lead singer ever? And he’s gonna be up here as a guest?

That’s not a good look!’ But then it just happened, and it felt so good. And of course he nailed it.”

For his part, Eschbach says he “geeked out” about getting to sing with Darkest Hour—some of his oldest friends in the

IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING, THE TIME IS NOW, ALWAYS. IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING, YOU’VE GOTTA DO IT,

BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH TIME YOU HAVE. BRIAN ESCHBACH

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industry, yes, but also a band he deeply admires.

That impromptu guest spot was just a taste of what would follow minutes later. The Dahlia set that night in Detroit was an unqualified triumph. It was a performance worthy of Strnad’s memory, and the opening missive in a reign of terror that was clearly soon to come. Six months later, the slaughter would begin in earnest.

THEY’LL SOON SEE US

ADVANCING FORTH

“I know I was fuckin’ hungry as shit to get back

on the road, to get back to life the way we know it,” Eschbach declares. The rest of the band quickly concurs.

“It felt like a really weird situation of going from COVID to trying to get back to things, and then losing Trevor, and it was just a series of unfortunate, weird circumstances that kept us from getting back to what our usual life is,” Cassidy says. “It did feel a little bit strange jumping back into it after all that time, but eventually, when we did the first tour [without Trevor], it quickly felt back to normal.”

The Black Dahlia Murder have spent the bulk of the last 25 years on tour. The forced downtime of the pandemic was an uncomfortable—and potentially livelihood-killing—change of pace.

Verminous came out a few short weeks after the initial wave of lockdowns in the spring of 2020,

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making it one of the countless records that was denied its typical touring cycle.

In September 2021, as the live-music industry’s lights were slowly turning back on, Dahlia finally went out to promote Verminous, headlining a package that also included After the Burial, Carnifex, Rivers of Nihil and Undeath. It would be Trevor Strnad’s final tour.

“It meant everything,” Undeath vocalist Alex Jones says of being asked to open that bill. “I can’t possibly overstate how important that tour was for us. We were less than nothing as a band at that point. We had two demos out. Our first album was barely out. We had that opportunity to tour with Dahlia, and the opportunity really came about mostly from the fact that Trevor just vouched for us.”

Those shows certainly helped put the openers on the national death metal map, but they were also some of the best gigs Dahlia had ever played.

Longtime supporters who had been cooped up in their houses for over a year came back ready to raise hell, and a new generation of fans who hadn’t seen them before turned out in droves.

All that pent-up demand helped turn the tour into a death metal bacchanalia.

“That energy could definitely be felt,” Eschbach remembers. “Even before that, I was going to shows at home, like, ‘Something’s happening? I don’t care if they’re farting on a snare drum! I’m gonna go see it!’ It was just great.

Everyone was having the best fucking time, because they were starved for that shit for so long. They came out wild as fuck.”

It would be over a year between the final show of that tour and the next Black Dahlia gig, and almost 18 months before the start of their next proper tour. During that time, the band grappled not only with the loss of their frontman, but with the forced inertia of sitting still again, just when it seemed like things were getting rolling. When they finally did get ready to go back out in the spring of 2023, with Eschbach on vocals, they once again called on Undeath. Thanks in part to Dahlia’s co-sign, the Rochester death metal crew had gone from the virtual unknowns who played first-of-five on Strnad’s final tour to club headliners in their own right.

“It was a complete no-brainer, just how it was when we got asked to do the tour with Trevor,” Jones says. “It was just like, ‘Yeah, just let us know where and when, and we’re there.’ We were really excited. There was some curiosity there, of course, of how they were gonna pull this off. I knew Brian was the man for the job, 100 percent. And I knew that they were gonna be great from the moment I heard they were coming back. But you want to see it in action.

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All you can do until you actually see the band perform is assume how it’s gonna go.”

Indeed, to play a single memorial show is one thing, but to thrive amidst the rigors of the road, performing night in and night out, is quite another. It’s easy to blow out your voice doing death metal vocals for an hour-plus every night, and Eschbach learned to lean on some time-honored tricks: “I was drinking a lot of tea, which I wasn’t all about, but it helps. And just hydration. Just keep drinking until you’re peeing all the time. That helps.”

What wasn’t a major concern was whether this version of the band would work out. There’s a combined 65 years of Black Dahlia Murder experience among the current members, and even though this specific five-man group is new, chemistry wasn’t a problem. Within a few shows, this version of Dahlia was deep in the groove and firing on all cylinders.

Undeath only tagged along for the first couple of shows on that initial tour with Eschbach on vocals, but Jones was immediately ready to declare the experiment a success. “It felt great,” he says of watching this new Dahlia bloom.

“Clearly, [Eschbach] is a guy who has been on tour for a very long time and knows how to control a room, knows how to work a crowd. He’s a natural fit for the role. I don’t think there’s anybody out there who could be doing it better than him. It was extremely cool to watch him step into those shoes.”

For the Dahlia guys, the tour finally opened the door to what felt like a long-awaited step forward.

“I think we were all on the same page of really wanting to get back to normal,” Cassidy confirms, invoking that much-repeated word again. There’s been a new Black Dahlia Murder album practically every other year since 2003. Normal, for them, means a lot more than just playing shows.

It means writing and recording new music.

TO CREATE ONCE MORE

The Black Dahlia Murder’s songs are premedi-

tated, not crimes of passion; everything is rooted in authorial intent. “I think we’re all kind of autonomous control freaks in our songwriting, and we like to have the idea as fleshed-out as we can get it before we show it to each other,” Ellis says. “Maybe just to make sure everybody gets the idea, rather than be like, ‘Hey, I’ve got 20 seconds of music. You guys want to check it out?’

We end up fleshing our own songs out and then contributing it to the group, and then everyone kind of talks about things and figures out how we’re gonna do it together.”

The music for each of the first nine Black Dahlia Murder albums was written by Eschbach and another guitarist—sometimes Knight, sometimes Ellis, the long-departed John Kempainen on the earliest albums. Servitude marks the first time that three writers have contributed songs to a Dahlia record. Eschbach wrote “Evening OCT 2024 ≥

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Ephemeral,” “Aftermath,” and “Utopia Black.”

Ellis, who had been the chief songwriter on Verminous, contributed “Panic Hysteric,” “Servitude” and “Transcosmic Blueprint.” And Knight, making his return to the band, wrote “Mammoth’s Hand,” “Cursed Creator” and “Asserting Dominion.”

“To get three different perspectives, or ideas from three different dudes who have written a bunch of Black Dahlia Murder songs, I feel like there’s more variety to the album, even though everything is within the margins of the Black Dahlia sound,” Eschbach says, and he’s right.

Servitude is remarkably diverse without ever feeling disjointed. Knight and Ellis, who have both served tours of duty in Arsis, wrote some of the album’s most technically demanding riffs.

Eschbach’s songs are a little groovier, on average, and a little more atmospheric. Everybody left plenty of room for the big melodies that remain a Black Dahlia signature. Lavelle and Cassidy didn’t start any songs, but they sure as hell finished them, with a barrage of diabolically lockedin rhythms and canny grace notes. The rhythm section is the longest tenured unit that performs on Servitude, and that shows.

