Decibel #228 - October 2023 by Red Flag Media

THEIR RIGHT ONES DETHKLOK DRAWING OWN CONCLUSIONS DYING FETUS TO TALK WITH

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OCTOBER 2023 // No. 228

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A Stunning Celebration of the Godfather of Heavy Metal

This exquisite volume features: • Slipcased hardcover format • Incredible concert and offstage photography • Images of memorabilia from throughout Ozzy’s career • Gatefold Ozzy timeline • Commissioned gatefold art depicting Ozzy through the years PART 1: OZZY ZIG SEEKS GIG, 1948–1969

1948

1963

1966

“YOU CAN’T KILL ROCK AND ROLL”

A bat-biting dovedestroyer is born.

DECEMBER 3

AUGUST 23

Ozzy goes to jail. He would be back.

PART 2: BEHIND THE WALL OF SLEEP, 1970–1979

Ozzy and three fellow Brummies start maiming innocent eardrums.

Ozzy et. al. pick a name that sticks— Black Sabbath.

1968

1969

DECEMBER 11

AUGUST 9

Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut is released.

1970

FEBRUARY 13

A local vicar unwittingly eats a cake Ozzy made with hash. Oops.

1972

1973

The band releases Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

The band releases Sabotage as the rot sets in.

A drunken Ozzy goes apeshit with a gun on some innocent chickens.

1973

1975

1976

Ozzy voids his bladder on sacred terrain— the Alamo.

Randy Rhoads dies in a plane crash along with a member of the band’s crew.

DECEMBER 1

JULY 28

Black Sabbath releases Technical Ecstasy, and the wheels start coming off the bus.

Ozzy’s second solo album, Diary of a Madman, is released.

1981

Ozzy bites the head off a dead bat. He never lives it down.

During the Blizzard of Ozz sessions, Ozzy witnessed Randy Rhoads perform one superhuman guitar feat after another.

NOVEMBER 7

JANUARY 20

FEBRUARY 19

1982

OZZY AT 75

1982

MARCH 19

Ozzy releases the Speak of the Devil live album. Some of it is live, anyway.

1976

1982

Black Sabbath releases their last album with Ozzy for many moons, Never Say Die!

Ozzy meets his first wife. By his own admission, he made a hash of the marriage.

Black Sabbath releases Master of Reality, their heaviest album yet.

1970

1971

SEPTEMBER 18

Ozzy gets fired from Black Sabbath. Everything sucks. Boo, hiss.

At his lowest point, Ozzy meets his future wife.

SEPTEMBER 28

1978

1979

Ozzy releases Bark at the Moon, his first album with guitarist Jake E. Lee.

Ozzy schools Mötley Crüe in proper poolside behavior and interior design for hotels.

NOVEMBER 27

NOVEMBER 15

1983

1984

The Unofficial Illustrated History By Daniel Bukszpan Slipcased, 200 pages

quarto.com

Black Sabbath releases their sophomore outing, Paranoid. The world never recovers.

SEPTEMBER 25

NOVEMBER 27, 1979

Ozzy @75

The Sabs get invited to Stonehenge a decade before Spinal Tap.

1970

JULY 21

The boys snort their way through the recording of their next album.

Ozzy’s first child is born. For a while there, it was nice.

1972

JANUARY 20

MAY

The cocainefueled Vol. 4 album is released.

1972

SEPTEMBER 25

PART 3: FLYING HIGH AGAIN, 1979–1989

Ozzy and friends visit a local hospital to treat their diseased genitals.

OZZY MEETS RANDY RHOADS

Ozzy meets the Beatles. Sort of.

MAY 19

APRIL 27

A solo Ozzy enlists wunderkind guitarist Randy Rhoads.

1979

Ozzy releases his solo debut, Blizzard Of Ozz. If you don’t like it, you’re stupid.

Ozzy bites the head off at least two doves during a business meeting.

THE OSBOURNES ON MTV

Ozzy and Sharon visit the Fatherland, where goosestepping jokes are not appreciated.

NOVEMBER 27

SEPTEMBER 15

1980

1981

MARCH 27

51 THE WORLD’S FAVORITE DOVE-DECAPITATING DAD

MARCH 5, 2002 Ozzy is sued over alleged backward masking, leading to a fan’s suicide.

1984

Ozzy releases The Ultimate Sin, album number two with Jake E. Lee.

Ozzy releases the live album Tribute in Randy Rhoads’ honor.

Ozzy is mistakenly diagnosed with HIV. What a boner!

OCTOBER 26

FEBRUARY 22

1986

1987

MARCH 19

Ozzy releases No Rest for the Wicked, with new guitarist Zakk Wylde.

1988

While extremely shitfaced, Ozzy nearly murders Sharon.

1989

SEPTEMBER 28

SEPTEMBER 3

Ozzy and Sharon with their very happy children Jack and Kelly at home (otherwise known as the set of the reality show The Osbournes) in 2002.

134 Ozzy @75

JakeArt1

80+ GUITARISTS FROM THE 1970S TO TODAY, FEATURING PHOTOS AND THE DETAILS OF THEIR CAREERS AND GEAR. Author and guitar journalist Pete Prown presents his subjects by defining eras and subgenres, including early metal, arena rock, prog, Euro metal, hair metal, shred, thrash, and more.

Available September 2023 Ultimate Heavy Metal Guitars The Guitarists Who Rocked the World By Pete Prown • Hardcover, 192 pages

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EXTREMELY EXTREME

October 2023 [R 228] decibelmagazine.com

upfront 10 metal muthas Something to crow about

features 18 empire state bastard Extreme conditions demand extreme metal

32 uada Lunar thaw

20 filth is eternal Black flannel

34 dying fetus Leave them begging for more

14 low culture Contact low

22 great falls Fast-acting relief

36 ken mode Staring back

15 no corporate beer Mead for me

24 till the dirt With a little help from his friend

38 cryptopsy Igniting an old flame

12 the dungeon

is alive! review Storming the castle

16 in the studio High on Fire are preparing for the next storm

26 hexvessel The cold never bothered them anyway

40 savatage Death metal’s siren song

28 colony drop Smile, you fuckers

reviews 42 q&a: metalocalypse Co-creator and lead shredder Brendon Small has big plans for Dethklok’s end 46 the decibel

hall of fame Ten years gone, Deafheaven revisit extreme metal’s identity crisis and blackgaze’s defining moment as the Hall of Fame welcomes sophomore full-length Sunbather

71 lead review Baroness haven't completely drained the color from their latest album, but they forge a more hardened offering on Stone 72 album reviews Records from bands that made Mitch McConnell lose his train of... including Cannibal Corpse, Horrendous and Profanatica 88 damage ink It’s like a dream

30 soen Direct current

Unholy Wars COVER STORY COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS BY ROB MENZER

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. © 2023 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.

4 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

UPGRADED. ELEVATED. UNRIVALED. PRO PLUS SERIES

I first met acclaimed underground

albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief

www.decibelmagazine.com

REFUSE/RESIST

October 2023 [T228] 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

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Michael Wohlberg

michael@decibelmagazine.com CUSTOMER SERVICE

Patty Moran

COPY EDITOR

Andrew Bonazelli

BOOKCREEPER

Tim Mulcahy

patty@decibelmagazine.com

tim@redflagmedia.com CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Chuck BB, Ed Luce Mark Rudolph

Online DECIBEL WEB EDITOR

Albert Mudrian

DECIBEL WEB AD SALES

James Lewis

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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Emily Bellino Adrien Begrand J. Bennett Dean Brown Nathan Carson Liz Ciavarella-Brenner Dillon Collins Chris Dick Sean Frasier Nick Green Raoul Hernandez Addison Herron-Wheeler Jonathan Horsley Courtney Iseman Neill Jameson Kim Kelly Sarah Kitteringham Daniel Lake Cosmo Lee Jamie Ludwig Shane Mehling Justin M. Norton Dutch Pearce Forrest Pitts Greg Pratt Jon Rosenthal Brad Sanders José Carlos Santos Joseph Schafer Kevin Stewart-Panko Eugene S. Robinson Adem Tepedelen Jeff Treppel J Andrew Zalucky CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

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To order by phone: 1.215.625.9850 (10 a.m. – 5 p.m. EST) To order by fax: 1.215.625.9967 To order online: www.decibelmagazine.com Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., P.O. Box 36818, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $34.95. Periodical postage, paid at Philadelphia, PA, and other mailing offices. Submission of manuscripts, illustrations and/or photographs must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Postmaster send changes of address for Decibel to Red Flag Media, P.O. Box 36818, Philadelphia PA 19107. Copyright ©2023 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

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PHOTO BY TINA KORHONEN

metal author Dayal Patterson at a book signing. Makes sense, right? Only it was a signing for my book, Choosing Death, back in 2005. It was in the basement of the old Rough Trade Records shop in London. I was joined by Lee Dorrian, Shane Embury and a then still-civilian Jeff Walker. A local death metal band, Ted Maul, performed in the store while shoppers casually perused Sigur Rós albums that they’d soon attempt to convince themselves were good. The shop thoughtfully ordered dozens of copies of Lords of Chaos for the event, apparently hedging their bets that people would at least purchase that book. On my own, I was perhaps not the strongest draw. It was there that Dayal handed me a copy of his old fanzine Crypt, which was my main source of entertainment on the long flight back home. We stayed in touch over the years; before long, Dayal was sharpening his chops contributing to Terrorizer when he told me about a colossal black metal book project he was methodically assembling. That, of course, became Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult, which now stands as inarguably the greatest and most important document ever written about the genre. Turns out Dayal was just getting started. He founded his publishing company to release not only more of his writing on black metal, but also books from fellow authors on other extreme metal subgenres. Decibel has been fortunate to publish our own versions of many of those via our Decibel Books imprint, while Cult Never Dies has exclusively distributed a few of our books throughout Europe. Now a decade after its original release through Feral House—the publisher responsible for the first editions of both Choosing Death and Lords of Chaos—we’ve collaborated with Dayal again to release the definitive version of the definitive black metal book in the U.S. Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult—The Restored, Expanded & Definitive Edition is a massive 800-page hardcover, and that includes 120,000 words of new content (over 20 new chapters and 20 expanded chapters), over 60 new interviews (over 130 in total), an eye-popping 80-page color photo section, a vastly improved layout and a stunning new illustrated cover. It’s easily the largest project that Decibel Books has ever tackled. Decibel is the exclusive North American distributor for this edition of Evolution of the Cult, while Cult Never Dies controls the book’s distribution in Europe. And if you’re in England, you can always look for it at a Rough Trade shop.

Ryan Olson Akron, MI

You once told our editor that you’d been reading the magazine since issue No. 1, but waited until about 2019 to start subscribing—what convinced you to finally take that plunge?

I’d wanted to subscribe to the mag for ages, but there were three main factors that kept me from pulling the trigger. The first was that I tended to move around a lot, so I didn’t want to risk missing an issue due to semi regular address changes. The second was that, since I was a kid, I had been a loyal patron of a local mom-and-pop hobby shop, and that was where I always went to buy mags that were available via regular distributors. The final factor came into play when I started working at a record

8 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

store, where I was running a dedicated metal section in a separate room at the back of the shop. We carried the mag there, which made it even easier for me to acquire my copy each month! But that all changed when I moved from my home state of Wisconsin to Michigan to be with the wonderful woman who chose me to be her husband. We bought a house and established our family stronghold, comprised of three children and a menagerie of critters. We live out in a very rural area, and the nearest place where I could reliably get the mag was a 40-minute drive, so it very quickly became clear that the time was right to subscribe at long last!

cassette releases, but I’ve worked on vinyl and CD formats as well. So, here we are, over a decade later, and I’ve done the lion’s share of the work on Dread’s releases. I’m self-taught, continually learning and honing my craft, but I never would have dreamed that I’d be given the opportunity to work on releases by bands such as Mayhem, My Dying Bride, Demilich, Moonspell, Necrophagia, Drudkh and Troll! I consider it a great honor and a privilege to make a contribution to the enduring legacy of many well-known and lesser-known bands.

You’re the owner of Deadspeak Design. Tell us what that entails.

We’re publishing a revised and expanded edition of Dayal Patterson’s Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult book this year. We assume you’ve read the original, but are you shelling out for this definitive edition or what?

After a great deal of trial and error, I became possessed with the inspiration to start my own design-based imprint in June of 2012. I’ve long been a massive fan of Brian Lumley’s Necroscope book series, so that’s where the Deadspeak part of the name comes from. Around this same time, my longtime dear friend (and brother) Miguel was beginning to transition his Dread Records distro into a label. It wasn’t long before the seeds of us working together would begin to grow within our spirits. Things really started to accelerate once Miguel shifted his focus largely to

I do own, and have read, the original book, but pulling the trigger on the upgraded edition is a no-brainer for me! Your work and Dayal’s work is second to none, and it’s been a great pleasure to watch the development of Decibel and Cult Never Dies over the years! This music has played—and still does play—a significant role in my life. If I may add one final comment, it’s that I cannot express strongly enough how much I’m positively delighted to see the collaboration between Decibel and CND! It’s truly a perfect union.

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

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NOW SLAYING Wonder what Decibel world HQ has been rocking for the past month? Well, here are the records that we spun most when we weren’t watching washed up nü metal bands play to 20% capacity crowds in summer amphitheaters.

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

This Month’s Mutha: Renae LeTulle Mutha of Crow Lotus of Capra

Tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Renae and I’m 61 years old. I like to do outdoor activities, and one of my favorite hobbies is playing tennis. I’m a very active person, and I try to exercise at least five days a week. I’m also a flight attendant and a licensed hairstylist on the side. I have five children, including my daughter Crow. Your daughter was strictly a bassist before becoming Capra’s frontwoman. Did she sing at all when she was young?

We used to do karaoke at home, and I would have to force Crow to sing because she was so shy growing up. She also used to scream and cry a lot when she was little, and I think that’s what gave her the powerful voice she has now! Crow has said she got into music at a young age by sneaking off to listen to your CDs, some of which had parental advisory labels. What were some of your go-to records?

When Crow was little, we often listened to Bad Company, Def Leppard, the Doors and Led Zeppelin, which is my favorite. I did have some more explicit artists in our CD case at the time, like 2 Live Crew, Snoop Dogg and Salt-N-Pepa, but I never really knew my daughter was going through them. That might be a conversation we’ll have to have at some point!

quiet person, but she is so loud and powerful when she is onstage! It’s like she is able to express a completely different side of herself than you see when she isn’t performing. I was surprised when I saw her with Capra for the first time. Crow has written about her experiences with sleep paralysis. We have to imagine that was a difficult affliction for a mother to navigate.

It was definitely difficult for me because I was worried about her, and also because I used to experience the same thing when I was little and knew exactly what she was going through. When it would begin to come over me, I would try to wake myself up and my heart would beat so fast. It’s a really scary thing to experience. I would even be scared to go to sleep the night after an attack because I would be so afraid of it happening again. It doesn’t affect me as much now that I am an adult, and I believe that certain foods can trigger it in different people. Tell us about a quality Crow has that most people wouldn’t suspect.

What are your impressions of your daughter onstage?

She’s very smart, and she was a belly dancer for over 10 years. She even taught classes at one point. Also, I don’t know if Crow remembers this, but she used to be double-jointed when she was younger. She could hold a hanger in front of her and rotate her arms completely backward until they were behind her without letting go of the hanger. It was pretty crazy.

It’s like night and day. She’s usually a pretty

—ANDREW BONAZELLI

Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f  Filth Is Eternal, Find Out  Enslaved, Vikingligr Veldi  Deicide, Deicide  Atheist, Piece of Time  Death, Individual Thought Patterns ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e  Dead Heat, Endless Torment  Slayer, Undisputed Attitude  D.R.I., Dirty Rotten LP  Midnight, Shox of Violence  Warzone, Open Your Eyes ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s  Incantation, Unholy Deification  Cannibal Corpse, Chaos Horrific  Uada, Crepuscule Natura  Omnium Gatherum, Spirits and August Light  Clutch, Sunrise on Slaughter Beach ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r  Woe, Legacies of Frailty  Uada, Crepuscule Natura  Death, Human  Final Gasp, Mourning Moon  Dying Fetus, Make Them Beg For Death ---------------------------------Aaron Salsbury : m a r k e t i n g a n d s a l e s  Uamh, At the Edge of the Loch  Venomous Concept, The Good Ship Lollipop  Khemmis, Deceiver  Blackbraid, Blackbraid II  Deadwood, Music from the HBO Original Series

GUEST SLAYER

---------------------------------Jacqui Powell : w i t c h i n g  Blut Aus Nord, Hallucinogen  Dreadnought, The Endless  Worm, Bluenothing  Gaerea, Mirage  Gojira, From Mars To Sirius

PHOTO BY

10 : O C T O B E R 2 0 2 3 : D E C I B E L

GENE SMIRNOV

THE DUNGEON IS ALIVE!

WYRD WAR PRESENTS:

THE DUNGEON IS ALIVE!

any of us collect records, books and films—the types of people Friday in Turner, OR who still purchase print metal (Enchanted Forest) magazines and attend music Saturday in Portland, OR fests are enthusiasts, to say the least. Drill (Star Theater) down further and you find the cult of folks Sunday in Portland, OR (Hollywood Theatre) who collect rare experiences. Wyrd War’s fourWHEN: July 13-16, 2023 day The Dungeon Is Alive! festival was just such PHOTOS BY PETER BESTE an affair. The most dedicated of us were online at midnight to purchase extremely limited weekend passes, which granted entry to the entire celebration. WHERE:

Thursday in Portland, OR (Hollywood Theatre)

THURSDAY Day one took place inside Portland’s historic

Hollywood Theatre, where Ralph Bakshi’s 1977 cult animated fantasy picture Wizards was projected on rare 35mm film stock. Wizards’ wild, eclectic musical score was first issued on vinyl by Wyrd War back in 2017. Tonight, British-born soundtrack composer Andrew Belling was in attendance for a revelatory Q&A (and brief synth recital). He was charming and seemed deeply touched to receive a standing ovation from a Portland audience with bellies full of pizza, popcorn and edibles.

FRIDAY This was the main event, and the reason weekend passes sold out so quickly. Norway’s Mortiis

played bass on Emperor’s debut EP, but he is known worldwide for his body of electronic music. In particular, he’s considered a founding father of the dungeon synth genre. Despite 12 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

that honor, he’s eschewed performing that early work for decades. The first Mortiis album, 1994’s Født til å Herske, had never been played live. That changed on July 14, 2023, when Wyrd War and their crew carried a PA up the steep hillside of Turner, OR’s beloved hand-built Enchanted Forest fantasy theme park for a unique presentation. Portland dungeon synth whiz Cold Sanctum played a virtuosic warm-up set in cloak and sunglasses on one of the hottest days of the year. Mercifully, both artists and audience were shaded by an ancient western tree line that diminished the wrath of the setting sun. Finally, Mortiis appeared in full goblin regalia to deliver nearly an hour of synthesized music that conjured imagery fit for the surroundings. The site hosts a fairy tale kingdom, dwarf mines full of glowing jewels, a western town beside a labyrinth of caves, a wicked haunted house and many other attractions. For those

of us in attendance, reveling in a hot bath of brassy synths while staring up at 100-foot-tall fir trees, it felt like a shared moment that will truly never come again.

SATURDAY Mortiis reprised his performance the next night

for an audience thrice the size, this time at a proper venue, downtown Portland’s elegant, red-curtained Star Theater. DJ Joe “Thrones” Preston kicked things off, followed by a spirited set from local death rock kings Deathcharge. Mortiis delivered his debut in front of projections rather than the hand-painted backdrop from the night before. While the music was just as exquisite, the air conditioning and cold beer were welcome additions to the experience.

SUNDAY After a quick stop by the Wyrd War Gallery

to check out a bizarre collection of Ghanaian paintings inspired by fantasy movie poster art, the weekend came full circle by ending where it began. The largest screen in the Hollywood Theatre showed an hour-long edit of 1922 Danish/Swedish witch/horror silent film Häxan, with a live score by Cold Sanctum. The night ended with a surprise screening of 1981 satanic panic high school revenge flick Evilspeak. Always articulate festival host Dennis Dread found himself verklempt with exhaustion and exhilaration at having sold out all four nights of The Dungeon Is Alive! He promised another edition in 2024, then presumably collapsed into his favorite seat to dream up more magickal events for the future. —NATHAN CARSON

NEY ISEM

T BY COUR

Some Light Summer Reading our interview is here” came through

on the shitty headsets that my employer swears is the pinnacle of technology. I walked out of my office and looked down the store to see what appeared to be an 80-year-old man shambling his way over to me. The position I was hiring for was unloading our trucks—a very physical gig. But I figured, Fuck it, give the guy a shot. His résumé was in line with this kind of thing. What felt like an hour later, he finally made it to my office and we sat down. I realized he wasn’t much older than I was, just dressed in ill-fitting clothes that added about 50 years to him. Didn’t explain the speed, but he had a solid handshake and a way about him that made me like him instantly. I was going to bypass the usual protocol and offer him the job on the spot. I was winding up to make the pitch when he stopped me. He told me he didn’t think he could do the job because he was sick. Some days were better than others, and when he applied and we spoke on the phone, it was on a good day. He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “I have cancer. I think it’s time I face that reality.” And with that, he stood up, thanked me for my time and lumbered back out into the world. I realized that I just watched a man come to terms with his own mortality, right in front of a stranger. It sounds selfish to say, what with him being the one sick and not me, but it fucked me up a bit. Maybe “dead in the eyes” isn’t the most tasteful choice of words here. Those of us who are musicians, writers, artists or play a decent enough facsimile of these things to fool others are oddly fortunate because we 14 : OCTOBER 202 3 : DECIBEL

have ways to express ourselves, from the most trite and insignificant nonsense like writing bullshit about small towns, trucks and beer to grandiose thoughts about our existential questions or finding meaning in life (also insignificant nonsense). And I think we might forget that and take it for granted. Everyone has the freedom to express themselves, and I don’t mean this in a political statement, so don’t talk at me about the Constitution. I mean that they have the ability to write, to draw, to sing, to make ornate dioramas with old cum tissues and the bones of “missing” neighborhood pets. “Ability” is probably too strong of a word. I’d look up others, but I’ve already visited thesaurus.com four times today and I’d hate for my browser history to be overtaken by educational tools and not Discogs or pornography like it is now. I’m writing this from my work computer. I’m not pretending to know if the man from the beginning here had a band or was a poet or painter or whatever (though I tend to doubt it), but I do know he had the existential realization that he wasn’t who he used to be and might not possibly be anything at all soon in front of some asshole he just met a few minutes prior. And what that asshole has taken from the experience, outside of a profound sadness that selfishly doesn’t really come from the man himself, is somewhat odd, maybe a little ghoulish. And that’s because it’s gratitude, a corporate buzzword these days, that regardless of how asinine so much of life is, that I took the opportunity to create meaning (for myself) in it. And that I continue to. And that I generally hope that you do, too. Just don’t share it with me.

In-the-Know Drinkers Can’t Get Enough Mead. It’s Time to Find Out Why

hile it might be misguided to place too much value on Untappd ratings, biased and arbitrary as they often are, occasionally one can at least glean an interesting insight or two. For example, scroll through the app’s “Top Rated Beers” rankings and you’ll notice an interloper: mead. We don’t hear a ton about mead within the craft beer community or media, and yet, people are clearly seeking it out, and enjoying it, too. The average beer drinker, however, may not know much beyond mead being a fermented honey beverage, or that it’s available at Renaissance Faires. Are we missing out? To find out, there’s one obvious source. Based in Milton, DE, Brimming Horn was founded in 2017 by Jon Talkington (with Robert Walker, Jr.) after nearly 20 years of making mead at home while working professionally in beer. From beautifully drinking meads exploring a variety of flavors to Brimming Horn’s intrinsic metal vibe (via a Viking-inspired theme) and communal energy, the meadery has earned the fandom of many, including Decibel. Brimming Horn’s list of metal collabs is legendary, with several for our Metal & Beer Fest, like a 2019 Enslaved team-up for which guitarist Ivar Bjørnson sent ingredients from the Norwegian forest; it featured acacia blossom honey, spruce tips, juniper

 Mead your maker

(From t) Members of Junius, Immolation and Enslaved pose with mead masters Brimming Horn

berries and Norwegian sea salt. Or Nuclear Blast Beets, with Nuclear Blast Records. This was a riff on Brimming Horn bestseller More Blast Beats, a lower-ABV, lightly carbonated session mead with honey, beets, cherries and orange zest. Separately, Brimming Horn has linked up with a whole list of heavy hitters for their Mead & Metal series. See: Goat’s Blood, made with Incantation, using buckwheat, wildflower honey, red grapes and tart red cherries. Suffice it to say, Talkington is just the guy to answer our burning mead questions. Do you find there’s an element of consumer education involved with making and selling mead?

Yes, we have found that we need to educate people on what mead really is since there are many misconceptions. Many people think mead is a sickly sweet drink, a distilled liquor, grape wine mixed with honey, or some sort of beer. Though as the years have passed, we do seem to be getting a fair amount of customers who know about mead. How is mead different from beer?

Mead is more like making wine than brewing beer. Mead doesn’t have to go through the mashing process to extract sugars from the grain or be boiled like beer. Honey, water and yeast is what mead is made from in its simplest form, though fruits, spice and herbs can be used to flavor or be incorporated in fermentation. We use mostly wine yeasts to ferment our meads. Mead tends to be more wine-like in flavor as well. Our more traditional styles of mead, which are 11-14% ABV, take about three months to make, while our session meads, which are 5-8% ABV, take about one month, which is a very similar timeline to beer. Our meads are ready to drink as soon

as they are bottled or canned. Though, we do tell people with the more traditional meads aging is always a plus, and it will smooth and mellow out the mead even more. What kind of potential is there with mead in terms of varietals and different flavors?

There are literally hundreds of different varietals of honey to work with. We’ve used honey from all over the world, including Zambian forest honey from Zambia, chestnut blossom honey from Italy and Brazilian polyflora honey from the rainforests. There are [also] hundreds of flavor combinations that can be created… by adding in fruits, spices and herbs, barrel-aging and combining ingredients together much like cooking. What do you make of mead often dominating Untappd’s “Top Rated” list?

I think people are seeking mead out because it is something different, something [with a] sustainable [process], and brings history into modernity. People are exposed to the idea of mead in many pop culture aspects these days—Viking-themed TV shows, video games and RPG games. [They wonder] what exactly it tastes like. Once someone tastes mead, they are usually pleasantly surprised and completely hooked. There are so many varieties ranging from lightly carbonated to still, dry to sweet, fruited, herbed, etc., that there is something for everyone. Mead is universal. Mead just feels metal somehow, right?

Mead is the drink of the gods. Metal is the music of the gods. It only makes sense that they go hand-in-hand. Early metal led the way in pulling history into storytelling songs, and over the decades this type of music has repeatedly mentioned mead and exposed many people to the idea of mead.

DECIBEL : OCTOBER 202 3 : 15

HIGH ON FIRE

Matz has also found a way to inject some exotic sounds something of a story of contrasts—the tried and true versus ALBUM TITLE into the heaviness. “A lot of the new and untested. And we’re not talking about the mateCometh the Storm my contributions to the new rial they recorded back in April. Producer Kurt Ballou—now album were heavily informed on his fourth HOF album—represents the sturdy, reliable fixture in the sludge trio’s PRODUCER by my love of Turkish folk orbit, while Coady Willis (Big Business, Melvins, Murder City Devils) is the fresh face Kurt Ballou & High on Fire music. Even the stuff I wrote on the drum stool, a position held for two decades by founding member Des Kensel. STUDIOS on guitar, I used a lot of those Thankfully, High on Fire’s creative duo of guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike and basskinds of scales and rhythms ist Jeff Matz are firmly in place, as always, and guiding the good ship HOF ever forGodCity, Salem, MA and note choices. There’s one ward, albeit in a slightly different fashion now that the pair live in the Portland RECORDING DATES song on the album, as yet area and Willis is in L.A. “That was the biggest difference with this album, recordApril/May 2023 unnamed, that’s basically my ing with Coady for the first time,” Matz tells us. “[Since] he’s based in L.A., there RELEASE DATE attempt at writing a Turkish was a lot of him flying up here to the Portland area and rehearsing with us. We Early 2024 folk jam. [Laughs] I play baglama also did a couple writing/pre-production sessions with him down in L.A.” LABEL [a traditional lute-like stringed The recording was done, however, at Ballou’s GodCity Studio in Salem, MA, MNRK Heavy instrument] on it.” where High on Fire and Ballou have developed a comfortable working relationship. And as for Willis’ contribu“It’s just really natural recording with him,” Matz says. “We know the ins and outs tion to the first HOF album not to feature Kensel, of his studio and his preferences as far as how he likes to track. He’s sort of evolved into being more of a producer than just an engineer. He’s quick to offer up suggestions as far as things like song struc- Matz has this to say: “He has just completely stepped into it and owned it and brought his ture ideas—typical things you’d expect from a producer.” own stylistic flair to it. He’s very creative, freeThe band recorded 11 songs at GodCity, though two of those may yet be combined as one track. flowing, open. You can throw anything at him Ballou was in the process of mixing the new record in early July when we spoke with Matz, who and he’ll just sit there and try different things teased us with some descriptions of the new material. “There’s one song called ‘Cometh the Storm’ out, and always comes up with a cool angle on that’s a personal favorite. That one really just sort of dropped out of the sky. It was a little figure things. I think his style really meshes well with that I started playing at practice, just messing around on the bass. Everybody kind of locked into it the High on Fire sound.” —ADEM TEPEDELEN and were like, ‘Whoa, what’s that? Keep doing that!’” [Laughs] 16 : O C T O B E R 2 0 2 3 : D E C I B E L

PHOTOS BY JASON ZUCCO

THE

STUDIO REPORT

tale of the making of High on Fire’s ninth studio album is

EMPIRE STATE BASTARD

Biffy Clyro members go extreme with assist from Dave Lombardo

idn’t a cleaned-up johnny rotten (going by John Lydon at this point) snarl something about “anger is an energy” back in the dismal Thatcher era in the U.K.? His band, Public Image Ltd, wasn’t exactly spitting the same kind of bile as the Sex Pistols a decade earlier, but the sentiment was nonetheless cogent. Now, nearly 40 years later, Britain again finds itself in a different set of bleak circumstances thanks to an equally terrible (but different) government. And we have that situation to thank for Empire State Bastard, an unlikely quartet whose creative forces—vocalist Simon Neil and guitarist Mike Vennart—are best known in the U.K. as members of quirky prog/psych-pop band Biffy Clyro. ¶ What started as essentially an idea—“a comic book, fantasy band that we’d just talked about,” says Vennart—more than a decade ago finally erupted into reality. “It was a reaction to the sort of horrendous far-right activities in [the U.K.],” Vennart tells us from his home in England. “We’re in the middle of an absolute shitshow here. We’re governed and ruled by fucking white supremacists. 18 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

It’s been going on for a long time now with the Brexit vote and all that. And those things resulted in me channeling just fucking mortal rage into riffs. That’s what this record is—it’s pure unmitigated frustration. It’s just very, very angry.” And who better to power this anger machine than drummer Dave Lombardo, who was intrigued enough by the pair’s outsider approach to extreme metal to sign on for both the recording of Rivers of Heresy as well as early live dates in the U.K. Though on the surface, the album’s drop-tuned severity and blown-out screamed vocals bear no relation to Vennart and Neil’s “day jobs,” the pair has actually brought some proggy/avant-garde sensibilities to a mostly brutal record. “My previous band, Oceansize, and what I’ve done since is much more in the mathematical, psychedelic realm,” Vennart explains. “Biffy are a very mathematical

band as well, and they explore a lot of different kinds of textures. [Empire State Bastard] is very mathy for heavy stuff. This stuff is really quite complicated, but only to the listener. I write what feels natural, and I only sort of discover how complicated it is when Dave Lombardo starts breaking into a sweat and losing his fuckin’ mind.” When writing the Lombardo-vexing, anger-fueled material for Rivers of Heresy, Vennart was inspired by an unsurprisingly wide range of influences. “At the time, I was sort of big on the drone metal genre, so SUNN 0))) and Sleep,” he says. “[Also] I was falling in love again with Napalm Death, their album Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism. It was really resonating with me on an extreme level, and I suddenly realized again that metal could be bent into different shapes than what we’re ordinarily subjected to.” —ADEM TEPEDELEN

PHOTO BY GAVIN SMART

EMPIRE STATE BASTARD

FILTH IS ETERNAL

Grunge is very much in bloom for Seattle extremists

eattle’s former status as the grunge capital of the world may have diminished over the years, but not everyone’s willing to let the city’s be-flanneled past lie fallow. The four lovable dirtbags behind Filth Is Eternal have collectively spent years knocking around the Emerald City heavy music scene, and on their new album, Find Out, have embraced the melodic alongside the pummeling. ¶ “We all come from similar but varied musical backgrounds, but as a group, we’re always fascinated with genre overlap,” guitarist Brian McClelland says. “To me, there’s nothing that says you can’t have a disgusting riff and a beautiful chord progression in the same song.” ¶ Find Out is chock full of those kinds of moments, from the distilled melodic punk of “Roll Critical” to “Pressure Me”’s rollicking crusty stomp. Hardcore punk, rock ‘n’ roll, Stockholminflected death metal and, yes, classic grunge all rear their ugly heads in Filth Is Eternal. It’s a stylistic leap forward from the band’s earlier material, especially in terms of the vocals. 20 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

“Find Out was the perfect time to loosen up, play around, and fully embrace what was naturally developing in the room and our lives,” vocalist Lis Di Angelo explains. “I changed things up vocally; it makes sense that there is this ‘grungy feel’ to the tracks since many of my favorite vocalists (and bands), TAD included, come from that era.” The band—rounded out by drummer Emily Salisbury and bassist Rahsaan Davis—also ventured out of their DIY comfort zone when it came to the album’s recording and production. Find Out was produced by alt-rock heavyweight Paul Fig and grind wizard Phil Veram, and recorded at Dave Grohl’s Studio 606 and Dave’s Room. “We usually stay close to home to record, since we’re all working people and life is crazy, so this was the first time we got to all spend time together with the focus of

living and breathing the making of this record,” McClelland says. “Studio 606 was incredible. Seeing that studio was more than I ever expected from this journey, let alone make a record there. We got to play a Flying V owned by Philthy Phil [Taylor] from Motörhead!” That excited energy bled into the recording, and Find Out crackles with kinetic force. Its lyrical focus may lean darker, with Di Angelo exploring themes of mental, emotional and physical struggle, but the end result is a bright and burning spark. “Ultimately, I imagine people seeing parts of themselves in these stories, walking away from this record relating to the material in their way,” they say, and already have plans to take them on the road. “We have four U.K. shows with Finch in November, with EU dates and more to be announced shortly, so stay tuned!” —KIM KELLY

PHOTO BY JOSHUA SIMONS

FILTH IS ETERNAL

GREAT FALLS

Noise rock vets add by subtracting, then adding

iven the greater amounts of layers and thicker sonic density found on Great Falls’ Objects Without Pain, we posited that the band’s fifth and latest full-length must have been the result of two years of pandemic time afforded the Pacific Northwest trio. But according to bassist and Decibel ink spiller Shane Mehling, our estimation is “not even close.” Much of that time found the band addressing the growing creative valley between Mehling and guitarist/vocalist Demian Johnston on one end and now-former drummer Phil Petrocelli on the other. ¶ “Even though we were in a band for 10 years, Phil never really got what we did or wanted to do, so it became an anchor to the writing,” Mehling says. “It was going, but it would take months and tons of dead ends to write a song. He was unhappy with the songs’ direction, and we were frustrated with what he was doing. Our first show back was in October 2021; it was all new songs, and it was a disaster.” ¶ Enter Nick Parks (Gaytheist), who initially agreed to visit Great Falls’ Seattle-Tacoma HQ from Portland to periodically help out. 22 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

But with a long-term friendship already established and their bonding over the rambunctious side of ’90s metallic hardcore, Parks accepted the offer to join after two rehearsals and get down to finishing Objects Without Pain. “Nick is so in tune with what we like that it was a total shift. We wrote seven songs in six months, as opposed to eight songs in four years!,” laughs Mehling. Also contributing to Great Falls’s new palette of synths, samples, voices and a variety of sonic manipulation are friends and colleagues John Schork and Lillian Albazi, vocalist/guitarist in an Australian indie rock band who share the band’s moniker. “John’s a friend who has a bunch of toys, synths and stuff, and he really likes us, so I talked to him about collaborating on this record,” Mehling says. “Once we recorded the demos, we gave it to him to go crazy, then we edited it down. With

Lillian, I originally found the other Great Falls on Spotify a few years ago and hit them up about maybe doing a Great Falls/Great Falls split. [Laughs] When this was coming together, we thought it would be interesting to include different voices, maybe some female singing, and we thought of her.” Objects Without Pain may see Great Falls absorbing novel sounds and influences into their oft-impenetrable wall of Hydra Head/Ebullition/Escape Artist din, but it’s still as unwelcoming, abrasive and unhummable as ever, and remains a character trait on which they pride themselves. “At one point, we bought a sampler and were jazzed on recreating the record live as much as possible, but we didn’t want to have to worry about that stuff,” Mehling reasons. “We still want to be a fucked-up, noisy punk band. We never want to be a band that can’t play a basement show.” —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

TILL THE DIRT

TILL THE DIRT Florida death metal legends reconnect, break new ground yet again

me, death metal is like having eight people going somewhere in a compact car,” Till the Dirt vocalist/ guitarist Kelly Shaefer declares. “It’s just too small.” ¶ That’s not a surprising sentiment coming from the man whose pioneering work with Atheist turned the Floridian strain of the genre inside out in the early ’90s. But even for the brains behind progged-out mindfucks like Unquestionable Presence and Elements, Till the Dirt’s Outside the Spiral is a tough album to pin down. The first person it confounded was Shaefer himself, who realized he had a strange new beast on his hands after trying to assemble an Atheist song at home early in the pandemic. ¶ “I had logged two and a half, three hours of Atheist riffs, and then this one night, I put together a song and did vocals and everything all in one night,” Shaefer recalls. “And that ended up being ‘Outside the Spiral.’ I sent it around to a few friends, because I was kind of taken aback by it myself. I don’t know what this is, you know? It’s not Atheist, and it’s not anything else, so it was kind of exciting to find gold, so to speak.”