Having three writers also alleviated some pressure by lightening the usual workload for each one of them. In the past, a Black Dahlia songwriter was responsible for coming up with half an album. On Servitude, with only a third of a record to write, they could spend the necessary time to really drill down each riff, each chorus, each song. “This was a whole new world,” Eschbach confirms. “You pick your three ideas and flesh them out. Don’t worry about anything else. Make that shit as sick as you can.”

Through their first 20 years of existence, the Black Dahlia Murder were defined, as much as anything, by their lyrics. Strnad was a generationally gifted death metal lyricist, bringing a bold and unusual perspective to well-worn themes like horror, violence and the occult. (He also sang, albeit often cryptically, about his own mental health struggles—though some songs, like “To a Breathless Oblivion” and “Receipt,” are so frank about suicidal ideation that they’re difficult to listen to now.) Fans felt closer to the band through Strnad’s lyrics, and the care he put into writing them helped separate the Black Dahlia Murder’s work from the glut of records dedicated to blood, guts and Satan. That all meant that Eschbach had his work cut out for him when he sat down to write the words for Servitude. On his first album as the band’s lyricist, he manages to thread an impressively tight needle, producing turns of phrase and miniature narratives that feel distinct from Strnad’s work, yet unmistakably Black Dahlia.

“I wasn’t trying to put my own spin on it. That’s just gonna happen,” he demurs. “But I definitely knew there’s a way you say things that’s creepy, or classic. That was the only guide there, really.”

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One major highlight is “Mammoth’s Hand,” a brutal depiction of a barbarian raid, inspired by that enduring piece of ’80s sword-and-sorcery schlock, The Beastmaster. The song, sung from the perspective of the attacking marauders, is both rightfully grim and a lot of goofy fun—not unlike the scene in the film it most directly draws upon. “I was definitely thinking about the Jun horde taking the village in the first 10 minutes of the movie, and all that imagery.” Eschbach says. “Those are the first titties I ever saw, too. The lady’s running towards the camera with her top off. It’s, like, less than a fourth of a second, but they’re there.”

Elsewhere, on the ode to rock ‘n’ roll debauchery “Panic Hysteric,” Eschbach directly quotes Frank Sinatra: “[Rock ‘n’ roll is] the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression.” Sinatra’s words, taken from a 1957 interview, were meant as a criticism of the scandalous new art form. Eschbach incorporates them into a celebration of the genre’s pestiferous potential and a gob of spit in the face of our latest neoSatanic Panic: “We all know what they most fear / Empty pews and dens full of sin … In time,

we’ll corrupt all your hearts and minds / We stimulate and tantalize and make you undulate.”

Hell yeah, brother.

“That was a good Sunday morning drink,” Eschbach says. “I just went to the bar, put in my headphones, listened to that song and was like, ‘What if this song was about this?’ And I started looking up people talking shit about rock ‘n’ roll.

And that Frank Sinatra interview is just great.

I knew that people were saying rock ‘n’ roll was just the most evil thing, and it’s gonna be the end of society. So, I just was reading stuff about that, and it came out of that.”

REMEMBER OUR

UNHOLY PURPOSE

Everybody who plays on Servitude has played on

plenty of Black Dahlia Murder records before.

Eschbach has been on 10, including the new one; Cassidy, Knight and Lavelle have appeared on five apiece; and Ellis is now on his third. All that experience means that, despite the inherent discomfort of Strnad’s absence, the actual recording of Servitude wasn’t especially uncomfortable. The newness of the reconfigured lineup did, however, allow the band to reset and redefine some things about their process. A lot of that begins with Ellis, who stepped fully into an in-house producer role on Servitude after helping out with the recording of Verminous.

“On Verminous, I never really considered myself the producer,” Ellis says. “I just wanted to handle recording the guitars. Especially recording myself, because on Nightbringers, I went in and Ryan Williams recorded the guitars and the bass.

He recorded everything on Nightbringers, and it’s uncomfortable to have someone else recording you playing guitar when you’re used to recording your own stuff all the time. So, for Verminous, I asked if I could record the guitars and the bass— and I guess the vocals—as well. It just became a good idea, because we didn’t have to rent a studio to do it. Everyone could just come over and take as long as it was gonna take, and I would have the sessions for the songs, and we’d have a lot more quality control over it that way. And then Brian decided to credit me as producer on Verminous, I think.

“This time around, it was like, if I’m the producer, I’m going to actually do the job of producer, and actually go to drum tracking and sit there with [co-producer] Mark [Lewis] during the mixing and everything,” Ellis continues.

“That was different for me. I went to Nashville for the drum recording with Alan, and Brian and Ryan went as well, just to all be there to see our songs played. I sat there and edited the drums with Alan and Mark, and we made a lot of artistic decisions.”

On an album already marked by new teamups, the most significant might have been the one that brought Ellis and Lewis together behind the mixing desk. Lewis produced all of the Black Dahlia Murder’s albums from 2007’s Nocturnal to 2015’s Abysmal, but he wasn’t a part of Nightbringers or Verminous, Ellis’s first two records with the band. There was an instant kismet when the two producers finally got to sit down together.

“It was significantly different, in a good way,” Lewis says. “I think the world of all those guys, but I really think it’s cool how Brandon has really found his way in recording. He has a very similar workflow to me, so it was very comfortable for him to come down and for us to go crazy. At times, we’re both so nuts that maybe we went too far into the rabbit hole, because we’re both so analytical. But we left with all the answers. I’m not saying that we knew everything, but we had all the answers to the questions we had about what we could do to make it the best it could be.”

Ellis and Lewis had two main (and interlocking) goals in recording Servitude: They wanted it to sound raw, and they wanted it to sound the way the Black Dahlia Murder sound live.

“To do that, you have to immerse yourselves, all together, in the situation,” Ellis says.

“I think that is really critical to the sound of the album,” Lewis adds. “I think it’s challenging for some people, too, especially with just how doctored shit is now. Not to get sideways on you, but you have this whole sect of tech-metal guys, where there’s no human element left to what they’re doing. It’s also a big part of the arena pop-metal thing. And the Dahlia record is so fucking raw, and so analyzed from a sonic

I’M EXCITED TO GET THIS WHOLE ALBUM OUT,

TO BASICALLY SHOW PEOPLE WHAT WE’VE WORKED ON FOR A YEAR, WHAT WE’VE COME UP WITH TOGETHER IN ABSENCE OF TREVOR.

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standpoint, that it really stands out.

That’s a big part of Brandon and myself, and how we set out to capture the whole thing.”

That dedication to rawness manifested not only in the mix, but in the performances themselves. Ellis and Knight both learned all the rhythm guitar parts, including the ones written by Eschbach, and each guitarist recorded the songs in full. On the final album, the entire left channel is Ellis, and the entire right channel is Knight. It sounds exactly the way it would sound if you were standing in the middle of the pit at a Dahlia show, getting sandblasted by 100 dBs. “I feel like there’s more personality in having two different people on the track,” Ellis says. “It makes the whole thing sound wider and bigger and more like a real band playing. That was something I knew was going to be a lot of work to add to the workload, to be like, ‘Hey guys, let’s do this this time.’ But it was just part of that effort, where we wanted to do everything we could to make this album as proper as possible.”