24 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

Shaefer’s pals encouraged him to keep going, and within six weeks, he had 20 songs written for the project that would become Till the Dirt. They bore traces of the thrashy, proggy death metal Shaefer made his name on, but they also had black metal blast beats, Alice in Chainsstyle vocal harmonies, stomping stoner rock riffs and big pop choruses—all elements that would never make it into an Atheist song. The most surprising thing on an album full of surprises is the presence of Scott Burns, the legendary Morrisound producer who had as big a hand in the development of American death metal as anybody not named “Chuck.” Before Outside the Spiral, Burns’ last production credit came in 2005. “We hadn’t spoken in probably close to 20 years,” Shaefer says of his Unquestionable Presence collaborator. A long phone call during the

pandemic rekindled their friendship, and after hearing a couple of rough Till the Dirt mixes, Burns officially came out of retirement. “He would help me actually produce,” Shaefer gushes. “A lot of people think producing is turning knobs and engineering, and a lot of times it’s not. It’s being a nononsense opinion in a scenario. He still has such an amazing ear for how things should sound and how things land.” As for Shaefer, launching Till the Dirt amid a successful Atheist tour has given him a new lease on his musical life. “It feels literally like a complete rebirth, which is very odd in your 50s,” he says. “I don’t know what the future holds. All I know is I feel like I’m making fresh music, and I can’t wait to dive into a new Atheist record with this mentality.” —BRAD SANDERS

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HEXVESSEL

Kvohst’s shape-shifting post black metal project steps back into the cold

the project is wont to do, Hexvessel have changed once again. Moving from the psychedelic and postindustrial-directed folk-rock sound that defined the band’s discography up to this point, Polar Veil reveals songwriter Mat McNerney’s rich history as a black metal musician. Having been featured in bands like DHG, <code> and the Deathtrip, this is no unfamiliar territory for this stalwart musician, and yet such a dramatic change for his softer project was unexpected. ¶ “The intention was there from the beginning,” says McNerney. “I started making the music without an avenue in mind. I’d been working on it for quite some time with the title before knowing actually that it was a Hexvessel record. It was just a record. I like creating like that, where the creation is the most important thing rather than the product or the avenue. I wanted to make the record as pure as I could as far as the focus of it—the energy around it and the atmosphere, the place where I was when creating it rather than thinking about throwing a logo on it and putting it on vinyl.

26 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

The past has taught me that is the most rewarding way of creating— just to make and create art. That’s how it started. “The change in sound started to crystallize when I was creating the vocal themes—the lyrics were coming about,” he explains. “My feeling about black metal is that it’s nature mysticism at heart, and so, for me, that’s what it means. It’s not a style of music; it’s more a way of being. When I got to the core of it and it started to become not just a black metal record as far as an atmosphere and sound, it was a black metal record by heart … it felt like a Hexvessel record. It was a discovery for me that Hexvessel has a lot to do with black metal if I think about what black metal means to me as far as a nature/mystic-oriented way of being. It crystallized as the record formulated as well. They went hand in hand.”

McNerney’s isolated existence in the Finnish countryside also lent itself to Hexvessel’s “new sound,” as it were. Living apart from society directed McNerney’s songwriting, especially now as a solo songwriter as opposed to having a full band, leading to Polar Veil’s more frigid, icy sound. “I think it has to do with Hexvessel becoming a band in that there is a lineup and I was creating in the context of that,” he explains. “When this record came about, I was creating completely alone. It was coming from a place of solitary creation. The coldness came with that. I was writing in the winter. It’s a solitary place, when you extract yourself from civilization, and it feels colder as far as what you create. The environment where I live is inhospitable at that time of year, and the sound lends itself to the nature here.” —JON ROSENTHAL

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COLONY DROP

Seattle crew crosses over crossover

olony drop vocalist Joseph Schafer values your time. He’s reviewed countless albums as a music journalist and tapped from years of accumulated sonic waste like all of us. When it was time for him to help craft an album, he wanted to make a point with minimal frivolity. “The first thing that happens in Godzilla 1984 is that something blows up,” Schafer says. “So, we care about that first chorus. Maybe you dream of being a 70-minute avant-garde art project, but it seems much more iconoclastic to do something listenable.” ¶ The band’s debut, Brace for Impact, strikes a tricky balance: It honors the best parts of ’80s crossover with nods to Japanese pop culture, outlier bands like Killing Joke, anime and progressive politics. Although ’80s crossover could sometimes be mean-spirited, Colony Drop instead considers people’s struggles at the bottom of the economic ladder while keeping the swagger. “My lyrics are a social commentary,” Schafer says. “It would be nice if someone came away with a different understanding of the relationship of labor and capital. But we don’t want to be an agitprop band—the purpose is creative.” ¶ Brace for Impact is also fun.

28 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

“When we committed to this, the world was in a bad place. Things got too fucking grim,” Schafer says. “Colony Drop was a way to make each other smile. There is too much misery out there and people need some happiness—even if you are writing a song about blowing up Earth because you are mad at your boss.” Schafer says the band’s varied tastes and backgrounds ensure that Colony Drop are “condemned to be weird.” The band’s members are anime fans and Japanophiles; guitarist Ben Burton is fluent in Japanese and teaches Japanese literature. As a result, Brace for Impact is not an orthodox crossover. “There are some songs where bridges turn into Killing Joke songs,” Schafer says. “We couldn’t do a straight crossover punk album.” Schafer and Burton first met during a long-discontinued project; at some point, Schafer heard Burton (moonlighting on drums) playing Carcass riffs during practice. The pair kept finding each other and

eventually formed a band. Schafer says the following years allowed him to put the same attention into becoming a frontman that he has his writing (including for Decibel). “I’ve been in a few bands, but I think all of the music has been stripped from the internet,” Schafer laughs. “I had to find the confidence to do this because I care about quality.” Colony Drop fine-tuned their songs and rethought their approach during years of COVID-19 practice. “Almost none of our original tape is on Brace for Impact,” Schafer says. “The idea was for me to growl. I tried thrash singing more as a joke, and Ryan [Moon, guitars] and Ben looked at me like, ‘That is cool. You need to do that more.’ We decided we’d be a mediocre death ‘n’ roll band, but could go somewhere with thrash and crossover. By the end of that process, COVID was winding down and we had 11 songs. We became a crossover band almost by accident.” —JUSTIN M. NORTON

PHOTO BY CHRIS SCHANZ

COLONY DROP

SOEN

hen ex-opeth drummer Martin Lopez met Willowtree vocalist Joel Ekelöf through ex-guitarist Joakim Platbarzdis in 2010, he immediately felt a creative kinship. Ever since, the Stockholm-based duo of Lopez and Ekelöf have enjoyed a prolific partnership. Five full-lengths of emotionally complex, socially aware lyrics and smartly heavy progressive metal ensued to critical acclaim. For Soen’s new album, Memorial, the twosome stepped up the volume, writing over 60 songs, from which they picked 10. ¶ “Writing music is a bit like therapy,” says Lopez of the motivating factor behind Soen’s prodigious song production. “I just sit there and write stuff— sometimes on guitar, keyboards and bass. Joel lives very close by, so he comes by to work with me. We’re writing all the time, to the point of obsessiveness. It’s hard work, but our goal is always to write the perfect metal song. We love what we do.” ¶ Much of what Soen have accomplished centers on casting a megaphone— via music and lyrics—to the world about its unendurable state. 30 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

Going back to tracks like “The Words” (off Tellurian), “Lotus” (off Lotus) and “Monarch” (off Imperial), they’ve been threading their main concepts through increasingly narrower language. With Memorial, the Swedes have amped up their critique of social and traditional media, which has made tribalism and conflict the generators of their success. Agreeing to disagree is now outside the norm. “When I was younger, I didn’t have much interest in the world,” Lopez says. “I avoided politics. The older I get, and now that I have kids, I see so much trash out there. The world is just getting crazier. Not to say Soen is political; I don’t think we are. We’re attempting to promote real values—friendship, love, standing firm and not following media psychopaths—without being preachy. There’s enough of that in the world. However, I’ll say

something about being musicians that allow us to address issues via music, which I think is great.” Whereas Imperial was robust in all aspects, Memorial is purposefully stripped down. Soen wanted a more “human touch” on their sixth LP. “Violence,” “Fortress” and “Incendiary” are probably the album’s heaviest, but they showcase the tenets—passion and intensity—of the very metal Lopez, in particular, grew up with. They also removed much of the production ornamentation that made Imperial a reality to complement the rawer feel. “We’re a lot more direct now,” says Lopez. “I was really happy with Imperial, but I felt like there was too much fat. I wanted the songs to get to the listener without the nonsense. We haven’t changed our style or why we love to play it. This album is as direct as a metal band with prog parts can be.” —CHRIS DICK

PHOTO BY JEREMY SAFFER

SOEN

In pursuit of the perfect metal song, prog duo emphasize a direct approach

B E Y O N D T H E V E I L

THE ONLY MYSTERIES SURROUNDING HOODED BLACK METALLERS

U A D A ARE WHAT CREATIVE HEIGHTS THEY’LL ATTAIN NEXT

story by

JO S É CARLO S SA N T OS • photos by PET E R BE ST E

might be all riffs and beers and horns-up for most of us, and that’s

fine, but some of these people in bands—often the best ones—take this shit seriously, man. You can always tell, too, even before reading full interviews. There’s a little extra intensity in the music; there’s a certain added fire in the attitude, in the way they conduct themselves. Uada have always felt like one of those, particularly through frontman Jake Superchi, and once again that proves true when discussing the band’s new album. ¶ Not only could we have filled a good 10 pages with the full transcript of our chat with Superchi, but every detail about the album and band seems to have been thought through with the deepest dedication. Maybe that’s the main reason why this music isn’t just good Dissection-esque black metal with melodic Maiden twin-guitar leads—ultimately, yeah, that’s what it is, but repeated listens unveil a much greater depth at work. Even something as passé as obscuring their faces in photos is done for a proper reason. OP CR TO EE C ILB E L 32 : A I LB 2E0R2 21 0:2D3 E:CDI B

“I think taking the human aspect out of our presentation plays a huge part in the power of what we do,” Superchi says, and sure, that’s a relatively common explanation for bands that do it. But let him finish. “Our imagery is based on the eclipse, which is why we backlight ourselves to present silhouettes/shadow forms. This represents the eclipse of oneself because we have to remember that this art is bigger than us all. It shouldn’t matter who we are—to a certain extent—and it definitely shouldn’t matter what we look like, although I can also see how our display of an anti-image has become an image of itself. Personally, I don’t have any desire to break away from it. I’m not a person who likes recognition or being looked at.

I can see how our display of an anti-image has become an image of itself. Personally, I don’t have any desire to break away from it.

I’M NOT A PERSON WHO LIKES RECOGNITION OR BEING LOOKED AT. J A K E

S U P E R C H I

“In fact, not that long ago, an old friend sent a photo to me that was a picture of my first band. They caught us walking through the cafeteria of the middle school where we often played. We were in eighth grade at the time, and in this photo, believe it or not, I’m covering my face with my hands. I’ve seen a few photos of myself even through my high school years doing the exact same thing. I guess it was always there and I’ve never really changed.” It’s also clear that when Superchi mentions removing the human aspect from the presentation, he means these superficial parts of it, as much of the appeal of Uada—and Crepuscule Natura in particular—is how palpably emotional it feels. Though most of it can be broadly described as black metal, it’s not the icy-cold, uncaring, anti-human variety. “Life and emotion are in constant contrast,” the frontman ponders. “There are no absolutes, and when writing, I do not deny any single emotion. I believe it is important to embrace these feelings. I’ve been writing music for almost my entire life, and I never really have a desire to sound a certain way. Yes, there is direction, but it is an organic projection, a symbol of the times and what I was feeling in those moments. Life is full of peaks and valleys, and the life that an artist lives might even hold more so, as we all are emotional creatures. These are the moments I find most inspirational, and where the most sincere creation comes from.” This freedom is amply manifested in the way that Uada never felt attached to any genre rules. As their discography has progressed, leaps between records—both in songwriting and production—have been substantial. “The possibilities are truly endless, and I’m not opposed to change so long as it comes naturally,” Superchi concedes. “I’ve never felt a need to limit myself to any degree within art. There are a lot of influences that inspire the band’s

sound—perhaps even just highlighting one a bit more would change it drastically for some listeners, but for me that doesn’t really change much. For instance, when [2020’s] Djinn came out, we saw a lot of feedback about ‘the change,’ but for us, it was just another step in our evolution.” And then there’s a little tease: “I can say, though, that something different will come,” he smirks almost imperceptibly. When pushed a little, Superchi reveals, “We are working on two albums right now. One I have been tracking all week, and the other we’ve just begun writing for. After these coming tours, we will be ready to dive full-force into what will be an extremely important album for us. We have a lot to get out, and the fire behind it is invigorating.” All of this will, however, happen without cofounding guitarist James Sloan, who recently left the band amid a flurry of mutual accusations. Even if the previously discussed removal of the human element helps with this kind of situation, Sloan was still an important part of the band, and Superchi doesn’t shy away from discussing it. “There was a lot of chemistry between us as musicians, and it will affect the art in one way or another, but as far as the sound of Uada goes, whatever changes may come will be minuscule. I have faith that what we are working on now, coming out of this change, will be something we are extremely proud of and perhaps our best offering yet. As of now, we have someone I’ve known for almost 20 years coming in for the next few tours, and hopefully permanently. We both have shared the stage many times with our other bands in the past, and I always admired how professional and intense this person was. I think we will do some great things together. “No matter what will come, we will continue to push forward, continue to rise and continue to create as genuinely as we possibly can. We march on!”

T HE N E W A LBUM

G O D L I K E OUT 15 SEPT W W W.T H YA R T I S M U R D E R . N E T

D E CDI B EE C ILB:EOL C: TAOPBREIR L 2023 1 : 33

hen someone’s in a band with a sustained level of suc-

cess, after enough years the magic has to wear off a little and they’ll be less concerned about the impact of each new record. John Gallagher has yet to reach that point. ¶ The guitarist/vocalist has led Dying Fetus for three decades, the band he started in 1991 a household name in any home with even a passing interest in death metal. And yet this sole founding member talks about songwriting with the care and anxiety of a new recruit. ¶ “I think it’s important to release a quality product, even if it takes a while, instead of spitting something out in one or two years that’s lackluster,” Gallagher says. “But this new one, my goal was to get an album out quickly, unlike [2017’s Wrong One to Fuck With]. With]. I didn’t want to do five years or six years between albums because it reflects poorly on us, like we’re slacking or sitting around smoking pot and resting on our laurels. And it was looking good in 2019.” OP CR TO EE C ILB E L 34 : A I LB 2E0R2 21 0:2D3 E:CDI B

Of course, we all remember when things were looking good in 2019. But the global fuckingaround-and-finding-out that started in 2020 led to a significant delay of the band’s ninth full-length, Make Them Beg for Death. Death. It’s a continuation of the band’s esteemed brutal stew—technical riffage, artillery blasting and unabashed slam dance grooves—with nothing new or unorthodox, which is kind of the point. “We want Dying Fetus to be what people expect,” Gallagher admits. “When you throw a curveball, they usually don’t like that. Other bands have tried to do something different, which I respect, but generally it doesn’t go over so well. If it’s too far off the grid, I set it aside because I know it’ll be a problem. A band like Metallica is going back to their old style, and

I’m glad they’re doing that and bringing more people into metal instead of some weird experimental thing. “Maybe we’re not courageous enough, but I think we should just do what we’re known for, and I don’t take it lightly. I’m just grateful to be here and try to make it as good as possible. From a musician's perspective, I appreciate when bands try something new, but ultimately the fans are weirded out by it, so we’ll just stay in our lane.” If it needs to be reiterated, though, Gallagher, drummer Trey Williams and bassist Sean Beasley are incredibly discerning and thoughtful in that lane, with that additional wait during the pandemic break adding to their apprehension about certain songs and parts. “I was actually second-guessing myself,” Gallagher says. “We all question: Is this good? Is this gonna be enough for the next album? You never know until people hear it and either they’re happy or not.” The band’s solution to many of these questions was to do what so many death metal bands love to sing about: kill some babies. “I wanted to pull back the amount of riffs that were on this record,” Gallagher says. “You have to think about the audience. Do they want to sit through a six-and-a-half-minute song? On previous records, there were songs that had 20 riffs. They’re like run-on sentences. I could go forever. In the studio I was still extracting some riffs to make the flow better.” The studio was not only a place for Gallagher to nail down the music, but figure out the balance between the band sounding tight, not synthetic. “At the end of the day, you don’t want things to be sloppy, but there’s a fine line with technology,” he reasons. “There has to be a dirtiness and ugliness. You hear it with a lot of metalcore. They can just program it, generate a guitar sound, and they’re not even playing. It sounds perfect, but your ear picks that out and it gets boring pretty quickly. We want it to be on time, but we’re not going for laptop metal.” Gallagher understands a lot of younger musicians are growing up in this digital age, but he still cherishes the roots of death metal and wants to make sure that’s still present. “Death metal started off as this nasty, offensive noise. And the more you sanitize it, the more watered-down it becomes. It becomes safe. I love [Napalm Death’s] From Enslavement to Obliteration, Obliteration, and my friends that were listening to Skid Row would just turn their heads and say, ‘This sounds terrible,’ but there’s a beauty to that—a punk rock, don’t-give-a-fuck feeling to it. And that’s something we’ve tried to keep going. We still want to have some fun with this.” Make Them Beg for Death is the perfect album to be armed with as Dying Fetus move back into tour mode, but the band is already thinking beyond, to their 10th album, and even further than that. “We already have a couple new songs,” Gallagher says. “We really want this one to get out sooner. I was in my late 40s when the pandemic hit. I’m not at an age where I think I can do this forever. You never know with this death metal shit, how far you can take it with your vocals. But then you see guys like Rob Halford in his 70s still doing what he does. Maybe I can do this until I’m 70.” D E CDI B EE C ILB:EOL C: TAOPBREIR L 2023 1 : 35

JUST 12 MONTHS AFTER NULL,

KEN mode

LP, ARE BACK WITH AN EVEN DARKER COMPANION EL

VOID

story by KEVIN STEWART-PANKO // photo by SHIMON KARM

etting old and continuing to do the thing requires adjustments,”

acknowledges KEN mode guitarist/vocalist Jesse Matthewson. The thing, in this case, has been the 24-year write/record/release/tour cycle they’ve been ensconced in, the latest completed phase being in support of the band’s eighth full-length, Null. Presently, the Winnipeggers are hopping right back into the thing with Null’s companion piece, Void, in the holster and a fresh slate of tour dates, live shows and festival appearances in the wings. ¶ The adjustments? Those are the litany of behind-the-scenes doings necessary to keep the KEN mode ball rolling. These include introducing newest member Kathryn Kerr to the precarious world of touring and life outside the insular comfort of the studio; bassist Skot Hamilton and Jesse’s drumming brother Shane turning 40 this year (“Voivod has been a band since they were born,” he points out, laughing at the reference); everyone trying to balance their non-band and band lives; Jesse himself recuperating and rehabbing from early summer hip surgery; and, as Jesse claims (but we refute), his voice getting weaker with age. This has steered him towards a life where, if he weren’t approaching 42 years old, black Xs on the backs of his hands would be an appropriate signifier. ¶ “I cannot drink at all anymore. I don’t know if it’s the actual alcohol itself or the carbonic acid, but it affects my voice. I have to take every precaution; now, instead, I drink tea at every show.” CR TO EE C ILB E L 36 : O AP I LB 2E0R2 21 0:2D3 E:CDI B

But it’s all worth it when you’ve hustled yourself into a position where you’re able to do what you want and have it pay off. Decibel features heavily in KEN mode’s press clipping packet, as we’ve covered the band since our inception, including throwing the newly-minted quartet on the cover of our October 2022 issue in celebration of the release of Null, an album the piece’s lovable author, Shane Mehling, described as “bloodied, raging wrath.” KEN mode have always been the band that twisted noise rock the way they wanted— whether it was adherence to influences and standards on early records Mongrel and Reprisal, pumping up tempos and metallic influences on Entrench, or getting increasingly abrasive and sardonic in their old age. Written in the same expanded and elongated chunk of pandemicfostered time—Null was primarily written by Jesse when 2020 lockdowns put the kibosh on band practices—Void was birthed following collaborative writing sessions in 2021 and the idea that putting out the same record twice would be more shooting themselves in the metatarsals than not.

Null was a lot of sounds people hadn’t heard from us before.

VOID IS MORE IMMEDIATELY GRABBING WITH CATCHIER SONGS THAT ARE EASIER TO DIGEST. J E S S E

M A T T H E W S O N

“The circumstances in which each was written created a natural divide,” he explains, “but because we were writing all this material in the same period, Void had to be different, if only so that it didn’t get boring for us. They are two sides of a whole, but they are distinct and separate albums. Null was a lot of sounds people hadn’t heard from us before. Void is more immediately grabbing with catchier songs that are easier to digest.” As documented in our October 2022 issue cover story, bringing Kerr, her saxes and synths into the band was a process that actually germinated with her guest appearance on 2018’s Loved. After a couple tours under her belt—Kerr, who Matthewson likes to point out is the band young’un, having been born the same year …And Justice for All was released—has quickly become a prominent, necessary force. This is an indisputable fact heard on the spirally call-and-response sax solo in “Painless,” “Wires”’ mournful piano intro/outro and the sci-fi swells of “We’re Small Enough.” “Saxophone is a funny one. We haven’t approached it the same way a lot of metal bands have. We’re using it more like Napalm Death did when they collaborated with it, coming more from a jazz perspective where it’s wielded as a weapon opposed to in a corny, campy way. We wanted it to feel dangerous. I think we accomplished that and we’re only getting better at it.”

KEN mode’s history has seen them go from humble beginnings in an inhospitable outpost to a full-time proposition that spent more time on the road internationally than at home for a solid couple of years and back again to doing the thing part-time. Though it all, rewards have been reaped and the benefits have been greater than ever. “We acknowledge that we’ve gone further with this band than the sonic side would dictate, so we feel fortunate,” reasons Jesse. “We’ve right-sized the band to fit our lives, and having this creative outlet that allows us to do cool shit that regular people don’t get to do may be disruptive, but it’s disruptive for good purpose. It’s been interesting touring this newer material because we’ve noticed crowds reacting only to the new stuff, which from our perspective is great. If you’re writing new material that you feel means something, I’d rather have crowds reacting strongest to stuff that’s freshest because it’s where we’re at, as opposed to rehashing songs we’ve played 500 times a decade ago when we were different people. A big part of that is that we never really caught on when we were being hyped most, and it’s almost helping us now. It’s funny that we do better on tour than we ever have now that we’re not depending on it. It does encourage us to keep doing the thing.” D E CDI B EE C ILB:EOL C: TAOPBREIR L 2023 1 : 37

FOR CRYPTOPSY Death metal legends

erupt from a prolonged silence with the blistering As Gomorrah Burns story by DILLON COLLINS

photo by MIHAELA PETRESCU

OP CR TO EE C ILB E L 38 : A I LB 2E0R2 21 0:2D3 E:CDI B

over three decades, pioneering Canadian technical death

metal giants Cryptopsy have proudly waved the banner of the frayed and frigid riff for the Great White North. The frenzied, maniacal and ungodly relentless stylings that Cryptopsy birthed were near peerless in the turbulent metal landscape of the 1990s, culminating in a Decibel Hall of Fame nod for their undisputed 1996 opus None So Vile. ¶ Decades later—and with time, maturation, and the strains and rigors of a global pandemic to stoke the flames—Cryptopsy are back with howling battle cry As Gomorrah Burns, their first studio album in 11 years and, after self-releasing their previous LP, their debut under the Nuclear Blast banner.

“There’s a million bands and people that went through the pandemic, and they all got through it and ended up recording and releasing music,” notes Matt McGachy, longtime vocalist and the band’s principal songwriter, delving into the taxing early days of Cryptopsy’s eighth full-length. “We were in a cabin in the woods when the whole announcement happened, when Trump closed everything. And we were writing the beginning riffs of what became As Gomorrah Burns. So, it was a very weird situation to be in a locked, isolated area and just watching the world imploding.” Abiding by the restrictions of the pandemic era, the creative process and fluidity that the band so richly embraced was fragmented, leading to exhausting distanced writing sessions, which tested the patience of all involved. “Composing via Zoom and composing on Skype calls was just horrible. We’re like, ‘We need to be together!’ We don’t really jam out ideas. It’s really all created in the studio,” reasons McGachy, tipping his hat to Christian Donaldson, Cryptopsy’s longtime guitarist and the album’s producer. “If I could say anything about As Gomorrah Burns, it’s Christian Donaldson’s record. He drove the ship, the whole thing. “We really worked at it, and having that extra time really gave us some time to be super difficult with ourselves. And Christian producing us, he’s fantastic and he pushes us to the depths that he knows [are] in us. And he really crafted a crazy album. It’s the most Christian Donaldson Cryptopsy record there’s ever been.” Determined to let their riffs breathe amidst the groove-filled sonic spaces crafted by McGachy, Donaldson, bassist Olivier Pinard

and veteran drummer Flo Mounier, Cryptopsy have arguably crafted their darkest album in As Gomorrah Burns. It owes much of its heft to McGachy’s concept, which juxtaposes the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah against the woes of the modern-day internet and social media cesspool.

We’re trying to create something new for a new era

WHILE HONORING THE LEGACY OF CRYPTOPSY. Matt McGachy

“I find, since the [Vox&Hops] podcast [that I host], I’m extremely addicted to social media,” McGachy admits. “It’s not something I’m proud of. It’s something that I have to work on. The traps [of] these applications and these platforms have been set up to keep you just doomscrolling, and the dopamine drip of getting notifications and just the amount of negative

things that can come from something that, at its base, is super positive. “I went out and I scoured the internet, as I like to do,” he continues. “I like concept albums. I’ve been doing it since the self-titled where I like to find an umbrella thing and then I can just write a bunch of songs that fall underneath this concept. So, I started looking through the internet to find a bunch of horrible things that can happen through the internet. I found online preachers and I rolled with that. I found bullying, horrible stories, online trolls, and then dissected and created. There’s mostly skeletons of truth in each song, but I embellished them with my own imagination out of respect to the people that it happened to and just to make it more my own.” And though the art of reinvention is at the core of everything this band does circa 2023, don’t expect a full-stop departure from the tried-and-true blend of technical fury and blistering heaviness that made Cryptopsy one of the unsung heroes of an era of death metal. As Gommorrah Burns bravely reintroduces Cryptopsy to a new era of DM hopefuls, while toasting the dark corners of the past, of which the Montreal quartet are held in godlike reverence. “At this point, we’d like to honor the classics,” McGachy concludes. “‘Let’s have something new’ is sort of what we’re trying to do with this; having a little bit more of the breathing space, the dissonance, which is something that wasn’t always there on Cryptopsy records, but to honor the groovy sections of None So Vile. And I know that Chris and Oli dropped a bunch of Easter egg stuff. We’re trying to create something new for a new era while honoring the legacy of Cryptopsy.”

ASAGRAUM

-Veil of Deaa, Ruptured-

THE LONG AWAITED THIRD ALBUM FROM THE INFERNAL WITCHES COVEN ASAGRAUM BLACK METAL FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE RELEASE DATE: 20TH OF OCTOBER FORMAT: CD, LP, TAPE AVAILABLE THROUGH ALL GOOD RECORD STORES ACROSS NORTH AMERICA us-shop.edgedcircleproductions.com edgedcircleproductions.bandcamp.com

D E CDI B EE C ILB:EOL C: TAOPBREIR L 2023 1 : 39

On its 40th anniversary, Decibel revisits

Savatage’s

power metal landmark Sirens and accidentally uncovers the roots of Florida death metal story by C LAY MA R S HA LL

mid-December, Yuletide rockers Trans-Siberian Orchestra will tells of sea nymphs “hungry for flesh” of nine

perform at Amalie Arena, home of the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning and a venue consistently rated by music industry trade magazine Pollstar as one of the busiest in the world. That day, as they’ve done for 14 consecutive winter tours, TSO will play two shows—an afternoon matinee followed by an evening nightcap—to a combined audience of more than 20,000. ¶ Less than four miles away, at the corner of North Florida Ave. and West Haya St., a nondescript gray building currently housing a bike shop and a personal training facility sits across the street from a Dollar Tree. Four decades ago, however, it served as the original location of Morrisound Recording, a fledgling studio founded by 20-something brothers Tom and Jim Morris. It was there that TSO’s progenitor—a local band originally known as Avatar—would unknowingly change heavy metal forever as they recorded their debut album over the course of four days in early 1983. ¶ That might seem hyperbolic, but without Savatage’s pioneering Sirens—which celebrates its ruby anniversary this year—the genre would sound drastically different today. While the album is overshadowed by other groundbreaking Class of 1983 debuts by Metallica, Slayer and Queensrÿche, Sirens singlehandedly laid the foundation for the Florida death metal scene, and its influence continues to ring out loudly today. ¶ To be clear, Savatage were never a death metal band, and Sirens is not a death metal album—but unlike the band’s latter-year rock operas or even their more traditional metal of the mid-to-late ’80s, the record was undeniably dark. The title track (inspired by Homer’s Odyssey)

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shipwrecked sailors; “Holocaust”—later covered by Six Feet Under on their initial Graveyard Classics release—aptly portrays the nuclear terror of the Cold War; “Scream Murder” is a true crime horror story about a knife-wielding villain “chasing you down the alleys of death”; and “On the Run” portrays the thoughts of a prison escapee as he’s hunted by authorities. But it was the album’s music—in particular, the “shrieks of terror” (per the album credits) of Jon Oliva and the “metalaxe” guitar work of his younger brother Criss—that caught the attention of local siblings Donald and John Tardy. “We were just young boys figuring out our instruments, and there’s no question that they put us on the trajectory of where we wanted to go,” Donald says. “Right before Celtic Frost, Slayer and Venom grabbed us, it was Savatage when we first realized, ‘This is the heaviest shit. This is so killer and metal and awesome and evil.’” Sirens was Savatage’s third recording at Morrisound. Initially, the group recorded two songs there for a local radio station compilation, and they returned several months later to track a 7-inch EP. “I remember my first impression was, ‘Oh god, this is going to be terrible. Look at these kids—they can’t possibly know anything,’”

Jim Morris recalls. “Then I hear down the hallway, somebody’s playing ‘Lady Madonna’ by the Beatles start-to-finish on piano and singing it perfectly. I’m like, ‘Who the hell is that?’ I walk in and it’s Jon Oliva, the singer for this young metal band that I thought was going to suck, and he’s playing and singing flawlessly. And that’s not an easy piano part. I’m like, ‘Holy cow— I completely underestimated these dudes.’ Right there, I knew this would be a very different session than I expected. Of course, I didn’t see him play piano again for years, but the talent was obviously there.” After Savatage released Sirens, Morrisound’s business picked up considerably, Morris says. “They were the only reason a lot of those bands came to us to start with,” he says. “They all said, ‘You did Savatage, so we wanted to come to you.’ I owe Jon and Criss an awful lot for being there and being willing to take a chance on us.” Soon enough, Morrisound would become Ground Zero of the Florida metal scene, with local groups such as Nasty Savage, Crimson Glory and Xecutioner (who would soon become Obituary)— followed by Morbid Angel, Amon (later Deicide), Death and Cynic, among many others—tapping the Morris brothers or legendary studio engineer Scott Burns to produce their albums. Longtime Morbid Angel vocalist David Vincent says that even if Savatage’s imprint

on Florida death metal might not be obvious, the group’s achievements—a long-term contract with Atlantic Records; national and international tours alongside the likes of Dio, Megadeth, Testament and King Diamond; MTV airplay—encouraged their local peers considerably. “Although our music and theirs were quite different, it was great to see them succeed as

For his part, Jon Oliva—who will watch TSO’s shows from the Amalie Arena soundboard, as he does every year—isn’t quite sure how an album recorded four miles away on a shoestring budget 40 years ago managed to bear such fruit, but he’s proud of the impact of Sirens and says he always appreciated the compliments local bands would give him.

Right before Celtic Frost, Slayer and Venom grabbed us, it was Savatage when we first realized,

‘This is the heaviest shit. This is so killer and metal and awesome and evil.’” evil.’ —Donald Tardy, Obituary they did, and it gave hope to the community in general,” he says. “At that time, genres were not as clearly defined as they are today—we were all ‘metal’ without the precursors ‘death,’ ‘thrash,’ et cetera, and as such, there was a lot more camaraderie. I was proud of them for their hard work in trailblazing the music scene in Florida. It demonstrated that a band needn’t move to California to get recognized and secure a record deal.”

“They never came to us for advice—they would just come by and hang out, and we became friendly with them,” he says. “We were pretty easy to get along with—just roll a joint and give us a drink and we’ll be your best friends forever. We could play death metal if we wanted to, but we wanted to play a lot more than that. I think we spawned these other bands saying, ‘Oh, we can do this, too, but we just want to play death metal.’ ‘All right, no problem. I still want to smoke your pot.’”

D E CDI B EE C ILB:EOL C: TAOPBREIR L 2023 1 : 41

interview by

QA j. bennett

WI T H

METALOCALYPSE’s co-creator on the return of the world’s biggest animated death metal band

42 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

deliberately tried to build the best job I could for myself.” So says

Metalocalypse mastermind Brendon Small when talking about the death metal-themed multimedia extravaganza he birthed with co-creator Tommy Blacha back in 2006. “I get to play guitar and hang out with Metallica and King Diamond and Mark Hamill. And then I get to go on tour afterwards. It’s like an 11-year-old looked into a crystal ball and said, ‘I never wanna have a real job.’” ¶ It’s been 10 years since the animated death metal band Dethklok vanished from our screens at the conclusion of Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem. The story of vocalist Nathan Explosion, guitarists Toki Wartooth and Skwisgaar Skwigelf, bassist William Murderface and drummer Pickles had yet to reach its conclusion, but the network suits pulled the plug—despite the show’s overwhelming popularity. ¶ Now Metalocalypse is back with a feature-length film, Army of the Doomstar. To complement it, Small has recorded two albums—the film’s score and Dethklok’s Dethalbum IV, all of which he’ll support on a co-headlining tour with Japanese kawaii metal stars Babymetal. “I really do think that the movie and the record function together, because there’s a lot of things the movie does that the record can’t do, and there’s a lot of things the record does that the movie can’t do,” our man says. “But together, they cover what I think they need to cover.” ¶ [Author’s note: This interview happened two days before the SAG strike.] You’ve got a movie and two albums coming out, plus a tour coming up. Are you exhausted yet?

Oh man. Finishing a movie or a TV show is always exhausting because there’s always a mad dash at the end. The score album was exhausting, too. But having three in a row—the score, the movie, Dethalbum IV—that’s when I needed a break. But it’s also how I have fun. The bigger the project, the bigger the challenge is, the more exciting it is for me. But I’ve noticed something over the years: If you’re working on something and you’re miserable while you’re doing it, the second you’re finished doing it, the misery is over. You forget it all, and you’re ready to become miserable again as soon as possible. I’d have to say I’m lucky to be this miserable. Fans have been waiting for this chapter of Metalocalypse for 10 years, but you’ve just spent all this time in the trenches working on it. Are you ready to not think about Nathan Explosion or Murderface for a while?

Oh yeah. But that’s always been the relationship—from episode one to now. Everyone else gets to have fun, but I have to babysit these idiots. I can’t be entertained by the show. That’s the rule of being the gatekeeper of the project. Not having done this for a time, I kinda compare it to the scene in Alien where everyone wakes up out of their space coma and they’re all groggy and nauseous. That’s kinda how the characters were when I was kicking them back to life. And then I gotta go on tour and scream out vocals in Nathan Explosion’s voice and think about

Murderface every single night. It’s a celebration of the whole project, and I can’t really complain about anything. I’m lucky to even have an opportunity to do this stuff. From what I can gather, you were resigned to the fact that this chapter of Metalocalypse wouldn’t happen.

Here’s what made me okay with the fact that it might not happen: In my head, I knew what the story was. I always thought if I run into a Dethklok fan and they wanna hear the ending, maybe I’ll tell it to them. That’s what I kinda figured I’d do—just go around and whisper in people’s ears the events that take place in Army of the Doomstar. But I think stories really need to have endings so you can make room for other stories with other projects and other ideas. What’s going on right now is that everyone is telling the same story over and over again—and not definitively ending anything. [Laughs] But when I’m out there saying, “Hey, let’s end this thing!” the network isn’t terribly excited to put a final nail in this coffin. But I get it. I can see why they don’t wanna bring it back just so it can end. It costs a lot of money to put a movie together— or a TV series. It’s a lot of people working lots of hours—a huge collaboration of people who have to really wanna be there. Making an album is so much cheaper. So, again, the fact that it did happen… I’m very lucky. But yeah—I was resigned to it never happening because that’s what happens with plenty of shows that just sit there. DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2023 : 43

Join the army  Back for a bittersweet moment, Small’s Dethklok returns to finish what they started

One of the earlier pitches for Dethklok was ‘Cannibal Corpse on Broadway.’ I knew that I’d love to see something of the caliber of Les Misérables with a death metal band. Doomstar Requiem came out 10 years ago. Did you have Army of the Doomstar written back then, or just the concept?

Good question. The answer is that I had an outline with all the important parts that had to be serviced. I knew there was a certain amount of storytelling that I owed to the show—certain things that I needed to wrap up, like this Tribunal story, this Murderface story and another thing that I won’t mention because it’s kind of a spoiler. I had all that stuff 10 years ago, but how it was gonna happen was something that I wrestled with later, in script. Anyone interested in Metalocalypse probably knows about the show’s cancellation and the debacle with Adult Swim and the fan campaign to bring the show back many years ago, so I won’t ask you to rehash it. But I will ask this: What changed?

Someone asked me this not too long ago, and I didn’t really have a good answer. But I do think that the fans coming out and showing support for the show all those years ago really did move the needle. Whether or not it moved the needle for the people working there at the time, I can’t say. But over the years, I do think people realized there is a fanbase for this. It’s a cult show, and it’s a hit for its demographic. All the numbers you need to sell something were sitting right there. There have been shake-ups at networks for years. It’s happening again right now. So, you never know who’s gonna peer over their glasses and go, “What’s this show Metalocalypse? How come we’re not doing anything with this?” Again, I’m just surmising. But I think some people did realize there’s a popularity there. Plus, here we are talking about two records and a movie. I can deliver that. A lot of showrunners can’t because they’re not musicians. They can’t tour. They don’t play guitar or anything 44 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

like that. So, there’s this extra thing that I think… maybe? I don’t know. Maybe someone saw the whole package. The new movie features voice cameos from King Diamond, Kirk Hammett and Scott Ian. Why those particular guys?