The effort paid off, and Servitude is precisely the kind of statement the band needed to make as they approached this crossroads. It’s a Black Dahlia record through and through, respectful of the band’s past, but not beholden to it. It shows

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reverence for what Strnad accomplished in his 20 years as the band’s frontman, but it also pushes forward into a bright future, introducing the new era of the band with a murderers’ row of sharp, frequently surprising songs.

“I hope it’s challenging for people, in a good way,” Lewis says. “I think art should be challenging. I’m so proud of them and the songs they wrote, and the roads we went down, sonically.

Just to say, ‘This is this band.’ They didn’t do anything just to make people happy. They did everything they wanted to do, and I think that’s the amazing part about the record.”

STILL AMONGST THE LIVING

The first time the Black Dahlia Murder appeared

on the cover of Decibel, they were all in their 20s.

Only Eschbach remains from the police-lineupstyle photoshoot in that issue, and, well, he’s not in his 20s anymore. (He also doesn’t really remember the shoot, but he does remember what he wore for it: “I love that fuckin’ Aeon shirt. I probably fill that out now.”) Yet, through a nearconstant state of change, Dahlia have remained near the heartbeat of the underground metal scene, and that’s where we always try to be as well. Twenty years into our run, and a little longer than that into theirs, we’re still—to abuse a metal cliché—bonded by blood.

“I found out about some interesting and fucking cool acts just flipping through the pages that I might have taken longer to find,”

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Eschbach says. “It’s pretty remarkable how Albert [Mudrian] continues to have his ear to the ground the way that he does and present such an eclectic telling of what’s going on in the metal world this month.”

That the Black Dahlia Murder are still one of those fucking cool acts after all these years, and after weathering such a devastating tragedy, is a testament to their status as one of the great American metal bands of the 21st century.

They’re back with a true ass-stomper of an album in Servitude, and they’re excited about the future. They also sound defiant, with a little chip on their collective shoulder. They’ve earned that.

“I’m excited to get this whole album out, to basically show people what we’ve worked on for a year, what we’ve come up with together in absence of Trevor,” Cassidy says. “I’m excited to get back out to the rest of the world and play where we haven’t gone yet, or to spend a little more time there again, and to have those first performances in this new lineup and tell everybody, ‘Hey, we’re back, and we care about this, and we want to be here and do this. Hopefully, you do, too. Let’s fucking rock out together.’”

“And if you don’t want to, if you don’t like what we’re doing, you still have nine albums,” Eschbach adds. “It doesn’t take away from your love of the Black Dahlia Murder or Trevor that we continue to live our lives and make Black Dahlia Murder music.”

DARKDESCENTRECORDS.COM D A R K D E S C E N T R E C O R D S . B A N D C A M P. C O M

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INSIDE ≥

84 AVMAKT Grieghallen' ass!

88 GOD DETHRONED Failures for God

ALL THE NOISE THAT FITS

90 KANONENFIEBER Das ist mir Wurst 90 MELT-BANANA Do the math 92 RIPPED TO SHREDS Mass of killing capacity

Everything Elsewhere All at Once

OCTOBER

Death metal cosmonauts BLOOD INCANTATION delve into the human psyche on psychedelic new epic

2

Bands that have Decibel Hall of Fameinducted albums

5

Bands that have contributed to the Decibel Flexi Series

6

Bands that performed Decibel events

3

Bands that are former Decibel cover stars

F

ive years ago, i gave Blood Incantation’s Hidden History of the Human Race a rare perfect score. The album’s ambiBLOOD tious widescreen scope was a quantum leap forward for INCANTATION the Denver death metal quartet. As I listened to the record’s Absolute 18-plus-minute finale, I recall hoping the genre would be inspired Elsewhere CENTURY MEDIA by this band’s boldness for the next decade. Blood Incantation followed that achievement with an ambient record devoid of growls and blasts.

As Vonnegut wrote in Slaughterhouse Five, so it goes. ¶ If you’re reading Decibel, your first question for this record is likely, “Are they back to playing death metal?” Short answer: Yes. But with Blood Incantation, the genre isn’t precious hallowed ground protected by rigid rites and rules. Death metal is a playground composed of old bones.

Absolute Elsewhere—the band’s second release from Century Media—indulges their most hallucinatory and kaleidoscopic whims while returning to the boneyard.

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK RUDOLPH [MARKRUDOLPH.COM]

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Absolute Elsewhere radiates the band’s reverence for ’70s prog and synthesizers. The album is named after an obscure prog project known primarily as a one-off collab for drummer Bill Bruford (yes, King Crimson). The band and producer Arthur Rizk even recorded at the historic Hansa Studios in Berlin, where David Bowie, Brian Eno, Depeche Mode and Tangerine Dream all crafted records in their prime. Speaking of Tangerine Dream, their current band leader Thorsten Quaeschning has his electric fingerprints all over this record.

Absolute Elsewhere is split into two 20-plusminute halves: Side A is “The Stargate,” with “The Message” haunting the B side. Each side is divided into three seamless “tablets” (or movements). But revealing the exact peculiarity of each chapter robs the album of its charm.

Frontman Paul Riedl says the album “has a human playfulness living in it,” and that point can’t be stressed enough. It’s best experienced with undivided attention, unless you’re puff puff passing with some other heshers. At times, Absolute Elsewhere is wildly technical, with a monstrous performance from always-awesome drummer Isaac Faulk. But the album thrives as a collision of disparate vibes.

Passages of retro synths and cosmic ambient morph into lounge-psych peppered with flutes and droning clean vocals. But those moments of tie-dyed technicolor summer end like a bad trip.

Screaming guitars quickly extinguish all light; picture Pink Floyd if they shocked everyone with gutturals on Animals. The record uncompromisingly captures the band’s identity in its purest form yet.

Each song is an astral spell that melts preconceived boundaries about what death metal can and can’t sound like. Like Nocturnus and Atheist and Opeth before them, Blood Incantation’s greatest contribution to death metal is refusing to leave the genre the same as they found it. —SEAN FRASIER

AVMAKT

8

Satanic Inversion of…

PEACEVILLE

Darker throne

Many of you will already be aware of this black metal duo by virtue of a hotly traded demo, Fenriz’s endorsement and a Peaceville compilation appearance. If not, no matter. Satanic Inversion of… is quite the introduction, a record that sounds like it is tearing the cone as it shambles out of the speakers.

Opening track “Ordinance” is probably just about on the grid, jolting between loosey-goosey mid-tempo malevolence to head-rattling blasts, with high-end cymbal fizz and fuzz pedal the connective tissue holding it all together. The 84 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

effect of all this raw noise, unfiltered musical ideas colliding with one another, is invigorating. Everything in our world feels all too predictable, either forecasted by data or habituated into us day by day. Avmakt’s debut reconnects us with the unpredictable—which is a little ironic, bordering on the miraculous, given that Christoffer Bråthen (vocals/guitar/bass) and Kristian Valbo (drums/vocals/bass) trade in sounds that will be more than familiar to anyone with a passing interest in Norwegian black metal.

That said, it’s what you do with those sounds.