I wanted to get Kirk Hammett because he was in the first episode, and he’s just a really cool and supportive guy. Whenever I get an audience with him, we just talk about guitars and music. And then King Diamond was a very eye-opening moment for me when I was 14. The fact that this guy told stories with his music—and still does— was amazing to me. I just saw Mercyful Fate earlier this year, and it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. His voice is so great, and he still has all the enthusiasm. With Scott Ian, it goes back to S.O.D., which was comedy within metal, which was a big deal for me. I wanted to get even more people, but sometimes people’s schedules don’t always line up. But the people I did get represent something about discovering heavy metal when I was 14. It was such a crucial time for me, and I think for a lot of people. You’re figuring out your personality and carving out something that’s just for you. I think that music really does empower you at that age. Tell me about the new Dethklok record, Dethalbum IV. How did you approach it?

To me, writing is like going to Vegas and pulling the lever on a slot machine. On your first pull, you might get an apple, a horseshoe and an onion. There’s not much you can do with that. On your next pull, you might get two apples and a horseshoe. Well, maybe you can work with that. So, I just started collecting riffs and tried to decide what this record needed to sound like. This is a big Viking funeral of a record. One half is really fast and aggressive, and the other half

is really big and esoteric and mystical. That’s the concept. There’s a song called “Poisoned by Food.” Is it based on a personal experience?

In the early days of the show, I got food poisoning from a burrito I got down the street, so I thought, “What’s the music playing in your head when that’s happening?” And it really is brutal—your body is just wrecked when you’re poisoned by food. Whenever I think about Metalocalypse conceptually, brutality—whether it’s being attacked by a pit full of zombies or Cannibal Corpse’s “Hammer Smashed Face”—is important. But there are other things that are way more brutal than that—humidity, flying coach, sitting in traffic, being broken up with, having to break up with someone. All this stuff is just as brutal as any death metal song, and I think food poisoning is right up there. Now that you’ve concluded the Metalocalypse story, do you feel like it accomplished what you wanted when you started back in 2006?

One of the earlier pitches for Dethklok was “Cannibal Corpse on Broadway.” I didn’t even really know what that meant, but I knew that I’d love to see something of the caliber of Les Misérables with a death metal band. And I’m not alone in liking this stuff: [Real-life Dethklok drummer] Gene Hoglan is a huge Andrew Lloyd Webber fan. There’s just something about telling an epic, tragic story over grandiose chords. But one of the goals of this show early on was to do something with heavy metal that we haven’t seen before. I had a friend who lived down the street from me when I was a kid, and he showed me who King Diamond and Iron Maiden and Metallica were. We wanna do that—we wanna get kids into heavy metal and make them more curious about it.

the

definitive stories

behind extreme music’s

definitive albums

nick green

Always and Forever the making of Deafheaven’s Sunbather

an interview with PopMatters published a few days before Sunbather’s release, vocalist George Clarke

remarked, “I think it’s all-encompassing; it’s both our darkest and our lightest work.” Subsequent Deafheaven albums have pushed into even further extremes of gloominess and ebullience, but Sunbather is where the band’s vision for tension and release truly began to coalesce. The impact of Deafheaven’s landmark second full-length continues to reverberate in the band’s newer compositions, as well as the group’s own approach to composing set lists, where songs like “Dream House” have been entrenched as live staples for a decade. Sunbather also remains the defining moment for the genre of “blackgaze,” socalled for its 50/50 split between atmospheric black metal and 1990s shoegaze. Clarke, guitarist Kerry McCoy and drummer Daniel Tracy all point to Alcest’s earlier albums as a kind of blueprint for Sunbather, a connection that is reinforced by Stéphane “Neige” Paut’s appearance on the interlude “Please Remember,” reading a passage from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The album is much more than a fusion of already-mutated third-wave black metal and Slowdive, though. You don’t have to squint hard to discern the influence of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, screamo bands like Envy, Surfer Rosa-era Pixies or even “Zombie” by the Cranberries, which McCoy pays homage to in the back half of the album’s epic closer “The Pecan Tree.” If it weren’t for Clarke’s lacerating vocals, you probably wouldn’t get a sense that you were listening to a black metal-influenced album until about halfway through Sunbather’s title track, when Tracy’s blast beats reach a fever pitch and then break. The whole album is designed to support the listener’s journey with shorter interludes between songs and plenty of space within the songs themselves. The album’s pink album art is also meant as a gesture of inclusion, not only for DBHOF226 the LGBTQIA+ community, but for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider. Sunbather’s design is so iconic that the band even had it printed on blankets, so some lucky fans could feel the album’s warm embrace on the chilliest of nights. Part of the reason Sunbather is the definitive Deafheaven release—and why it felt so important at the time—is because it speaks volumes about being young and Sunbather inexperienced, awash in potential, but also prone to acts of self-sabotage. It’s no DEAT HWIS H INC. coincidence that Clarke’s lyrics for three of the four longer songs on Sunbather speJUNE 11, 2013 cifically call out “dreams,” while the third—the title track—unfolds like an outof-body experience. Just a few years into their career, Deafheaven were already Pink, it was love at first sight grappling with big questions on a metaphysical level. Sunbather is both a personal and artistic triumph, transforming fear, shame and guilt into a lesson in vulnerability worthy of the Decibel Hall of Fame. Is it blissful? It’s like a dream.

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Deafheaven’s 2011 debut, Roads to Judah, was recorded as a quintet, as were the band’s later albums. But Sunbather was recorded as a trio after drummer Daniel Tracy joined the band. How did the lineup changes and reconfiguration impact the band’s approach on Sunbather?

Sunbather was written a year before it was recorded by Clarke and McCoy. What do you remember about the writing process? CLARKE: We were writing material between tours—it’d be me and Kerry, in our bedroom,

“I started out with a golf bag for equipment, which is pretty typical for people that can’t afford hardware bags. But I lost the golf bag and needed to quickly replace it, so I started to just shove my stands into a potato sack instead.”

DA NIE L T RACY tracking ideas on his loop machine. I’ve always been pretty involved in the writing phase, but mostly to be off to the side, giving the thumbs down or thumbs up. I’d go to every practice, but mostly to watch Kerry and Dan work the songs out. From my side, there was mostly a lot of conversation. We were hyper-aware of the current state of music, and constantly compared ourselves to what other artists were doing, thinking about how we wanted the music to sound. The lyrics were always kind of in the air. Almost 100 percent of the vocals on Sunbather were pieced together while we were tracking guitars. Deafheaven’s music has always been really well-prepared for the studio, but we kept the vocal ideas loose leading up to the recording of Sunbather. TRACY: I started meeting up with Kerry to jam regularly. He had a crazy amount of material that he’d written in their living room, the spot on 24th Street [that] he shared with George and Sean Grange. He needed someone to kind of collaborate with and form structures out of the material that he had. So, we met up every day for probably three months straight, and just kind OCTOBER 2023 : 4 8 : DECIBEL

of hammered out everything that we could. That process was very in the weeds, like, “Should we play this part three times or five times? Should we cut out this measure? Should we double this part?” A lot of it was taking what Kerry had already and putting it into a cohesive context. McCOY: The writing started with the riffs. We did our first big tour in the U.S. in 2011 as support for Russian Circles, and I had already been working on a couple little things before that. One of the things Russian Circles was using at the time was a DigiTech JamMan, which is like a loop pedal. So, I bought one after talking with their guitarist Mike Sullivan, because I was trying to be as much of a “grown-up” musician as possible. I’d use that to loop things and start putting together the ideas for about a year before we recorded the record. Once I recorded a riff, I would log it and name it in a notebook, and then make a note about how many times it should be repeated. The opening riff on Sunbather is called “Big Red Sparowes” or something like that. And the second riff is called “Slow Jesu part.” The names were based on whatever I was trying to rip off, essentially. I had a little tent set up in

PHOTO BY TRE McCARTHY

KERRY McCOY: We had done that with the demo, too—that was also just me, George and a drummer who was a friend of ours. With Roads to Judah, there was a little bit of collaboration, but it was still mostly me doing the music. There were things on the demo and Roads to Judah where I’d keep noticing the mistakes and felt strongly like I wanted to correct them. Especially with the demo, where I was really starting to figure things out. So, going into Sunbather, I felt like we had free rein in the studio. It wasn’t a challenging situation. I think I was second-guessing myself in parts, but I also felt like I finally knew what I was doing. GEORGE CLARKE: I think it impacted Kerry the most because he had the most to write. There was a period where we could have taken a while to find a guitarist that would be a good fit for the long term. In lieu of that, Kerry wrote a lot of the record alone. It was stressful for him. He was quite nervous—as we all were—about following up Roads to Judah, and that was magnified by having to carry so much of it on his shoulders. So, there was probably a lot of self-scrutinies for Kerry. DANIEL TRACY: Well, I met George and Kerry through a mutual friend named Sean Grange. He played in some local bands in San Francisco— Buffalo Tooth and Glitter Wizard. I remember hanging out with Sean after a show, and he told me that his roommates had material written for a record and a bunch of shows booked in Europe and were looking for a drummer. I was like, “That sounds like it’s right up my alley.” They’d lost their lineup from Roads to Judah, and they were unsure of what the future held for Deafheaven. This was a constant issue for them early on—they didn’t really trust anyone to stick around and commit fully. I actually had to record a video for them first, so they could see me play drums before meeting up in person. When we finally met up, Kerry and I played “Violet” together while George watched. And then Kerry was like, “You got the job, dude.” That was it. We immediately got a pint of whiskey and started drinking it on the way to a bar in the Tenderloin. We had a great night, kind of living it up and celebrating.

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the living room where I’d be working on leads, and I’d get George’s take. After Dan joined, he and I would meet in the practice space after work to just bang the songs out; he is a very instinctive editor and helped to transform the rough sketches into songs. That’s how the majority of the writing for this record happened. Sunbather was recorded in January 2013 at the Atomic Garden Recording Studio in Palo Alto with Jack Shirley. How much time was set aside for tracking and mastering? What do you recall about the studio experience? TRACY: The idea behind Kerry and I spending so much time in the practice space was to make sure things were fully formed before going to the studio. That has kind of always been our mentality as a band. During Sunbather, it was also in order to save money. We were all completely broke and in debt, actually, so we wanted to be as cost-efficient as possible. Part of that is just having everything ready to go. Once we were in the studio, I think I did my drums in two days. I used Jack’s drum set that he had in the studio, with a ride cymbal I found in the corner of our practice space. I did the first half of the record on the first day. Most of my drums were captured on the first take. Because they were long and physically taxing compositions, I didn’t want to have to do them again! After that, I hung it up and watched Kerry do his thing for the rest of the days. McCOY: The thing we liked about Jack is that he’s a punk dude—he works with people at all budgets. Roads to Judah was recorded for $1,200 over a weekend. I want to say that Sunbather cost, like, $3,000. His old studio was cool, too—he used to live in East Palo Alto next to this church, and there was a day during Sunbather, probably a Sunday, where we had to suspend recording because otherwise there would be bleed-through from the service. We’d worked with Jack on all of our recordings, so we trusted him completely. When he asked me what I wanted Sunbather to sound like, I was like, “Just like the other ones, but, you know, better.” My main memory of that time is being hung over a lot, and then just feeling really nervous and worried. When the band started, we noticed very quickly that there was interest in what we were doing. We got signed pretty quickly and had already been to Europe twice, played South by Southwest twice, and gone to Japan with Godflesh and Sunn O))). I thought the material on Sunbather was good, but I remember feeling sad at the prospect of it all going away, because it would mean that we couldn’t tour anymore. CLARKE: Jack is great and has always been very generous with his time and energy. Especially then, because none of us had a car, so we’d take

trains down to East Palo Alto. Jack would have to pick us up from the train station in the mornings and in the evenings, and we’d either take the train back or beg friends to come down from Oakland and give us a ride home. Sonically, the idea of doing this “naturally” was at the forefront of everything. We were looking to capture a performance, which is Jack’s strength, and that’s something that helped us keep working with our budget. While there was an effort to bring in bigger ideas, we wanted to preserve the rawness. Sunbather was really fueled by atmospheric black metal and wanting to have that broad sound, with long, repeated phrases and hypnotic blast beats. Less of an emphasis on articulation, and more of a focus on a sound wash. It was important to us that the recording was felt and not just heard. JACK SHIRLEY: By the time Sunbather came around, everyone was clear-headed about it. It was like, “People are paying attention—we’re going to do a good job this time.” In some ways, it made things much easier, because everyone was on the same page. Knowing how it usually goes, we probably tracked the whole thing in three

or four days. We did a couple days of mixing. The tones were really good and the playing was, too. The arrangement was actually really good, too—I don’t want to get too in the weeds on this, but with a lot of recordings you’ll have left and right rhythm guitar tracks, and then leads will pop in and out on top of those. It can be kind of jarring. We figured out an easy way to have that not happen, which was to use four guitar tracks, always playing. Two main rhythms, left and right, and then two more on top. The top layers would switch from rhythm to lead, then back, keeping that ebb and flow more seamless and less distracting. It helped to maintain that ambient wash. We used a bunch of room mics for the recording, so there isn’t much reverb on Sunbather; I guess that’s odd for an ambient black metal album. It’s all pretty natural room sounds without a lot of embellishment. We did a lot of work getting everything right at the point of origin, and that made the rest of it pretty painless. Another thing about Sunbather I should mention is that it was recorded to tape with no click tracks. There’s no editing of anything.

PHOTO BY REID HAITHCOCK

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It’s very organic. It would’ve been a live band playing it at the time if they’d had a full band, but Kerry ended up doing everything besides the drums and vocals. Deafheaven expanded to a five-piece after Sunbather was recorded. Did you have to rework any of the material for five players? Do you have any specific memories of those tours? TRACY: The next step after we recorded Sunbather

was to figure out how to pull it off live. Shiv Mehra and I have been friends since we were 12 years old and had played music together our whole lives, so when Kerry and George asked if I knew any good guitarists, I was like, “Actually, I do!” Shiv instantly gelled with the band, and obviously, we’re all still together. I was obviously gunning for him. Steve Clark was our bass player for that cycle—he was another guy who’d shared an apartment with Kerry and George, and he was an amazing fit, too. We did the first tour together in Europe with the Secret, and that’s when we all bonded and became brothers. It was cool taking that record on the road and playing it for kids who’d just started listening to it. I’m not sure how prepared I was with gear, though. I was running around with the worst, bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. When we played the Pitchfork Festival in Paris, I had a crash cymbal that was so cracked that it would flip upside down if I hit it the wrong way. That happened onstage and I was pretty mortified. I also started out with a golf bag for equipment, which is pretty typical for people that can’t afford hardware bags. But I lost the golf bag and needed to quickly replace it, so I started to just shove my stands into a potato sack instead. CLARKE: That touring cycle was amazing. We have the best memories of that time. We maximized everything, playing as many shows with as few days off as possible, and hitting any parties or bars we could fit in. It was a head-first dive into excess. It was great. We were in Europe when “Dream House” premiered. I think we were in Norway. I remember being backstage at this venue celebrating its release. From there, we did a tour with Marriages, which was fantastic. But the most memorable tour from that period was us, Pallbearer and Wreck & Reference in 2014. We were completely out of our minds. I was 24 years old, having a good time, partying and enjoying the world. McCOY: We didn’t have to edit or adapt any of the material we recorded because it was written for five people: basslines, drums, guitars, alternate leads and vocals. That’s kind of how we are set up now, albeit a little more expanded version of that concept. The touring cycle around Sunbather was really fucking awesome. I also remember coming back from that tour and having money

for the first time. It meant we could pay ourselves and I didn’t have to go back to working at a pizza place. It was like, “Cool, I can totally survive off of this.” And that’s what it was like until the next tour, by which point the record had come out and people were getting into it. After that, we realized we needed to get an actual tour manager and set up an LLC and get organized, because I was walking around with, like, $20,000 in a backpack. It was exciting, but also scary. What is your favorite song on this album, and why? CLARKE: The end of “The Pecan Tree” might be my favorite section of a song altogether, but “Sunbather” is my overall favorite song on the album. It’s fun to play live and sums up a lot of the themes that play out on the rest of the album, sonically and lyrically. We haven’t written a song like it since—like, anything with that big, mid-tempo, bouncy beginning.

“The concept we had for the album art is that we wanted to take the illegibility of black metal logos and refine them, so we broke the lettering down and focused on iconography without crude illustrations.”

G EO RG E CLA RKE McCOY: Of the non-interlude songs, my favorite is probably “Sunbather.” Now, “Dream House” is a good one, but we’ve played that at every show for the last 10 years, so I’m kinda bored with it by now. “Vertigo” is a fucking monster to play live; you get 10 minutes into it and you’re like, “I can’t believe that there’s another three more minutes of this fucking song.” For “The Pecan Tree,” we liked the end of that so much that we decided to incorporate it in future records. But I feel like we did what “The Pecan Tree” is trying to do—the rock-oriented songs with cool choruses—better on New Bermuda and everything that came after it. So, I keep going back to “Sunbather,” because it’s high-energy and the clean part at the end of it is fun to dance to. TRACY: I’d probably have to go with “Vertigo,” because it’s a deeper cut that doesn’t get as much attention. It’s also the longest Deafheaven song ever written. It’s insanely long. There’s one part in that song that always gives me goosebumps, OCTOBER 2023 : 5 2 : DECIBEL

at least from a drumming perspective—the triple-blast section with the fill for the transition. I was really proud of that passage because I hadn’t heard anyone else do that before. I remember Kerry and I coming up with that in the practice space and us both being like, “That was fuckin’ sick.” SHIRLEY: I think everybody responds to “Dream House.” That’s the one that hits most for me, and it was a favorite even at the time. I do like the interludes a lot, too. There’s one section on one of the interludes where this gnarly whirring sound comes in and then dies down. It’s the sound of an old iPod rebooting—the hard drive spinning. I think we held a mic up to the iPod when it was being hard restarted. So, I will always think back on stuff like that fondly. But “Dream House” is the obvious answer to me. It’s iconic. Roads to Judah was comparatively more symmetrical, with four songs organized as “movements.” Sunbather was a much longer record with more songs of varying lengths. How much consideration was given to the album’s sequencing? Was the album recorded with vinyl in mind? TRACY: That’s kind of always the case; you consider what makes sense on [both] sides of the record when sequencing. It’s usually the first thing that everyone thinks of in terms of song lengths and what can physically fit. I wasn’t super involved with the sequencing on Sunbather, but I did get to watch the whole process of recording the sound effects and elements for the interludes, which was really interesting. I think the whole idea of the interludes was to break up the songs and create a sonic palate cleanser. It was a way of changing the listener’s perspective. CLARKE: We focus a lot on sequence. Not just for album flow, but for vinyl cutting, too. On Sunbather, sequencing became more important because we wanted to keep the interludes, but knew that the record had to have a good flow to it. As far as the vinyl part, we knew that it was going to be a double LP and it kind of made sense to order it that way. A lot of our sequencing conversations tend to be about vinyl cutting. Back to the interludes, our problem has always [been wanting] to have everything jammed into one song and we’ve gone far lengths to make that work. I think the interludes were born from that, like, “Let’s have acoustic guitars and a noise part and backmasking and a real-life field recording.” McCOY: I think we often go in with this mentality of, “It is what it is, and we’ll sort it out later.” Which always turns out to be a huge pain in the ass. Thinking about the sequencing now as a grown-up, and knowing my own need for organization, “Dream House” and “Sunbather” and “Irresistible” are the “happier” songs, and they are all front-loaded on the album. Then

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there’s a bridge in “Please Remember,” and that interlude ends with a harsh noise bit that leads you into the more “morose” songs: “Vertigo,” “Windows” and “The Pecan Tree.” So, there’s kind of a vision there with four songs with very different vibes that kinda flow as one, and I think that has to have been purposeful. It’s no real secret that there’s a giant Godspeed You! Black Emperor influence on this album, especially with the “movements” in Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven. What’s the story behind Sunbather’s title and album art? CLARKE: The album basically reflects on everything I felt contributed to why my life was like it was at the time. Mostly those reflections were on my relationships with my friends, family and money. I’d walk home from work at night looking at people watching TV in high rise apartments and feel a longing for more stability. The song itself came from an experience where I was driving through a nice neighborhood and saw people laying on their lawns. It was very idyllic and in stark contrast with the direction my life was going in at the time. Nick Steinhardt is responsible for designing the album cover. We had worked on Roads to Judah together and became friends. We’d stay at his house when we visited L.A. and played with his band Touché Amoré. The concept we had for the album art

is that we wanted to take the illegibility of black metal logos and refine them, so we broke the lettering down and focused on iconography without crude illustrations. McCOY: I remember George having the idea for the album cover. At the time, we were hanging out in Dolores Park in San Francisco a lot. It used to be this beautiful, kinda lawless place where you could go and drink 40s or take MDMA or just do whatever you wanted to do. There were times where you’d be sunburned, dehydrated and drunk, and you’d stretch out, lay back, close your eyes and see colors. So George wanted to capture that. The typography also references the album cover for Pulp’s We Love Life. TRACY: Honestly, the art direction is almost 100 percent George and Nick Steinhardt. For the Sunbather art, I remember George sending us mock-ups and just being blown away by Nick’s design. I was really stoked on it, purely because we knew that it would be completely unexpected. George described the album art as being emblematic of staring at the sun with your eyes closed and the effect of the sunlight coming through your eyelids. That was a very profound image to associate with the music that we were making, and I felt that it even vibed with the chords that Kerry was playing. To match that with the color scheme selected on the album art was a pretty genius move.

a painting. That clip shows actual human suffering and darkness; you don’t need to be wearing a bullet belt to get there. CLARKE: It was one of Kerry’s ideas. In retrospect, he may have been taking too much of a risk. Like, maybe you shouldn’t be buying drugs with a microphone in your pocket. We were doing a lot of drugs and wanted to show that the attraction to drugs came from a not-so-good place. We wanted to share some of what we were going through and how we did it. We wanted to give a glimpse into our own lives. And, you know, music is kind of a good way to let some of that stuff out. That’s always been a focus for Deafheaven—to be really revealing, to show who we are, and this was a choice to push that idea. Japanese pressings included the Mogwai covers from the split with Bosse-de-Nage as a bonus track. Was there any material from that era that you considered for Sunbather, but didn’t make the cut? McCOY: When we were living at the other house, before we did the tour with Russian Circles, there was a song that I could not get to work. I was trying to use a loop pedal and I had the idea that it was kind of going to be a Swans-esque/ Godflesh-y thing. It was very minimalist and we were thinking about including piano or strings, but none of us had a computer at the time and couldn’t figure out how to flesh it out. The goal was to have Chelsea Wolfe sing on it and have it just be clean-sounding, but with heavy syncopation. By the time the rest of the record got written, it didn’t fit the rest of the sound. It was originally going to be the first track on Sunbather. There was an interview I gave to somebody back then where I said that Sunbather was going to be “faster and darker and more experimental.” That song is what I was thinking about. Of course, the record ended up not sounding like that at all, which is probably for the best. For most of our records, it’s just every song we have at that time. It takes a lot to write a Deafheaven song, and it’s hard for us to get together, so we have to do it on a schedule.

Where did the idea of incorporating the samples/field recordings in “Windows” come from?.

How was the album received when it was released in June 2013? Were you surprised at how much attention it received and how polarizing it continues to be?

McCOY: I think it came from a mentality we had at the time—me, especially—that real art should communicate vulnerability. There was something really attractive to me about capturing this dark, painful thing and putting it into the album we were making. It was something my dad was going to ask me about when he heard it. It was a desperate-sounding musical piece and that field recording part is just as dark. Everything about it: the guy I was talking to, where we were and what we were doing there. It was like putting a little bit of your blood into

McCOY: It was never the deep underground people complaining about it. It was always folks that were acting militant because they were insecure. The other thing I remember was the opposite of that, which is the people that were into other stuff like Bon Iver and had never heard a second of Slayer and maintained that Sunbather was the best metal record ever made. Those folks were also wrong, just in a completely different way. What has been nice is that people seem to have grown accustomed to us as a band and that conversation seems to be happening way less now.

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“It was never the deep underground people complaining about it. It was always folks that were acting militant because they were insecure. The other thing I remember was the opposite of that, which is the people that were into other stuff like Bon Iver and had never heard a second of Slayer and maintained that Sunbather was the best metal record ever made. Those folks were also wrong, just in a completely different way.”

I don’t really get the shit I used to get for it, aside from the random drunk metal guy at one of our shows complaining that there should be more blast beats. TRACY: That was a giant part of the narrative when it was released, so it was kind of hard to ignore. I wasn’t super bothered by it personally because I think controversy can be cool, even when it’s skewed in a slightly negative way; I’d rather be a band that pushes buttons than one that coasts along, following trends, doing what people are expecting. CLARKE: The attention was really surprising. We’d seen other metal bands cross the critical line and get covered by more mainstream outlets. They were all bands we liked and wanted to play with. So, the idea of being a band that could fit in similar spaces with Converge or Baroness was exciting. The shows got better after Sunbather, too. That was really all it was for us— that’s why we went so hard with touring after that. When more than 50 people are showing up for a gig, it’s like, “Oh wow, this is a real thing.” That was part of the conversation very early on. I remember saying to the rest of the band, “Let’s just put our heads down and work.” We tried not to pay too much attention to the noise.

What do you think the legacy of Sunbather is? TRACY: I think the legacy of Sunbather is intro-

ducing people to a lot of underground extreme music, whether it’s in the indie world or the mainstream metal world. I think the fact that we have the ability to play indie tours and metal tours gives us a lot of versatility and the ability to expose audiences to different styles of music. I would say that it opened the door for larger opportunities for us, like playing Bonnaroo and multiple Pitchfork festivals and Primavera Sound. Those are festivals where you wouldn’t normally see an extreme band on the bill. Part of what got us on those lineups was notoriety from Sunbather. I was in a string of bands over the years where I’d help them write the record and it’d be time to make it, and the band would collapse from infighting. I’m very grateful to have met some like-minded individuals and to continue to have those opportunities. CLARKE: What attracted me to making our kind of music in the first place—paying attention to early influencers like Alcest or Ludicra or Weakling—was that those bands could apply their own voice to metal. They found an audience being left of center, emotional and ethereal. I hope Sunbather is in that tradition and that OCTOBER 2023 : 5 6 : DECIBEL

people who are interested in heavy music can listen to it and be excited that it rides its own wave. On Sunbather, we wanted to expand outward in both directions, to become heavier and darker, but also to find ways to become more melodic and hopeful and buoyant. That’s probably been the band’s m.o. ever since, and I’m sure the process of making this record is what set us on that path. McCOY: I see people react to it at shows and when I talk to fans and understand the impact a little more when people share their personal experiences with the record. If you were to ask me that question about Jane Doe or a Godspeed record, I could talk at length about the timelessness of those records. For us, I don’t know. I would hope that, as we get further and further away from the noise that surrounded Sunbather when it came out, people are able to appreciate it for what it is and can see that it’s an honest record. It’s how the three of us felt at the time—it’s just us being human. Of course, there are times on tour where we’re like, “You know, we’ve made other records!” But we’re very fortunate that our fans tend to like most of the stuff we do. As my dad has told me, the only thing worse than having Sunbather fatigue is not having Sunbather in your catalog.

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KE RRY Mc COY

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CHRIS DICK

R OB M E N Z E R

LEGACY OF

BRUTALITY J O H N Mc E N T E E l ea ds

INCANTATION’s

34-y ear jour ney fro m O L D - S C HO O L U N D E R D O G S to D E AT H M E TA L OV E R LO R D S

JOHN McENTEE’S A SMARTASS. If you know the Incantation headman, chances are he’s going to fuck

with you at some point. He won’t key your car or steal your lunch money, but he’s gonna disarm you. The longer you know him, the worse it gets. “I’m Irish and I come from New Jersey, so sarcasm is ingrained in me,” says McEntee on the first round of interviews with Decibel. “I’m good at being sarcastic, keeping a serious face and not breaking character. It’s the natural thing for me to say something stupid or controversial, and then say, ‘Ah, I’m just fucking with you.’ People have to sometimes get used to it.”

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Decibel has been exposed to McEntee, his antics and, of course, Incantation for longer than we’d like to admit. My first encounter was outside Blondies in Detroit in 1992. Incantation had teamed up with Austrian sickos Pungent Stench and New York grindcore maniacs Brutal Truth for a short summer tour. Stenchies Alexander Wank and Jacek Perkowski were in the parking lot attempting to pull rank on anyone who so much as looked at them. McEntee, fully aware he’s in Shitsville, USA, is having a grand old time, smiling and laughing. My friend and I asked him to sign our show fliers, and he said flatly, “Not unless you pay me.” He took a good look at our stunned teenage faces and chortled, “Oh, I’ll sign it, guys.” Then, at Incantation’s Hall of Fame show for their landmark Onward to Golgotha debut at Club Europa in Brooklyn in 2010, they were famously late for their own party. McEntee snarked a few things as they were setting up, egging on the anxiously awaiting crowd of longhairs—who were forced, I believe, to miss opening acts Fatalist and Funerus—before launching into “Golgotha.” This time, McEntee wasn’t fucking around, but afterwards smiled apologetically for Incantation’s tardiness. When Decibel first notified McEntee that they were going to feature Incantation on the cover for their new album, Unholy Deification, he was outside of Carolina Chainsaw Massacre II, a twoday metal and horror festival (now on hiatus)

that he organizes, in Greensboro, NC, where he also currently resides. He had on his game face, too. “I hope it’s gonna be a good one,” he said, his gray beard imparting a stoic look. I knew what to expect, so I paused, waiting for the change. On schedule, McEntee smiled, and said, “Of course, it’s gonna be a good one!” Minutes later, McEntee was gone, the seething vortex of festival logistics (and nightmares) beckoning for his undivided attention, as were the final songs of Exciter, who were closing out Day 2 in Canadian speed metal style.

the ULTIMATE GESTATION Incantation trace their history back to deaththrash squad Revenant, who formed in New Jersey in 1986. Influenced in their formative stages by Celtic Frost, Possessed, Agnostic Front and Voivod, Revenant, helmed by guitarist/ vocalist Henry Veggian with McEntee, who joined in 1987 as his sideman, parlayed aggression with technicality in their rawest forms. McEntee and Veggian were fast friends, enjoying the bond of metal extremes, and having a ball antagonizing anyone who got in their way or offended their rakehell worldview. “Back then, we were just metalheads telling everyone to fuck off,” McEntee responds with his trademark laugh. “Fuck religious bullshit, too! Henry and I used to go to the arts-and-crafts store to buy sticker paper. We made these DIY stickers that said, ‘Born Again Christians Should Die!’ and ‘Christ Sucks!’ They were stupid, but hilarious. When I got my driver’s license, we’d sneak up to cars at stoplights. If the car in front of us had a ‘Jesus Loves You’ sticker or some other dumb shit on it, Henry would get out, sneak up and slap our sticker on top of it. He’d scream, ‘Jesus hates you!’ and run back to the car. We’d go around town just to desecrate stuff.” “In the early days of Revenant, John and I—all of us, actually—did a lot of crazy stuff,”

adds Veggian, who is now a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “I remember the Martin Scorsese film, The Last Temptation of Christ, was released in 1988. There was a movie theater in Paramus, not far from where John grew up, and there were picketers out in front of that theater protesting that movie. If you ever watched the film or read the novel, the thing that made people mad, that made Christians mad about that film—at least die-hard, evangelical Christians—was because it represented Jesus in his human form. It’s a profoundly religious and respectful film. I made a point of going to see it, crossing their line and thumbing my nose at them. And I remember going there with John as well. We plastered their cars with counter-protest signs.” Dastardly deeds played handily into Revenant’s music. News traveled as fast as the mail could take it about the sheer terror of the group’s 1987 demo, Beyond the Winds of Sorrow, and Asphyxiated Time the following year. They were on a roll. It wasn’t just Veggian and McEntee smelling their own farts. Record labels—some even infamous—had caught wind of Revenant’s fiendish ways. “We were getting a lot of press,” says McEntee. “The underground fanzine scene and the tapetrading scene were into us. Actually, we were on the verge of getting a record deal with New Renaissance Records, whom we were really big fans of. They put out Necrophagia, Dream Death and the Speed Metal Hell [compilation] releases. We were so pumped. The deal—which was bullshit—basically said that we’d have to pay for everything. We’d get no advance. I was only 18 years old. Between us, we didn’t have $10,000 to make a record. We just couldn’t afford it, and so we never signed the deal.” Not long after Revenant aborted their “dream deal,” they plotted, along with Long Islanders Immolation, to bring up lava-hot trailblazers Morbid Angel, who had recently relocated to Tampa from car wash duties in Charlotte, for

[Paul Ledney and I] got along great musically. But he wanted to be a little more theatrical.

I JUST COULDN’T PICTURE MYSELF BEING NAKED IN HIS BACKYARD. J O H N Mc E N T E E

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three shows. At the time, Veggian and McEntee started to diverge musically. There were small differences, but in the minds of two young, ego-forward musicians, the rifts appeared impassable. What seemed like a bright idea—to put Morbid Angel, Immolation and Revenant on the same bill—effectively ended McEntee’s involvement with Veggian. With soundman Jon DePlachett (of Necrovore fame) manning front of house and McEntee in awe of it all, Morbid Angel’s gig at Streets in New Rochelle was a “life-changing” event. “This was fall—October, I think—of 1988,” McEntee says. “They had been asking to do some shows up here. So, we booked a few gigs over a two-week time. They were already signed to Earache, I think. And, if I remember right, Pete Sandoval had just joined, and had never played double-kick before. He picked it up a month before and was better than everyone! I had never been around people who were that focused on playing music. They had this vibe of world domination—’fuck everyone, the world’s gotta die’type stuff. I had seen great shows before Morbid Angel, but nothing that intense. Focused like a laser. They were next-level. It changed me.” With McEntee’s riff hand leaning evilly to the left and personal differences between him and Veggian at the forefront, separating from Revenant was inevitable. In 1989, McEntee left to form Incantation, with one-time Revenant drummer Paul Ledney. Split between Fair Lawn in New Jersey and Brewster in New York respectively, they worked through the nuggets of what would define Incantation today. There were still holdover songs though, such as “Degeneration,” a song which originally appeared on Revenant’s Demo 1990, later beefed up by Incantation in re-recorded form via our Decibel Flexi Series in 2012, and “Unholy Massacre,” previously titled “Isolated.” But the first execrative song off the assembly line of McEntee and Ledney was “Profanation.” “‘Degeneration’ was totally my inspiration from playing with Morbid Angel,” says McEntee. “I guess I caught the angel of disease. I wanted to see if I could write music with the same intensity. I wanted to write rougher stuff ’cause I was into Sarcófago, Necrovore, Necrophagia and, of course, Morbid Angel. ‘Isolated,’ which became ‘Unholy Massacre,’ was similar to ‘Degeneration.’ It was aggressive, dark. At that point, I knew Incantation had to be done. Jamming with Paul was perfect. We were both into the more aggressive stuff.” “I really only did two songs, the first two songs, ‘Unholy Massacre’ and ‘Profanation,’ with him,” says Ledney, whose position as chief provocateur in black metal legends Profanatica and Havohej is of high repute. “I think ‘Profanation’ was originally going to be a Revenant song that we rehearsed with Henry.”

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Ledney and McEntee had nothing but darkness on their respective minds. Before the second wave of black metal made its mark, Incantation were grave-deep in abject blasphemy. The two-song, Reh.1.3.90, featuring the Hellhammer cover “The Third of the Storms (Evoked Damnation)” and “Profanation,” was merely the beginning. Ledney, in particular, wanted to take their irreverence superlatively, positing at one point for Incantation to pose nude to challenge the status quo of both the scene and especially society at large. Ledney, who eventually went au naturel with his fellow bandmates in Profanatica, says, “I wanted to push boundaries. John never really cared what other people thought, but there comes a point where he’s like, ‘Oh, are we going to lose credibility or people aren’t going to take us seriously?’ John would never do the type of photos— we were naked with blood and corpsepaint—that we did in Profanatica. That wasn’t his thing.” “When he wanted to do that in Incantation, I was like, ‘Uh, no!’” says McEntee. “He wanted me to be in corpsepaint, too. If he wanted to do that, it’s cool with me, but I’m very much into T-shirts and pants. I’m that kind of guy. I think that was one of the main bones of contention with Paul, actually. We got along great musically. But he wanted to be a little more theatrical. I just couldn’t picture myself being naked in his backyard.” Incantation have since released 13 studio albums, all with McEntee and his current (and former) bandmates fully clothed. (Except for former vocalist/guitarist Craig Pillard, who, while recording vocals for debut Onward to Golgotha, was more in line with Ledney’s birthday suit predilection). To quote Pillard in the Hall of Fame story for Onward to Golgotha, “I actually had to strip naked and try to take every thought out of my head and focus completely on the vocal delivery.” Nevertheless, from Entrantment of Evil (1991) to Sect of Vile Divinities (2020), Incantation earned a loyal, recently multi-generational following. If there’s one constant in the journey from the metal punter who listened to DJ Gene “The Maniac” Khoury’s Power Metal Radio at WMSC religiously to Revenant to Incantation, it’s that McEntee’s always unwavering. He’s been loyal to his vision to a fault. What was fit for spiritual disparagement in 1989 remains overly ripe 34 years later. Unholy Deification is proof.