Bråthen and Valbo—who have plenty of experience in black metal and adjacent fields, playing live with the likes of Aura Noir and Obliteration— demonstrate a keen ear for feral nastiness, pulling together hypnotic past-midnight epics like “Sharpening Blades of Cynicism,” a full 10 minutes of madness that makes its way from the demo to here, resolving itself in bleak minimalism, the track bleeding out before us. This is the best black metal album of 1994 to be made in 2024. What was it that Bråthen said about the record’s theme being “futureless”? He might be onto something. —JONATHAN HORSLEY

BANGLADEAFY

7

Vulture

N E FA R I O U S I N D U S T R I E S

Second PIVIXKI reference in 20 years achieved

Listen, man. I mean, really. Listen. It’s only 24 minutes of high-energy pastel-punk synth ‘n’ drum savvy. It’s worth the time. It’s worth your attention. It’s new Bangladeafy, and since that always means Bangladeafy being something new, it’s worth finding out how new Bangladeafy have decided to be this time out.

Pre-pandemic Bangladeafy records take me back to a time when the classic Relapse roster reserved a little space for rhythm wonks like Don Caballero and Dysrhythmia, when a group like those piano/drum nasties PIVIXKI could land on Decibel’s Top 40 of the year list. (Look ’em up; that shit ruled.) Bangladeafy’s addition of synths and vocals on 2020’s Housefly updated their sound to a more evenly medicated Genghis Tron, or maybe an Author & Punisher jam played at a specially engineered 60 rpm. None of these albums are long—maxing out at 15-20 minutes per release, updating your Bangladeafy awareness from zero to caught-up takes no more than an hour. Do it. Listen.

Which brings us to Vulture, where the NY duo has shifted the vibe yet again. The vocals grab a bit more of the spotlight here, lending some of these tracks a bit of Freedom-era Refused swagger. The instrumental parts trade off an oddball

bounce (“Pastures”) with the occasional spacey gazing (“Don’t Take My Light Away”) and some predatory alien bone-gnawing (“Belly Up”).

Of course, all these reference points feel inadequate and possibly off-base, since I’m pretty confident that Bangladeafy’s record collection (“Dude, it’s 2024, don’t you mean ‘playlist curation?’”) looks substantially different from mine. But none of that should matter. When it’s such a small investment of time, don’t be a birdbrain. Listen. —DANIEL LAKE

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER

8

Servitude

M E TA L B L A D E

Into the void

The gaping vortex adorning the Black Dahlia Murder’s latest unhallowed sacrament perfectly represents the hole left by former frontman Trevor Strnad after he hit his off button two years ago. Beloved as he was, TBDM are bigger than just him, so the remaining members decided to press on. His presence may be missed on their 10th studio record, but Servitude undeniably carries on their tradition of quality.

This very much feels like a TBDM album because it is: Everyone here is part of the family. Co-founding rhythm guitarist Brian Eschbach moved over to replace Strnad’s screams, and while his snarl doesn’t possess quite as much character as his predecessor’s, he still learned from the best. Meanwhile, former lead guitarist Ryan Knight returns to handle Eschbach’s old job. His experience lets him lock in with current lead Brandon Ellis to unleash some truly sick dual guitar action on highlights like “Aftermath,” the title track and the dizzying “Transcosmic Blueprint.” It's a fitting homage to their fallen friend.

In fact, the highest praise one could give this is that it sounds like the kind of death metal record Strnad himself would’ve loved.

At a brisk 33 minutes, there’s no real fat, just a collection of raging riffs and solid gold grooves that never overstays its welcome. This should serve as incontrovertible evidence to those skeptical of the band’s decision to continue: The Black Dahlia Murder still kill. —JEFF TREPPEL

CROBOT

7

Obsidian MEGAFORCE

Pure rock fury

Crobot have always been that band you wish would be what you hear when you throw on your local rock radio station. Their feet are firmly

DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2024 : 85

Much like he did for Mastodon’s “Blood and Thunder” back in the day, Clutch singer Neil Fallon blesses Crobot with a guest spot on “The Flood.” Here he plays narrator, offering the psychedelic cut an extra layer of sword-and-sorcery dramatics. Their commitment to hard rock even comes through with a Black Album ballad on ending track “Happiness,” except less cringy.

Is this album powerful enough to topple over modern rock radio conventions and get some goddamn riffs back to the airwaves? Nah. But it’s still something you’d kill your tape deck with.

—JOHN HILL

CRYSTAL VIPER

8

The Silver Key LISTENABLE

Hail, kill, then go for a beer

Power metal fans might take umbrage, but the best era for everyone’s favorite swashbuckling,

8

DEFILED

Horror Beyond Horror Past the highest level | S E A S O N O F M I S T

Pendulum swinging back and forth, back and forth, like some sword of Damocles inherent to any recording session ever, Horror Beyond Horror again finds Defiled stuck on the upswing. With their eighth studio album since 1992, the Tokyo death metal longhairs’ third pandemic-era disc completes a fouryear hothouse of peak ability, creativity and volatility. Yusuke Sumita’s self-proclaimed “samurais of sickness” slay.

Debut Erupted Wrath (1999) and followup Ugliness Revealed (2001) remain unavailable, but their early murderers’ row

86 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

lineup finally floated Divination (2003), a gas planet of big, phat sonic eruptions. Conflagration guitars, schizoid drums and vocals spasming magma from the center of the Earth eradicated all jagged edges via its blast furnace. Eight years of silence followed. In Crisis (2011) finally reanimated, less acid rain than atomic hail, and bulbous still, while also now trebly atop a broader tableau of sonic ruin.

Towards Inevitable Ruin (2016) marked a midpoint between its pair of predecessors, deconstructing the genre’s trademark wall of impenetrability for a more splattered, porous

beer-quaffing subgenre was the period when bands made rip-roaring heavy music without having any idea that their music would eventually be called “power metal.” Imagine 1984 through 1987, when nerds worldwide—Florida, Sweden, South America and especially Germany— combined elements of their fave bands to create something that was high-energy, flamboyant, aggressive, catchy and incredibly fun. Cirith Ungol, Savatage, Jag Panzer and Helloween all made rule-breaking records that turned heads in the underground and stood proudly between Iron Maiden and Slayer.

What makes Crystal Viper so consistently enjoyable is their devotion to that mid-’80s era, studiously evoking such albums as Walls of Jericho and Ample Destruction. The Silver Key is the Polish band’s ninth album, and just might be their best, thanks in large part to their exceptional knowledge of every nuance of that classic sound. The rapid-fire pace of the bulk of these tunes is irresistible, but the album truly shines when Marta

palette—room to breathe, air even, although fetid. January 2020 ultimately orphaned Infinite Regress, a fireball of epitome blort, while last year’s The Highest Level matched its title to the quartet’s production uptick. Plus: “We composed music everyone could clearly understand,” Sumita revealed at the time.

Horror Beyond Horror thus slices and dices all Defiled eras into one. The bandleading axe-grinder achieves a bullseye balance between the guitars, Keisuke Hamada’s kit insanity and tongue-rolling, larynx-hacking, epiglottal-shredding vocals from Shinichiro Hamada. Chopped riffs and beats (“Smoke & Mirrors”), interior tech-prog (“The Alchemy”), carpet-bombing pit provocation (“The Terminal Phase”), sprint ‘n’ swarm (“Trojan Horse”) and polyrhythmic roil (“The Crook & Flail”) all kill.