BLASPHEMY MADE FRESH Incantation’s history of blasphemy is foundational. It was their “Faustian bargain.” To wit, the envoi to “Profanation” left little to the imagination. It homilized, “Blasphemy—left to die / Sodomy—the blood is raised / Reap of evil—takes its toll / Profanation of the gods…” That was by design. From McEntee and Ledney, as the group’s earliest denizens, through former vocalist Mike Saez and current drummer Kyle Severn (also of Shed the Skin), the members of Incantation figured out how to push buttons— especially of “Satanic Panic” reactionary

holdovers—with graphically derisive lyrics (and images). Across eight full-lengths, Incantation had toiled heavily in the fine art of desecration. Mortal Throne of Nazarene (1994), The Infernal Storm (2000) and Decimate Christendom (2004) were conspicuously titled, blood-red letters exalting Christianity’s demise. Actually, all of Incantation’s albums had vituperated John’s Catholic origins to varying degrees of extremity. Fast forward to 2008. Enter Chuck Sherwood. Formerly of Philadelphia-based black-thrash combo Blood Storm, Sherwood’s incorporation was, in all likelihood, foreordained. The bassist and lyricist was an instant complement to McEntee’s unambiguous anti-religious declarations. Sherwood’s first shot across the bow was on “Haruspex,” off Vanquish in Vengeance (2012). The song—about entrail divination—was also a gift of adulation to the Incantation classic “Unholy Massacre.” “To be honest, ‘Unholy Massacre’ was my favorite song by them growing up,” Sherwood says. “I’m dead serious. Like when most folks were hearing ‘Golgotha’ and going, ‘I love that fucking song!’ or ‘Immortal Cessation’ from Death .... Is Just the Beginning II and freaking out, I was completely into ‘Unholy Massacre.’” “Haruspex’’ paved the way for Sherwood to assume the lyrical/conceptual mantle of Incantation’s post-aughts ascendancy with albums Dirges of Elysium (2014), Profane Nexus (2017) and Sect of Vile Divinities. His erudite take elevated Incantation’s brazen antipathy of the Church. Sherwood cites H.P. Lovecraft and J.R.R. Tolkien as childhood faves, while the works of Julius Caesar, Plutarch, Tacitus and Pliny emerged as go-to sources later in life. Of course, he’s also inspired by a litany of literary/historical work and chimerical occurrences. Sherwood’s the antipode to renowned foul mouths like Belphegor’s Helmuth Lehner and Deicide’s Glen Benton, both of whose vociferations have been undoubtedly provocative, if predictably puerile. “Youthful conviction results in blasphemy,” he says. “That’s followed by actual practice of a chosen system—or combination thereof—ultimately taking on more of a philosophical or a solely knowledge-based role. Some go as far as the unknown providing no draw for them anymore; life dictates other concerns. I lack the capacity to not seek out the ‘evil’ side of things, in entertainment, research, lyric creation or otherwise. Kind of ingrained in me at this point— been interested in it so long it just feels normal.” “With Chuck’s lyrics, he reminds me of the bass player [Mike Flores] for Origin,” adds McEntee. “He’s either the best bass player ever when you watch him live, or you think he’s got no clue. His hands just move so fast—what’s he doing exactly? He’s either a genius or out of his mind. Chuck’s the same way. He’s either a genius or he has no clue. [Laughs] When I get lyrics from him, I have to ask myself, ‘Do I know what he’s saying? Do I know what he’s referencing?’ Most of the time I don’t. Chuck always makes me think.”

PLOTTER in HELL

“For the past 15 years that I’ve been in Incantation, I’ve touched on the topics of folklore, mythology, occultism and history,” Sherwood says. “I’m an avid reader. I love ancient history. I love finding more thoughtprovoking topics that are less touched upon [in death metal]. So, yeah, I’m not usually going to do lyrics based on the typical Vatican stuff. That’s where our roots are, and I’ve never had a problem with that—I’m a fan-turned-member—but it’s not where my head’s at. Of course, I always have to give a nod to the blasphemia of our past.” The Incantation wordsmith has marshaled, in many respects, words and images since his enlistment. For his thaumaturgic subject(s) to come to life, working with artists such as Eliran Kantor has been a blessing. Much like Miran Kim, also known for her illustrative insanity with The X-Files, Tales From the Crypt and Garbage Pail Kids, had provisioned the fantastical from Onward to Golgotha to Decimate Christendom, Kantor is the heritor of Sherwood’s irreligious imagination. His work, starting with Dirges of Elysium, is classical in feel. The Berlin-based artist’s style evokes comparisons to classic painters Jan van Eyck, Pieter Bruegel the Elder and John Martin, who were often—if not exclusively—commissioned by diaconal figures of antiquity. Today, Kantor’s brush is summoned by the iniquitous fellows of today in Incantation. “The process [for Unholy Deification] has been similar in that Chuck presents to me what the lyrics are about,” says Kantor, who uses scans of his acrylic brush strokes to digitally “paint.” “I’m in charge of turning his lyrics into a visual concept. Main difference is that this time I was only told about one song, dealing with a sea of people in front of a shadow deity, in the midst of a storm.”

Some bands want consistency, so they plan out everything. With us, we never know what’s gonna happen. One of us could fall off the stage or we’ll smash into something unexpectedly, drop our guitars.

SOMETHING WILL ALWAYS HAPPEN. IT’S LIKE VENOM. LU K E S H I V E LY

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Unholy Deification is a monster. Ostensibly, Incantation’s new album started out like all others before it. The creative need was there. The desire to persevere was also intact. Of course, Incantation had their contract— resigned with Relapse in 2015 after a 15-year pilgrimage with other labels—to contend with, but the overarching reason to follow up Sect of Vile Divinities is: McEntee, as kingpin, is committed to his vision. He’s a tinkerer, iterating constantly to master his art. “I’m a creature of habit, and basically, any album that we do, once it’s finished,” he says, “I look at all the things that’s missing, all the things—expressions—that aren’t there in the music. And I just try to emphasize what’s missing in the next stuff I write. It’s weird because it’s not even really a thought. It’s just what I want to do—I have to do it, actually.” “I would agree with that,” says Sherwood. “John’s always writing, changing things. He’s always looking. On this album, we would either second-guess ourselves constantly or edit into oblivion. We had a lot of time to think about the songs. The other side of that is we kept some things how we originally wrote them. OK, we added maybe another layer—it wouldn’t be Incantation without layers—or a harmony, a bend, a squeal or a divebomb as the song aged, but some of the songs were the result of instant inspiration, and they stayed that way.” According to McEntee, every Incantation album is a direct reaction to the previous album. There’s a linear relationship album-toalbum, especially the four-album run from Dirges of Elysium to Unholy Deification. The Sect of Vile Divinities cycle in particular was taxing, and the resulting torment that it caused formed the

blueprint for the savagery, in the form of new tracks like “Circle (Eye of Ascension) VII”— which features guest vocals from Possessed’s Jeff Beccera, Revenant’s Veggian and Morbid Angel’s Dan Vadim Von—“Concordat (The Pact) I,” “Homunculus (Spirit Made Flesh) IX” and “Invocation (Chthonic Merge) X.” “I was a little bit distressed after Sect of Vile Divinities was finished recording,” McEntee admits. “It was just a very stressful recording. And then we were on tour, we’re listening to the mixes for the album. And, at a certain point, I got so frustrated where I kind of had to check myself out of it and just let it be what it’s going to be. And I’m happy with the way it came out, but at the time, I couldn’t have the proper perspective on it because I was just really not in the best mindset for making those decisions. But because of that, I ended up wanting to counter-write songs immediately because, after listening, my initial opinion on Sect was that it’s not quite aggressive enough. It’s good and it’s a heavy album, and it has some really cool catchy parts and it has brutal parts, too, but I felt like it just lacked the barbaric, allout attack that we had on Diabolical Conquest or Decimate Christendom. “Also, I try to stay as far away from the last one as possible and just do the new one in a way that I’m expressing other feelings or expanding on stuff enough where it’s not just the same. Even though it might not make sense to other people, I have no interest in, ‘Okay, this template works; let’s just do it each time.’ Other bands can do that. It feels uninspired that way to me, though. It feels forced or cookie-cuttered.” When Sect of Vile Divinities was released in August 2020, the pandemic was at its apex, with 1,000 people dying per day. The live music industry had effectively shuttered

with no sign of resumption, so without a tour to support Sect—Incantation play 70 shows per year on average—their only recourse was writing, while Sherwood crafted the concept from a treasure trove of stories, research, observation and, as always, dark intent. Incantation collectively wrote 30 songs, 10 of which they selected to record for Unholy Deification. Indeed, like the writing, the recording was also individually handled between various band-owned studios. The writing and recordings were paired up, with batches of songs sent for completion. “The recording of the basic tracks, we did over the pandemic,” says Sherwood. “That took probably six months of doing it every so often. Like, we get a couple songs down and record them. Then we’d put another couple songs down and record them. We just did everything in little groups. So, we put the finishing touches on the album in 2022. All in all, it’d say it took us two years, but we weren’t rushing it ’cause there was no reason to.” “If I lived in the perfect world, I would rather just jam the stuff out as a band [before the studio],” McEntee says. “Then go into the studio and hash it all out within a couple weeks. That would really be my preferred way of doing it. But that just isn’t realistic now. The downfall of the way we record now is that we always have to get the vibe back. It’s not continuous. We’ll record a bunch of songs and then go on tour. Then we’ll go back to recording a bunch of songs. That’s hard. How we record now is we finish up a song and record the drums. That way the feeling is preserved. It’s always a fresh take.” While Unholy Deification was assembled at Incantation Studios, the contributions of guitarist Luke Shively’s RazorHoof Studios, live drummer Charlie Koryn’s The Underworld Studio and engineer Matthew “Zilla” Draudt couldn’t have been more important. The panoply of people and process involved in making Incantation’s latest was a masterclass in coordination. Sounds like corporate jargon, but album-making, even in today’s technologyforward environment, isn’t an easy undertaking. That McEntee sent Unholy Deification off to famed studio ace Dan Swanö to mix/master at his Unisound Studios might’ve been the easiest part since he’s worked with the Swede, who’s been responsible for Opeth, Massacre and a host of other notables, for the past decade or more. “Dan comes from the same era as we do,” says McEntee. “He’s able to find a way to put together all the stuff that we individually want out of it and hopefully try to put it together. Plus, when you work with someone for so long, it’s like they can usually come back fairly quickly with something that is at least in the ballpark of what you’re looking for. It’s not like going to somebody else, because that’s

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nerve-wracking. Our working relationship with Dan has just been very comfortable.” “Kyle is the ‘hawk ear’ in the band, finding all kinds of stuff in the final mix,” Swanö says. “I am eternally grateful for his attention to detail, because it makes us all sound better.”

MORBID HAILS Despite McEntee’s hard-nosed commitment to Incantation, he’s almost called it quits on several occasions. Death metal’s “lean years” of the mid-2000s were specifically intense. Not the “modern” take, where the genre either quantized into computer-perfect reproductions or incorporated other “things” for sake of diversity, but Incantation’s traditionalist aesthetic. There was a dim view on death metal too old to be cool, but not old enough for the joys of nostalgia. Incantation were directly at the heart of all that. “It was a tough time for death metal, and especially Incantation-style death metal,” says Severn. “In the beginning of the 2000s, we kept writing and putting out what we feel are great records for the next few years. But the scene for death metal and Incantation just seemed to be nonexistent. We were still touring a lot for every record—like we always have—but, man, times were getting tough. Shows were very thin in attendance. Although it was ‘pretty lean,’ we never gave up writing, recording and touring for the records. We put out the records Blasphemy (2002), Decimate Christendom and Primordial Domination (2006) over four years. We were nonstop; our brand of death metal just wasn’t the flavor, but we didn’t care. We were never interested in changing our style, and still never have to this day.” All true. But doubt had set in. The fortress McEntee had built on brutality, blasphemy and, most importantly, hard work looked ready to crumble. As Einstein famously never said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Incantation weren’t interested in gothic goofiness, corpsepaint (well, almost) or coordinated onstage outfits. Nor were they going to sacrifice anything musically. But the end, according to Sherwood, who had just joined, almost happened. “Back then, I believe John’s intent was to do a few shows with the folks from the Golgotha/Mortal Throne-era lineup, then call it quits,” he says. “We did a handful of shows, fests and a Canadian run in ’08. For myself, it was just an honor to share a stage with those guys. Regardless [of] if it was a last hurrah or the beginning of something more. I did/do revere them as legends; quite the honor. After re-recording some early tracks with that lineup. I think it was pivotal for the inspiration to [continue] writing, which led to the Denial Fiend split and Vanquish in Vengeance. With the return of Kyle and having Alex [Bouks] and I onboard certainly turned us all into writing machines at that time. Been a hell of a time these past 15 years, come what may.”

Indeed, the persistence of McEntee to reinvigorate Incantation’s lineup repeatedly has resulted in the necessary propulsion to forward their death metal attack. Bouks’ “loan” from longtime friends Goreaphobia in 2007, Sherwood’s conscription in 2008, Severn’s third return—though he states “I never really left”— in 2009, and finally Shively’s full-time incorporation into the Incantation lineup in 2020 have all had a decisive impact. Though Bouks moved on to family friends Immolation in 2016 and Severn is officially on studio-only status— Ascended Dead/Vrenth drummer Koryn performs live—the foursome of McEntee, Severn, Sherwood and Shively are unstoppable. “The reason why we try to jam with the people that we do is because we want everybody to be able to be a valuable part of the band,” says McEntee. “We’ve had a lot of great people in the band. The benefits of working with Alex were amazing, and it was fun because I was friends with him for so long. To be able to work with him was also really exciting for me.” But it was Shively’s (also of Dismemberment) role change from live bassist—filling in for his brother, Jacob, who was filling in for Sherwood—to permanent guitarist that facilitated the upswing from Sect of Vile Divinities, where he soloed on “Unborn Ambrosia,” to Unholy Deification, where he’s played a critical part in the album’s construction and kick-ass outcome. In fact, Decibel first realized Shively’s weight in Incantation during the group’s careerhigh Diabolical Conquest set at Metal & Beer Fest: Philadelphia. Incantation’s “new” guitarist had arrived, and with him a band that’s not been this fiery since Vanquish in Vengeance. “It’s actually a huge difference,” says Sherwood of having Shively in the fold. “He is not only exceptional in the studio and onstage, but his knowhow and style are making the new songs better. I think fans are going to hear a considerable difference between Sect to this album; not just for writing and content, but the playability of these songs and how vast they are with the elements that he’s added to this. It’s something I think we’re all really proud of, and [we’re] just very happy to have him. So, the difference between the two [Sect and Unholy] is definitely now that we’re a unit. “Also,” he adds, “not just musical prowess, but atmosphere in such a way that it makes even the older songs sound better. Maybe I’m being a little biased, but it is truly noticeable, at least from our point of view. If people are accepting of that, that’s only humbling. But for us, we love it. Luke’s great!” From Shively’s perspective, it’s more about the spontaneity of Incantation. From one show to the next, it’ll always be the band performing, not backing tracks or computer-aided sound. The human element of Incantation might appear to be an important attribute for elder statesmen like McEntee and Severn, but Shively, as the youngest member, places considerable

“A labor of love that tells Ronnie’s story through the prism of chasing your dreams and fighting the odds.“— Decibel

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“Strong, impactful black/death metal, with a proper Middle Eastern feeling and sound, diverse and dynamic songs that effortlessly go from charge-ahead blastbeat-ridden black metal to pounding, pachydermic death/black stomp-alongs, supremely expressive and powerful roaring vocals… th there’s nothing to not love here.” DECIBEL

TRIVAX: ELOAH BURNS OUT For fans of: DISSECTION, BOLZER, CELTIC FROST, WATAIN, MELECHESH and BEHEXEN.

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stepped into the guitar spot, immediately we were all just blown away by how seamless it was.” importance on camaraderie and that, whenever they’re onstage, it’ll be the four of them, banging out the most intense death metal possible. “Being able to vibe live is an amazing thing because it makes it so much more fun,” Shively enthuses. “I mean, sometimes we know there’s a part that might be open for interpretation to some extent. I’ll look over at John to get a feel for the possibilities. If it feels right, I’ll go for it. That’s a massive advantage to playing in Incantation. I watch so many bands play, and they’re playing with a click track. Every night, it’s exactly the same. It’s more like going through the motions. I get it: Some bands want consistency, so they plan out everything. With us, we never know what’s gonna happen. One of us could fall off the stage or we’ll smash into something unexpectedly, drop our guitars. Something will always happen. It’s like Venom. You never know what you’re gonna get with us.” “Besides being a super nice dude and a good friend and an easy person to be around, he just knows what to do,” affirms McEntee. “It’s such an amazing pleasure to record with him and then you hear what he did and you’re just like, ‘Oh, that’s great. Moving on.’ Because like all the leads that he did on the album, almost every one of them were the first leads that he sent us of those songs. The only ones he really changed were the ones he wanted to change. We were just like, ‘Wow, this fits, this works!’ With Luke, it’s always right the first time. So, once he finally

ABOMINATIONS of VALIDATION Incantation have powered through death metal’s lowest points. There have been several, actually. But that point’s been made already. Ever since the mid-aughts, the creep from ultra-polished techdeath to Incantation’s grimy, remorseless organics has started to accelerate. In many ways, the legends started to take on the import of the genre’s mainstays, where bands like Dead Congregation, Funebrarum and Cruciamentum obsessed over Incantation’s songwriting customs, production approaches and, in some cases, swampy logo. They weren’t the only ones, however. “Incantation have a pretty unique sound,” offers Autopsy’s Chris Reifert. “I’m sure they’ve influenced countless bands, but it would be hard for other bands to imitate them just because they do what they do so well. I have no doubt that plenty of their riffs have been swiped, though. And for the record, that stuff is not easy to play. Just figured I’d throw that out there. They do not play color-by-numbers death metal, and it ain’t for beginners.” Father Befouled’s Justin Stubbs, who also moonlights in bruisers Encoffination, can relate. “A friend of mine bought [1995’s] Upon the Throne of Apocalypse at a used record store. The first track, ‘Abolishment of Immaculate Serenity,’ which is in reversed order from Mortal Throne of Nazarene, is an eight-minute, sludgy doom epic. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I had liked Cannibal Corpse and Mortician—they’re my favorite band—but Incantation were so obtuse. I quickly got into them after that. Try as I might, what they did 30 years ago, I still can’t replicate.” “I bought Onward to Golgotha on cassette in 1993 at the ripe old age of 14,” says Jael Edwards of Australia’s Ignivomous. “Those riffs have been working their way

into my mind for 30 years at this point. That was obviously a vintage year for extreme metal, and even as isolated as I was in New Zealand at the time, it was just incredible to be able to dive headfirst into this soup of metal insanity. So, despite becoming really interested in lots of other music, both metal and otherwise, Incantation was always part of that musical DNA from a young age.” Severn is seriously baffled as to why it took so long for the world to catch on to Incantation. He says the band started to notice around 2017 that they were getting referenced as “grandfathers of death metal.” Sure, Incantation could’ve gotten their due before—and they did, to some degree—that, but it’s better late than never. “Crazy how it only took 30 years,” laughs Severn. “We were finally being recognized for our longevity and that we’ve never strayed away from our style. I think it’s the kids of our generation—hell, and their kids’ kids. We still have a solid old-school following, but it’s definitely in the newer generations. Like, when did chicks start going to shows? Not in the 20-plus years I toured with Incantation. Don’t get your panties in an uproar: I’m not saying women aren’t into metal. There’s a lot more of them at death metal shows now, and obviously that’s a great thing!” “It’s definitely a trip,” McEntee marvels. “There was a point where I started noticing that people were putting me on a pedestal for this style of music. It felt kind of awkward, because I always look at myself as the underdog, especially in the early days we were definitely an underdog band. At a certain point, you appreciate the fact that people are inspired by your music and, as long as I don’t change who I am and what I want to do with the band or our future, then it doesn’t bother me. We kind of created our own subgenre of death metal, which obviously is a ridiculous honor. I was probably 19 years old when I started this band, and I had a basic vision. It’s now 2023 and we’re still doing it, having more fun than ever. We’re more popular, and the scene’s more popular than it’s ever been before.”