Kamikaze! —RAOUL HERNANDEZ

PHOTO BY SHIGENORI ISHIKAWA

planted in the (correct) perspective that big-ass guitars are what make the genre viable and exciting. Their latest full-length, Obsidian (it’s a type of rock, get it?), shows their philosophy shine bright.

The eponymous opener is a nice taste of what to expect: a whole lot of grit and some monster hooks. Retro electronic textures pepper out the fast-tempo rocking, giving another dimension to their assault. That grit manifests by ending the song in a pleasantly ignorant mosh riff, giving a perfect lead to “Come Down”’s chugging start. Mastermind Brandon Yeagley’s voice will call to mind Glenn Hughes when he’s laying the swagger on thick, leading the charge for the music’s forward propulsion. More than their other modern sludge rock contemporaries, it’s Yeagley’s penchant for being at the forefront of the song that helps differentiate Crobot from the pack, versus letting the guitars do all the work.

“Disappear” shows off his range right from the jump, as he hits sky-high notes over the riffage.

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Gabriel and company take the odd breather. If there were any justice, the majestic title track would be regarded as a modern power metal classic. Piano ballad “Wayfaring Dreamer” cleverly sidesteps schmaltz in a shocking moment of vulnerability, a perfect little reset before the triumphant closing trifecta of “Escape From Yaddith,” “Cosmic Forces Overtake” and the delightfully worded “God of Thunder of Wind and of Rain.”

You’ll be hard-pressed to find another power metal album as splendid as this one in 2024.

—ADRIEN BEGRAND

DECEASED

8

Children of the Morgue HELLS HEADBANGERS

Strollin’ through the streets of Paris

Off the backs of two covers albums, Rotten to the Core Part 2 (The Nightmare Continues) and the brilliantly named Thrash Times at Ridgemont High, sorta Virginia-based legends Deceased haunt our chapel yet again with Children of the Morgue. The continuation of 2018 barn burner Ghostly White would be obvious, but Deceased aren’t easily confined to past accomplishments. In fact, the Old Dominion denizens have iterated cleverly on their nearly 40 years of mettle, infusing new (albeit subtle) strains of influence and fandom into their deathly metal.

This is also true of Children of the Morgue.

After gateway “Destination: Morgue” bleeds into the title track, Deceased—fronted by affable motormouth King Fowley—put on a masterclass of dissonance (think Voivodian) and vibrancy (think Di’Anno-era Maiden) without sounding like either. OK, there’s a definite homage to King’s fave Quebeckers at the four-minute mark (right before the kids-playing sample). Nevertheless, the title track is the spark for Children of the Morgue. “Terrornaut” is an opposing track, bright like Killing Joke in spots, thrashy dark like Repulsion, where it fuses with “The Reaper Is Nesting.”

Actually, Deceased have flipped the traditional album script here. Many songs have intros or spoken passages, or ooze into each other. To that end, Children of the Morgue resembles a grim, if thunderous, movie score. It has an atmosphere, conceptual or not. Elsewhere, Deceased slow down the hearse on “The Gravedigger,” “Fed to Mother Earth” and the middle-eight of “Brooding Lament.” These are welcome respites to the high-action and fast-moving aggression uncoiled by longtime axeman Mike Smith and ripper Shane Fuegel. As (death) metal OGs, Deceased are fucking burning brightly, and there’s no reason we should try to stop them. —CHRIS DICK 88 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

DOLDREY

7

Only Death Is Eternal P U LV E R I S E D

Five for fighting

Cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson dubbed Singapore “Disneyland with the death penalty” in a 1993 nonfiction piece for Wired about the Southeast Asian city-state’s crushing cultural conformity and unrelenting blandness. Gibson described an artificially cheerful dystopia of generic malls, with no apparent counterculture or spirit of rebellion; a place where they executed people for smuggling weed and sent unmarried thirtysomethings to government-mandated singles mixers. Safe to say there probably weren’t a lot of copies of The IVth Crusade and Utopia Banished getting passed around.

Yet somehow, the spirit of rebellion found its way to the members of Doldrey, who have been puking out rabid, crust-infused death metal since 2018, no doubt making polite Singaporean society’s monocles fall out simply by existing.

Only Death Is Eternal is another five-song release, like their demo and debut EP, following their 2022 LP Celestial Deconstruction. The band’s ability to invoke the attitude and urgency of punk while playing straight-up death metal songs is a constant across all of them.

Those Bolt Thrower and Napalm Death references above weren’t an accident—check out “Societal Machine” for the heaviest dose of the former—and honestly, you could swap in their fellow Grindcrusher alums Morbid Angel and Terrorizer and still hit the mark. Opener “Moral Decay” dips into evil thrash and a chaotic Hanneman/King-style lead, “All Is Hell” is the all-go-no-slow one, while closer “Keres” sticks to an infernal trudge for its first half. This is the kind of record true heads can listen to and know exactly how the crowd would be moshing to every part when Doldrey play live, and appreciators of the superior physical format can cop the cassette from Iron Lung Records. —ANTHONY BARTKEWICZ

EXECUTIONER’S MASK

7

…Almost There SEEING RED

Slim hopes on tight ropes

The first two Executioner’s Mask’s albums immediately spawned dozens of remix tracks. Are we really comfortable reviewing the new one now, before any of the songs have been picked apart, reassembled and reimagined? It’s an open question how instructive such an exercise might be.

A descriptive deep dive into the sonic elements of …Almost There runs the risk of mimicking the

blandest Wiki breakdown of post-punk, but the music here deserves a more robust vocabulary.

The first track, “Devoured,” introduces itself with a grungy heaviness that is never really matched as the album plods along. On a few tracks—notably “Mezcal Perfume” and “On Park Row”—the tone is set by coruscating shards of gauzy guitar, sounding sublimely akin to Converge’s 2004 track “First Light.”

As songs unfold, the dissonant shoegaze blur of guitar chimes, distorts and dissolves like overlapping blots of multicolored ink droplets blossoming through some clear liquid medium.

Melodies unfurl from those interleaved chord shapes or are buried by them. The density of those layers is worth the careful excavation of repeated listens.

Music like this is fascinating because all that gorgeously squalling guitar could be placed in myriad genres, depending on the accompanying approaches to drums and vocals. Those straightforward four-on-the-floor beats (with syncopated flourishes, admittedly) tend to anchor these songs in the post-punk aesthetic, where blast beats might have nudged the same guitar stems toward black metal territory; a more narcotic trudge might have recalled something like Nadja.

It’s Jay Gambit’s vocals, though, that really pin EM’s tail to the stylistic donkey—that despondent baritone drawl stalks through songs like a grumbling super down some grimy, fluorescentdim cinderblock hallway. Somehow, EM’s music is grouchy and glamorous in equal measure, and if you’ve got time in your day for that contradiction, …Almost There might be just the pill for you.

—DANIEL LAKE

GOD DETHRONED

5

The Judas Paradox REIGNING PHOENIX

Neverlasting fire

Think hard and bunches of similarities between the lives and times of God Dethroned and Immolation come to mind. Both have been around since robust hairlines were a thing, have double-digit discographies, were Metal Blade labelmates in the ’90s, and use anti-religion and World Wars as thematic focuses. On top of all that, despite the respect both bands have amassed amongst peers and the underground, neither have truly gotten their due. Next thing you know someone will develop the hare-brained scheme to chronicle their history in book form.

Where their paths diverge is in Immolation having never released a sub-par album and continuing to get better with age. God Dethroned, on the other hand, have been veering away from quality’s left-hand path ever since concluding

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the WWI-themed album triptych with 2017’s The World Ablaze. These Dutch veterans are again pointing arthritic fingers at religious mythology, faith’s deleterious acts and secrets, and—like their Yonkers-based brethren—the perpetual battle between good and evil. Though it’s hard to say who the winner is here.

The Judas Paradox starts with the majesticsounding title track and its incorporation of steeple-height guitar tones, harmonized orchestral melodies and baritone banshee vocals all presented cleanly, orderly and as precise as the corners of a military bed. Despite being an overall, on-paper positive, this hermetically sealed trait weaves through the album’s entirety and contributes to an undeniable sameness across most of the board. After four or five of the 11 songs on tap (give it up for “Asmodeus” for breaking the mold), the one-dimensionality quickly taxes ears and patience. At some point, especially if this is on auto-repeat, The Judas Paradox becomes a blur, with the most discouraging part being that you won’t even realize when that blur began. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

KANONENFIEBER

8

Die Urkatastrophe CENTURY MEDIA

Cannonball Run II

Being a metal nerd and a history nerd have always gone hand in hand. Few things are as wellrepresented by metal’s auditory spectrum as the horrors of war, and it’s a feeling Kanonenfieber expresses well. Led by anonymous bandleader Noise (great mononym, to be honest), the group was inspired by his discovery of his great-grandfather’s diary from World War I. Their latest record, Der Urkatastrophe, puts the listener in the trenches, with Noise singing from a frontline perspective. Opener “Menschenmühle” is blackened death metal at its ugliest, with Noise screaming “Deutschland, Deutschland” over and over. Noise borrows heavily from the black metal side of that scale; his snarls are pained and unpolished. “Der Maulwurf,” which translates to “mole,” describes the endless digging of foxholes, being forced to do hard labor under the fear of death. The guitar work does a fantastic job of capturing that endless toiling, ending with the narrator turning his gun on himself and pulling the trigger.

The good times keep on rolling, as “Waffenbrüder” enlists Heaven Shall Burn guitarist Maik Weichert to come through with some killer riffage. Things hit a peak with “Ausblutungsschlacht”—or “battle of attrition”—which recounts the events of the Battle of Verdun.

There’s no real victory to be had here, just the 90 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

recollection of an extremely costly embattlement over the band’s hardest work.

Kvlt grognards may find the production to be a little too clean, but that’s the only thing on the record that isn’t totally filthy. It’s a hell of a listen, and though it’s a worthy endeavor to translate the lyrics as you listen along, it stands tall from a purely musical standpoint.

—JOHN HILL

MELT-BANANA

8

3+5

A-ZAP

Accept all cookies

While not a Luddite, I am admittedly slow and/or hostile to the quick moves technology makes in order to insert itself into our lives. I’m even slower and more hostile to the expectation that we jump on whatever newfangled bullshit the tech world says we need to jump onto. I may not entirely say “fuck you” to your Instasnaps, Chatgrams, Facecamps, Bandbooks and apps that are actually espionage and data farming tools—but fuck you. Where my stance softens is in the support of whatever gizmos and doodads Yasuko “Yako” Onuki and Ichiro Agata have employed to keep Melt-Banana surviving and thriving since they went the duo route back in 2012. It’s been 11 long years since Fetch and a lot of things have changed—hell, things change in 11 weeks!—including this Tokyo twosome managing to improve and redefine the indescribable sound they’ve held court over since the early ’90s.

Call ’em noise rock, avant-garde, experimental, prog-punk, sunshine grind, electro-pop, Alvin and the Chipmunks-meets-’90s alt-metal on cotton candy crank… sure. All and none of that apply as Melt-Banana arguably remain the most singular-sounding band in extreme music.

It begins with the stained-glass melodic enormity and glissando-coated abrasion of “Code” and ends with J-Pop-spitting slinky rainbows of husky, inhuman blasts in “Puzzle.” Or the massive, lavender-scented chorus of “Scar” pitted against and the raw, strobe-lit shots of punky guitar and panned vocals in “Flipside.” Most impressive is the well-formed phrasing Yako squeezes from her staccato chirp on “Seeds” and “Hex,” and how none of the material feels weighed down by countless layers. Everything from root-note bass and assembly line whirring guitars to the video game sounds and quadrupletracked vocals has a place, and doesn’t oppress the melodic strength in “Stopgap” and “Whisperer.” It’s a case of you listening to technology instead of it listening to you.

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

PATRIARCHS IN BLACK

7

Visioning

M E TA LV I L L E

Visioning thing

In an extreme age when bands rarely expire anymore—original members and recording schedules winnowing and elongating, respectively, until we’re left only with Dio holograms—it feels downright farcical to recall classic rock’s spring/fall release mandate. In the ’60s, acts dropped albums every April and May, then again before Christmas. Patriarchs in Black halves that pace to a sole LP annually, which, on third-album-in-three-years Visioning, results in rapidly liquifying doom as well as an equally swift solidification of concept.

Dyad of guitarist Dan Lorenzo (Hades, Vessel of Light) and drummer John Kelly (Type O Negative, Danzig), the Tri-Staters throw a rent party every album cycle given the number of attendees. 2022’s Reach for the Scars leveraged a grungy girth with a half-dozen friends in quest of O.G. classicism delivered through a prism of doom-loving DIY metal. My Veneration (2023) doubled the guest list in standardizing the duo’s lumber and gate. Visioning enlists a half-dozen bassists and seven singers in massaging out any remaining studio stiffness in service of Lorenzo and Kelly’s alchemic trample.

Jonathan Eng’s woodwind begins like Apocalyptica, his viola exchange with Lorenzo’s axe later on “Birth” bowing bliss. Voicing John Garcia’s desert rockers Unida, Mark Sunshine grows hair on “What Do They Know (for the Champions),” which bleats sunstroke QOTSA in swaggering strides and hangman riffs knotting up lithe—neck-snapping. Ex-Corrosion of Conformity frontman Karl Agell gives as much with “Before I Go,” Soundgarden-y to the point of a Temple of the Dog-like shiver or two.

Mid-tempos could vary, but Exhorder/Trouble vocalist Kyle Thomas, Watchtower yowler Jason McMaster and even Darryl “DMC” McDaniels ride the snake… crawling, coiled, smooth.

—RAOUL HERNANDEZ

PHAËTHON

5

Wielder of the Steel G AT E S O F H E L L

Manowar, anybody?

It’s surely a cliché that anybody who claims to be a metalhead is familiar with: the Manowar song title generator. Feed in some suitably metal words—hammer, gods, steel, good, evil, etc.— put “of” somewhere in the middle, and you have a suitably metal song. Or at least a title. Personally, I cringe a little bit when I see “of” in a song

DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2024 : 91

QAALM

7

First Light of the Last Dawn H Y PA E T H R A L

Ready longplayer two

We might only get two original tracks from the L.A.-based doom trio on this

EP, and for crying out loud, one of these is an acoustic instrumental, but there is still a great ocean of musical information to sink into, a lot of big moods to process as it heaves its way to conclusion. Yes, “Ward 81” pulls a Tony Iommi “Orchid” maneuver on us, a three-minute minorkey exercise of unaccompanied acoustic guitar to bring the blood pressure down. And physical releases of First Light include a bonus track in the form a cover of Black Sabbath’s “Heaven & Hell” that treads lightly on the total heavy metal theater of the Ronnie James Dio era’s defining anthem, sounding more as though it was mic’d up at rehearsal room and tracked live.

But it’s really the title track—with a title itself that could have been brainstormed at a Pink Floyd band meeting in 1973—that betrays the depth of Qaalm’s musical ambitions, hinting at what might come on their forthcoming sophomore album. Indeed, guitarist/vocalist Henry Derek Elis says it was borne out of those same sessions. At any rate, such an epic meditation on “death, the afterworld, religion and reincarnation” can stand alone.

Does this signal a stylistic shift from 2022’s Resilience & Despair? Time will tell. Guitars are still cloaked in reverb, the weight remains crushing, but there is a more melodic tenor—

RIPPED TO SHREDS

9

Sanshi

I pledge allegiance to the flog | R E L A P S E

Ripped to Shreds’ harmonic makeup has always consisted of vintage Swedeath charisma tempered with a healthy dash of grindcore urgency. What that formula didn’t entail until 2022’s Jubian was an actual band, instead operating as the solo enterprise of guitarist/vocalist Andrew Lee. Jubian felt more fully formed than Lee’s previous output while still sounding tres fucking savage.

However, I wasn’t remotely prepared for this…

Sanshi is, simply put, one of the finest albums that I’ve ever had the pleasure to review. I feel like I’ve been clobbered by a Looney Tunes

92 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

anvil: dumbfounded and properly smooshed.

Yeah, l’ll cop to feeling uneasy labeling any album as faultless, but what can I say? It’s an impeccable work.

To build my case, picture Left Hand Path’s HM2-Legit-2-Quit songraft jigsawed by Cripple Bastards detonative distress signals and executed with the razor-wire clarity of Heartworkera Carcass. And as righteously strapped as these tunes are, I absolutely must emphasize how fantastic the record sounds (courtesy of Lee, who also handled Sanshi’s production). That these tracks manage to present themselves

especially in the vocals—that plays out as less harsh, more enigmatic. Some will say Qaalm invoke the Peaceville Three, and that’s definitely a valid reference, but they would similarly make sense on a bill with Baroness and Pallbearer. —JONATHAN HORSLEY

SATAN

7

Songs in Crimson M E TA L B L A D E

BLITZKRIEG

7

Blitzkrieg

MIGHTY MUSIC

Life of Brian

Few classic metal singers are as prolific or reliable as Brian Ross. Forty years into his career, the NWOBHM lifer (and stalwart enemy of both fox hunters and mosh pitters) continues to release material with his two projects, Satan and Blitzkrieg, and this year both bands are dropping albums in the same month.

Blitzkrieg are the more famous of the two bands, thanks to Metallica’s covers of their eponymous song, however this year’s Blitzkrieg

as so grossly feral and simultaneously so polished is a baffling accomplishment.

Example: Drummer Brian Do’s performance favorably recalls late-’80s Charlie Benante (tempestuous, disciplined and clever), yet the drum tones themselves are almost equally choice—and I always, always bitch about drum tone in my reviews.

Sanshi is evocative of a band that has not only mastered, but actually subjugated their craft. It’s a masterwork of protean death grind and an album that I’m doomed to purchase on multiple formats. I’m equally certain that I’ll still be aggravating the normies by blasting Sanshi 20 years from now (Vishnu permitting). Between this and the latest 200 Stab Wounds effort, America’s death metal GNP is as admirably robust as it’s ever been. —FORREST PITTS

PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER JOHNSTON

or album title. It seems lazy and obvious. Four of the eight titles on Wielder of the Steel have “of” in there. So there’s that.

English quartet Phaëthon go places on their latest that I’m sympathetic to stylistically, but they ain’t exactly blazing new trails. It’s fine to be “retro,” but you still have to offer something invigorating and maybe new(ish). None of that here. The vocals are gruff and monotone, the songs uninspiring and, well, they don’t seem to generally be aiming very high.

Also, this album is pretty cheesy, whether by design or (un)happy accident, with “Tolls of Perdition” being the worst offender amongst a sea of atonal vocals, capable musicianship and uninspired songcraft. If Satan, offering one contemporary example, can soar in this realm, no quarter should be given to bands like Phaëthon that bring nothing of note to the table. —ADEM TEPEDELEN

DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2024 : 93

is their first self-titled record. Satan, though, have always been the more interesting of Ross’s bands, owing to guitarist Steve Ramsey, who learned to riff on a right-handed guitar that was strung left-handed, resulting in an atypical and idiosyncratic sensibility that remains on display in Songs in Crimson.

In both projects, Ross reliably delivers memorable choruses, and his knack for melodies and turns of phrase is still strong in 2024 (though occasionally a discerning ear may detect a little computer assistance). That’s no serious critique— the man is nearly 70—and besides, he has a second strength, penning evocative lyrics on his verses. Ross’s words tend to cut deeper in Satan than Blitzkrieg.

To recap the score: Satan are the more interesting band on two fronts, therefore Songs in Crimson is the stronger record, right? Maybe not. Since their 2013 comeback, Satan have had a hot streak of great records, but Songs in Crimson doesn’t stand out from its predecessors so much. In contrast, Blitzkrieg is livelier than that band has sounded since the mid-’80s. Each record regresses to the same NWOBHM mean, but Ross’s batting average remains commendable, and both of his bands still outclass their modern imitators. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

WINTERSUN

4

Time II

UNTO OTHERS, Never, Neverland

8

Bong rips, cowbells and controlled chaos | C E N T U R Y M E D I A

While combining ’80s goth and ’80s metal is not a new idea, Unto Others embraced the idea with gusto on their first two records, displaying a talent for creating brooding music that pulverizes listeners as much as it charms them. But after 2021’s acclaimed Strength, where would they go from there?

It turns out the band wanted to swing for the fences, and on Never, Neverland they connect like Dave Parker launching an eephus pitch into outer space. With Ghost producer Tom Dalgety at the helm, the band throws anything and everything into the mix, and emerge victorious. This should not work this well, but Dalgety harnesses everything like a seasoned pro, creating the craziest metal/rock/punk/pop bouillabaisse we’ve heard in years.

“Butterfly,” “Fame” and the title track tread familiar territory, but the fun’s in the surprises.

“Sunshine” sounds like Trixter—and miraculously works. “When the Kids Get Caught” captures teenage escapism with poetic economy, “Cold World” evokes the ’70s prog-pop of Max Webster, instrumental “Hoops” is a rousing, cowbelldriven jam, and the insane “Flatline” reasserts the band’s metal credibility in 97 throttling seconds. Then there’s the delirious Satan-andweed anthem “Momma Likes the Door Closed,” echoing the energy of Volbeat and tossing in an Infectious Grooves-style breakdown for kicks.

Such a bold step by a metal band feels disorienting in an age when not enough artists take risks, but Unto Others have embraced the role like few are brave enough to attempt.

reckless abandon. No doubt Mäenpää can play, but he can’t save himself from lavish yet forgettable lays. “The Way of the Fire” is not all that different from “Storm.” The “furious speed” Mäenpää hoists as Wintersun’s beacon is pasty and uneventful. There’s no room for his songs to breathe, except when he breaks out an interlude to section off another five-minute blur of Pro Tools orchestral blah. Glitzy, overburdened and ultimately faceless, Time II aims to impress, but it’s barely above below-average. —CHRIS DICK

isolation and peril remains intact—let’s call it their “winter burl.” This is evident on the opening track, “Ancient Cold,” trademarked as Finnish from the kickoff. “The Gale,” “Evenfall” and “Burning Sky” evoke similar experiences.

Throughout Draconian Darkness, Wolfheart ply their brutal melodicism with efficiency. Even though “Grave,” “Throne of Bones” and “Scion of the Flame” assume deathier postures—particularly in the riff selections—prominent orchestral and less-than-convincing vocal inclusions atrophy Wolfheart’s otherwise formidable might.

“Ancient Cold” features an overbearing Dimmuesque cowling, an unnecessary decoration. “Trial

by Fire” is of the same ilk, whereas “Burning Sky” gets the hits treatment, and the song would be better without it. The clean vocals, likely shared by bassist Lauri Silvonen and Vagelis Karzis, are slightly out of place. Hard to pin the exact issue, but apart from a few exceptions, Wolfheart might fare better without the chorus-based formulas.

Again, Wolfheart aren’t moving mountains on Draconian Darkness, but at the very least, it’s obvious this is Wolfheart. In a world of “buffet metal,” where everything is everything (yet nothing), that counts for something. —CHRIS DICK

—ADRIEN BEGRAND

NUCLEAR BLAST

Finnish outfit Wintersun could’ve been the next Children of Bodom. Somewhere along the line— likely the eight-year gap between the band’s beloved self-titled debut and mixed-bag Time I— chief marketer Jari Mäenpää went astray musically and with his burgeoning fanbase. Since Time I, Mäenpää presaged the AI music era with formulaic, computer-aided so-called “Universal Metal,” where “anything” is an influence, and it doesn’t matter what it is as long as it’s trumpeted with absolute pomposity.

For those catching up, Wintersun sit between neutered Finlandia melodic death metal (of the early aughts) and the fly-by-night, by-the-numbers power metal bands Noise Records assemblylined (again, in the early aughts). They’ve been in this unenviable position for the better part of their existence.

Time II is no exception. After a two-minute opener that would make Japanese new age goofballs Himekami (don’t YouTube) blush, Mäenpää and his impressive lineup—featuring buds Kai Hahto (Nightwish), Teemu Mäntysaari (Megadeth) and Jukka Koskinen (Nightwish)— barrel through 10-minute-plus epics with 94 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

WOLFHEART

6

Draconian Darkness N A PA L M

There goes the sun

Tuomas Saukkonen’s resolve is remarkable. Between the death and resurrection shows of Dawn of Solace and Before the Dawn—I’m guessing our man’s a solist—his main squeeze, Wolfheart have pressed their “Nordic metal” template into the annals of metaldom. New album Draconian Darkness picks up where King of the North left off.

Wolfheart’s trademark projection of strength,

PHOTO BY KIM COFFEL

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by

EUGENE S. ROBINSON

OXBOW DEAD. AT 36.

SEND NO FLOWERS L

ife is absolutely amusing.

Totally and completely riotous.

If you’ve been reading here with any kind of regularity, you’ll note, from last month alone, and maybe an occasional peek at the Look What You Made Me Do substack (a name I’d glossed it with well before Taylor Swift lifted it), that when last it was written, OXBOW was in the middle of a tour with Mr. Bungle.

The shows were packed. And high point to end all high points: Mike Patton had me sing the Circle Jerks “World Up My Ass” at one show.

If that wasn’t a high enough high point, then Dave Lombardo telling me how they were going to start it was.

“OK. I’m going to give you a four-count and you come in on the first measure,” Lombardo said. Or something to that effect. I looked at him like my dog used to look at my cellphone. “You got it?”

“Dave, man. I’m the singer. Of course I don’t get it!”

He paused for a bit and then mimed the four-count in the air.

“OK, I’ll click it off. One, two, three, FOUR. Got it?”

96 : OCTOBER 2024 : DECIBEL

Sure. The weirdest full-circle deal, though, is that the first time I was onstage with a band where I wasn’t playing saxophone, it was at a Circle Jerks show. Like I wrote about in my memoir, the whole of Whipping Boy was at a Circle Jerks show and, well, we just thought we should play. So, we sort of insisted that it be so.

Keith Morris was accommodating enough. The one proviso: We couldn’t use their equipment. But the support band, the Effigies, said yes, and so that was the first show I ever did as a singer.

Having Patton, a.k.a. a REAL goddamned singer, ask me to do this?

Straight-up peak experience stuff.

And JUST LIKE THAT… an email from the promoters of a show we had played by ourselves a few nights before. An email alleging some pretty nasty stuff as it was connected to the actions and activities of guitarist Niko Wenner. Zero-tolerance policies did not allow much discussion, or negotiation.

The remaining deal was simple: You can play all of the remaining shows in France, including Hellfest

with Mr. Bungle, Metallica et al, IF you played them without the accused member. There was some discussion of us going Spinal Tap and finishing the shows as a jazz odyssey threesome, but Wenner, who was the first person I called when I realized my bass-playing and drumming, bits and pieces I had already recorded, were deficient enough to make this approach laughable… Wenner was one of what I used to think of as the Bitter Twins, and even before OXBOW he had been pulled into the Whipping Boy orbit by Ron Isa, formerly of hardcore greats BL’AST! Every lyric I had ever written he had made sing with music. Up to and including the last finishing touches on Follow Me Now in Merry Measure, the next OXBOW album, that I had sung the last lyric on six weeks ago, with Joe Chiccarelli at the helm.

And in a fractional blink of an eye… it was all gone.

After months and months of hearing every “edgy” and protoedgy comedian complain about cancel culture and me not giving a rat’s ass about any of their “problems,”

here it was delivered to my doorstep. And I did what I would have advised anyone to do: I quit the band. Days ahead of a statement Wenner released confirming that he was at the nexus of the problem, and that OXBOW was, indeed, done.

Barring some magical intervention.

If I was in the habit of, like Mr. Natural used to advise against, letting my meat loaf, I might be sitting at home crying still about this.

Fortunately for me, I’m clinically manic about making music, and so, come this October, the fourth record (a double album) by BUNUEL, my other band, will be out. It’s called Mansuetude; the lovely folks at Skin Graft are putting it out in the U.S. and Overdrive in Europe.

Am I a sentimentalist? Not while there’s a breath left in my body, and while it’s terribly tragic to have what’s unarguably my life’s work disappear in a puff of smoke and criminal allegations, like my great grandmother used to say, one monkey don’t stop no show.

Will OXBOW ever be back? Who knows? Will I be onstage before this annus horribilis ends? You can count on it.

ILLUSTRATION BY ED LUCE

MUSIC PRESENTED BY

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