I’m a fan turned member. Of course,

I ALWAYS HAVE TO GIVE A NOD TO THE BLASPHEMIA OF OUR PAST. CHUCK SHERWO OD

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INSIDE ≥

72 CANNIBAL CORPSE Shredding humans 74 CONTRARIAN We didn't like it but you will 74 DYMNA LOTVA > Demi Lovato 76 FREYA Breed the fillers 78 KK'S PRIEST Dissident depresser

ALL THE NOISE THAT FITS

Inside the Lines Despite getting heavier and darker, BARONESS are no less colorful on Stone

OCTOBER

Reviews we adjusted from a 9 to an 8

Reviews we adjusted from an 8 to a 7

Reviews we left as a 7 but should probably be a 6

Reviews we left as 10s because they fucking deserve it

T 8

raditionally, throughout metal’s wide world, when a band with an impressive pedigree and discography wishes to denote change on the horizon, the signifying release in question will often be self-titled. Metallica’s BARONESS Metallica being the most famous example of a line in the sand Stone being drawn between past and present—to the tune of 17.3 milABRAXAN HYMNS lion copies sold and counting! In the case of Baroness, the argument could be made that they should have hopped off the color wheel in 2019, with Gold & Grey’s hard left drift towards navel-gazing bogged down in barbiturate riffing that strayed too far from the established plot. ¶ And here we are with their first nonhued release since the days they plastered numbers on CD covers. As such, it comes as little surprise that Stone was mostly constructed in remote Barryville, NY in a literal cabin in the woods, the sort of plot-moving location found in horror flicks that’ll make viewers holler at the screen, “Don’t go in there, you’ll regret it!” But they go in there and only the squeamish regret the sliced, diced and dismembered result. Thankfully, this particular cabin has spared us regret, and another punishing double album.

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK RUDOLPH [MARKRUDOLPH.COM]

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“Embers” and “Bloom,” the album’s connective tissue bookends, may sound like Baroness gathered ’round a campfire and harmonizing between s’mores, veggie dogs and whittling on Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone,” but those tracks, along with “The Dirge,” possess a sullenness akin to being dropped into a Sunday service at a secretively sinister, fire-and-brimstone rural church (think the first season of True Detective). Good may be intended and on the surface, but mournful darkness abounds. The majority of Stone has Baroness tapping deeper, older veins and distilling history. “Last Word” has the arpeggiated sludge shuffle featured highly on Red and Blue pinged by heavy psychedelia, John Baizley’s CCR-worshipping vocals and Gina Gleason’s twisted Van Halenesque (in terms of tone and content) solo. “Beneath the Rose” hearkens further back with some of their most galvanically heavy moments combined with a sermonized/spoken word delivery in which Baizley sounds like he’s mining his emotions and counting enemies before stabbing everything with something sharp and jagged. On the flip side, “Anodyne” is a measured downpicking clinic with vast melodic sections that sound like a wiry porch jam between High on Fire and hair metal. Deep cuts “Shine” and “Magnolia” are fervid paint-peelers that wind down prog avenues with more “look at the song” craftsmanship than “look at me” musicianship, despite top-notch musicianship existing all around with Sebastian Thomson’s carbide solidity and speakeasy swing, Nick Jost’s walking lead bass warmth and the entwined guitars. Penultimate rager “Under the Wheel” slow-builds to a climax that would make everyone from Aaron Turner and Cult of Luna to Uzeb and Manteca proud. And it’d make me proud if you knew who the fuck Uzeb and Manteca were. Baroness have also made proud/good by tapping into their power as they delicately tightrope-stroll between sludgy metal and TED Talk hard rock. While it may be immature to chide them for inching away from their roots, long-inthe-tooth metalheads will appreciate long-in-thetooth metal performers meeting them partway with an appreciable return to those roots while still pushing the grand experiment with art and artistry forward. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

BOTTOMLESS

The Banishing DYING VICTIMS

The misery show

English as the universal default language might strike its native practitioners both here and abroad as… problematic. Naturally, it makes 72 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

travel from the U.S. easier, but who ventures to foreign lands to feast at McDonald’s? Such ambassadors of the red, white and blue should be left to the local authorities, obviously, but considering American foreign policy, our mother tongue being taught in schools the world over smacks of the CIA’s ESL Program. Northern Italians Bottomless began plumbing global gloom in 2016. Five years on, kneedeep into the pandemic, singer/guitarist Giorgio Trombino, bassist Sara Bianchin (best known as Messa’s vocalist) and drummer David Lucido decanted their eponymous debut. Big-stride 1970s U.K. doom, its sonic robustness left plenty of o.g. headroom to resonate and resound. Enter sophomore slump The Banishing. Bereft of any obvious cultural or nationalistic identifiers (outside of peerless English from Trombino and British musical cues by the band as a whole), the triumvirate stumbles back from the sharp corners of its Trouble-lite debut to the generic abyss of their second disc. Fast and timely follow-ups expire on the shores of inadequate gestation. Opener “Let Them Burn” fumbles the album ignition as big fuzzy guitars bleed into flat boxy drums. Bare production and bland tones strike a rubbery, even lumpy note, but rhythm torrents and solo flares whiff the genuine article. Thick riff drifts carry “The Great Unknown” next, while the succeeding “Guardians of Silence” strums the balladic heart of The Banishing. These two upticks constituting the album’s sole highlights dooms the whole endeavor, whose entire back side skids headlong into a dirge ditch where it spins helplessly like an overturned Hummer. —RAOUL HERNANDEZ

CANNIBAL CORPSE 9 Chaos Horrific M E TA L B L A D E

Album title horrific; chaos terrific

Cannibal Corpse’s celebrity and aesthetic trappings—as compulsory as they may be—are surely responsible for keeping those of us who prefer our extremes to be a tad more arcane and highfalutin at arm’s length. But even though Cannibal’s packaging truthfully advertises the obvious knuckle-dragging, “meat ‘n’ three” thrills they contain, the compositional ingenuity and subtle exploratory nature of their records continues to impress and, frankly, us snooty types are sorely missing out. While 2021’s Violence Unimagined was a satisfying record studded with clever little accents, it still managed to feel just a smidge overlong due to its redundant nature. By comparison, Chaos Horrific (which continues the trend of being just an awful, awful album title) advances the

formula and offers a delirium of eccentricities while sacrificing none of the band’s woundfucking majesty. Corpsegrinder sounds as persuasive as ever, and his knack for catchy phrasing compensates for the lack of variation in his delivery. But ultimately, it’s the songcraft that buoys this record above almost any other within its class. While “Fracture and Refracture” is cratered with smarty-pants, Voivod-esque detailing and “Pestilential Rictus” disorients with a selfdevouring, hall-of-mirrors chorus, “Vengeful Invasion” is frothy and immediately infectious. Airtight, Exodus-style thrash makes an early appearance via the flabbergasting opening track, withering death-doom provides crucial emphasis to the overarching mania and, of course, the production is borderline perfect, (though I’d prefer the drums nudged up just a skosh in the mix). Best of all, the record has a paroxysmic urgency that leaves the listener hangry for that second helping immediately as the closing track gutters out. Chaos Horrific manages to be immediately digestible while also being honeycombed with nuance, and (apologies to the pencil-necked gatekeepers) is a nearly perfect record. So, you know… suck it. —FORREST PITTS

CHERUBS

Icing

B R U TA L P A N D A

Taking the noise rock cake

My 1992 issue of Icing toots the original art (Blowfly meets ODB), a local phone number printed on the actual CD (no longer in service) and Trance Syndicate Records’ logo cum-mark-of-Austin eccentricity: a seven-headed cobra. Missing since release, it materialized pandemically during an office exodus three decades in the making. Finally, Heroin Man, its swan song sibling two years on, could be reunited with Cherubs’ exuberant and forever out-of-print predecessor. Amps feeding back mondo bass and squealing treble collide with a caterwauling frontman espousing sardonic disaffection as his trio surfs collapsing funnels of post-punk drone and cymbal napalm. That decade-dense guitar/ bass/drums mangle beginning in the late ’80s soundtracked a once-in-a-generation upheaval—and one better than most popular trends across the preceding decades. Every notable scene boasted its hometown purveyors, and among AXT’s evolutionary line of music skulls—Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid, Ed Hall—Cherubs protruded singularly ape. Reformed in 2014, they resumed seamlessly behind 2 Ynfynyty the following year

SHINE BLACK LIGHT

HOLLYWOOD'S BASTARD SONS ARE BACK WITH A VENGEANCE! FEATURING SINGLES “2020V”, “DEATH STAYS SILENT”, AND “DRAG ME TO HELL”.

OUT 09/08 ON ANOTHER CENTURY AVAILABLE IN CD AND DIGITAL ALBUM FORMATS.

TO THE WOLVES

STITCHED UP HEART ARE OUT FOR BLOOD WITH THEIR MOST FERAL RECORD TO DATE! FEATURING SINGLES “POSSESS ME” AND “TO THE WOLVES”

OUT 9/01 ON ANOTHER CENTURY AVAILABLE IN CD AND DIGITAL ALBUM FORMATS.

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and Immaculada High in 2019. Icing set every mosh in motion—all but the last of these titles reissued alongside this one—starting at opener “Sugary,” which cooks up the aforementioned scrum: Owen McMahon’s avalanche bass and throaty roar, ex-Ed Hall drummer Kevin Whitley’s corrosive guitar squalls and vocal whine, and Brent Prager’s tumultuous drum tsunami thunder. “Come” pounds pre-In Utero. Acid vat “Ginger Upper” moves mountains. “Vicki’s Retreat” deserves a 1970: The Complete Fun House Sessions Stooges loop. And “Shoofly” detonates a dirty pop bomb, its spray of clanging guitar shrapnel erupting over an exhilarating and (dare we say) lithe bounce and chant. Let Icing be your first lick of Cherubs. —RAOUL HERNANDEZ

CONTRARIAN

Demos & Oddities 1995-1999 SELF-RELEASED

Manic frustration

You the kind of nerd who’ll repeat-buy a favorite old album because of “unreleased material” that consists of songs in versions whose titles include additions such as “alternate take,” “rehearsal,” “rough mix” or—Satan, help us—“riffs w/drum machine”? Do you get excited by, say, a three-CD reissue of Human and actually enjoy those hours of cutting room floor filler? If you are, and if you’re also an actual Contrarian fan already, stop reading immediately and acquire this compilation. You’ll love it. Conversely, if you’re not one of those, or if you’re not into super-technical proggy death metal, just ignore it; it’s a boring instrumental album that won’t mean anything. For those in the middle of those extremes, it’s, at most, an enjoyable curiosity. As the title indicates, this is a simple collection of “vintage raw demos with a ‘live feel’” from the late ’90s. Though Jim Tasikas and Ed Paulsen, the core of Contrarian (joined here by drummer Brian Platino, who also performed in their next pre-Contrarian incarnation, Delirium Endeavor), were known as Manic back then, that’s just a minor detail since they really do sound like the bones of the same band. You get exactly what they describe it as, which means no vocals or anything; just rough (but perfectly listenable soundwise) guitars/bass/drums. The most interesting thing about it, as a document, is how it’s obvious that the talent that makes Contrarian so cool was already pretty much all there. The interplay between Tasikas and Paulsen is remarkable, and the absence of vocals only stresses the richness of the dynamics and the inventiveness of the compositions, even 74 : O C T O B E R 2 0 2 3 : D E C I B E L

at a very early and naïve phase of their journey. But that’s it—do measure your expectations. —JOSÉ CARLOS SANTOS

DETERIOROT

The Rebirth FA I T H L E S S

Unholy re-rebirth

Every 10 years, Paul Zavaleta drags Deteriorot out of the charnel house for a bit of a tan. The last time we saw Zavaleta’s perpetually old-school bag of bones was in 2010, when he secretly fanned out his band’s sophomore full-length, The Faithless, for a dedicated few. The Rebirth finds Deteriorot at their dirtiest, slimiest finest, which has its pluses and minuses depending on the day. While most new jacks are content to ape the vibes of the genre’s early American aesthetic with no-riff, claustrophobic abandon, Deteriorot continue to excel at distinctly crunchy, eerie riffs, the very kind that put Abhorrence (as Amorphis), Incantation (before Onward to Golgotha) and Massacre (before they peaced-out on Promise) on the map. “Dark Embrace” kicks off The Rebirth properly. It’s a sound—pummeling riffs atop punky drums accentuated by garage-hero solos—only the dedicated will love. There’s nothing modern here, especially Zavaleta’s forward-facing croak, a throwback to the horror show vocals employed by Masse Broberg on Hypocrisy’s Osculum Obscenum or Esa Lindén’s underworld emanations on Slumber of Sullen Eyes. The formula works throughout The Rebirth. “A Nameless Grave,” “Reanimate” and “Hauntings” pull from the same bag of tricks, and it mostly convinces. There’s clearly no reason to change (or update) Deteriorot. But there could be more variation (even though closer “Unholy Rebirth” attempts to change things up). Not talking about anything drastic like keytar or a clean chorus, but Zavaleta might find his deathly mire more engaging if the songs—the riffs, actually—explored beyond the first and second frets. —CHRIS DICK

DYING FETUS

Make Them Beg for Death RELAPSE

Massive killing capacity

Unfairly or not, the reality is that every new Dying Fetus album is compared to the crossover game-changer Killing on Adrenaline (1998) or the Hall of Fame-inducted brutalism of Destroy the Opposition (2000). That’s simply what happens when you’ve made records that, for better or worse (see: deathcore), inspired a multitude through a groundbreaking collision of

slamming, pit-scorching hardcore grooves, and the dizzying technicality and remorseless force of death metal. Once bassist/co-grunter Sean Beasley settled in and established a near-telepathic chemistry with band founder John Gallagher (guitarist/coword-belcher) following lineup upheavals and a resulting drop in quality during the early-to-mid 2000s, Dying Fetus recommenced pissing in the mainstream. 2012’s Reign Supreme and 2017’s Wrong One to Fuck With were noteworthy statements of blunt audio violence. Make Them Beg for Death closely follows suit. As proven here by “Compulsion for Cruelty,” “Feast of Ashes” or the dominant “When the Trend Ends,” DF remain more musically controlled and exacting compared to the wild abandon of their classic period. Some of that has to do with the increased clarity of the production. But also because drummer Trey Williams plays more precisely than, say, Kevin Talley, whose wild tempo fluctuations added rhythmic animalism. This is simply a fact rather than a critique, since such on-point drum-pummel—heard best on the turbulent power-shifts of “Enlighten Through Agony,” the grindcore flashbang of “Throw Them in the Van” and the aptly named “Undulating Carnage”—continues to fit contemporary Dying Fetus as snugly as a B.T.K. tourniquet around the quivering throat of an ill-fated victim. —DEAN BROWN

DYMNA LOTVA

The Land Under the Black Wings: Blood PROPHECY

Umbrellas be damned

Listen to Dymna Lotva. Right now. Don’t act like this is some kind of hardship. It’s 2023, for fuck’s sake, and the magazine you’re holding is a pretty clear symbol of the privilege of disposable income, so just reach over to your Wi-Fi-enabled listening device of choice and cue up something from this embattled Belarusian band, who fled to Ukraine to escape political persecution, then to Poland to escape war. This second entry in the Land Under the Black Wings series—the first, subtitled Swamp, saw release seven years ago—is art under fire, exemplified by the sirens and wails of despairing children that occasionally rise out of the mix, as well as song titles like “Come and See,” which shares its name with the 1985 film that focuses on the brutal Nazi occupation of Belarus. Where Dymna Lotva’s earlier records— Swamp and the non-Black Wings, Chernobylfocused follow-up, Wormwood—offer a sleek 30 to 40 minutes of music, Blood is a ponderous 72 minutes of unrelenting pain and sorrow, stuffed

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with enough prettiness and punishment to stun an approaching army of critics. These songs are gorgeous and portentous, but they’re also a whole lot to take in at once. Blast beats, menacing walls of guitar and anguished screams are accompanied by prevalent piano, floating flute runs, fleeting sax solos and a burly bass core that provides the gritty spine holding these tracks together. Seriously, maybe half the reason to hear this record is just to wallow in that phenomenal bass tone. Dymna Lotva pack their compositions with depth and meaning that is as personal as it is sociological. Blood is a powerful record, but it might even have more impact if you limit yourself to contemplating one song at a time. There’s enough morose, melodic meat on each bone to make the whole feast a daunting proposition. —DANIEL LAKE

EXMORTUS

Necrophony NUCLEAR BLAST

Between a Guitar Center and a pizza place

L.A. shredders Exmortus are a challenging band to draw a bead on. Their 2008 debut, In Hatred’s Flame, was released by Heavy Artillery Records at the height of the re-thrash wave, but they never quite fit in at the pizza party: Their vocals were too death metal, their omnipresent guitar solos were too flashy to make sense next to whammy bar dive-bombs. In 2014, they moved to Prosthetic and began a decadelong flirtation with power and traditional metal, again without sacrificing harsh singing and Shrapnel Records-worthy fretboard acrobatics. Now they’ve partnered with Nuclear Blast for another soft reboot—their latest, Necrophony, commits to a fully neoclassical guitar style, complete with overtures, recurring motifs, and conservatory shredding that’s equal parts Manowar’s “Sting of the Bumblebee” and Necrophagist’s “Only Ash Remains.” This pivot feels overdue: sole original member Jadran “Conan” Gonzalez’s jaw-dropping guitar playing is Exmortus’ signature sound more than any genre, and his interest in classical dates back to his 2014 interpretation of “Moonlight Sonata”—still their most-streamed song. Necrophony suits Gonzalez—opulent eightminute songs “Darkest of Knights” and “Children of the Night” are highlights, even if hangers-on from the band’s hi-top days might get bored and listeners hoping for clean singing won’t find it outside of a superfluous Iron Maiden cover. Exmortus are at full power here, but never quite escape the style’s pitfalls: overindulgent songs lacking replay value. Gonzalez 76 : OCTOBER 202 3 : DECIBEL

wrote a few indelible tunes in the last decade, even if the style didn’t always match his skills—Exmortus could pen a masterpiece if they imported their older choruses with their newer vibe. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

FABRICANT

Drudge to the Thicket P R O FO U N D LO R E

One, two, three and I come with the thicket…

This full-length debut from the California technical death metal band has been a long time coming, and its title track has been circulating in the underground’s bloodstream as a demo since 2010. But the sounds that confront us on Drudge to the Thicket are not the sort of thing to come together overnight, to coalesce around a bit-hitting riff that was workshopped during soundcheck. There are layers. There are depths. Fabricant’s sound is a mille-feuille of different textures presented in arrangements too damn complex to be left to chance, and yet it’s so light on its feet you get the impression Fabricant would be appalled if we paid too much attention to the craft. The word “technical” is a loaded descriptor, usually meaning faster blasts and bronze at the berzerker Olympics. This is not that. “Prey to Whom” tumbles out of the gate owing as much to the free structure of the Blue Note catalog as it does to Earache’s. Once upon a time, the cutting-edge of death metal was chiefly concerned with horror—the NC-17 harrowing you listened to—but Fabricant invite you to reflect, sporadically courting your awe with ripping riffs, ultimately harpooning the senses to hoist you from the ugly present of everyday chaos to savor a fresh brand of inspired mayhem, surreal, mystical and designed. “Demigod Prototype” is a virtuosic display of Finnish-style darkness, but there’s surely humor, too. “Eloper’s Revelations” is constructed in a similar spirit to Zappa’s “Inca Roads,” only with gnarly guitars and a Jeff Walker-esque death-snarl administering the verse. “Song of Stillness” transforms morose noise rock into death metal funk, complete with slap bass. Mordred Angel in full effect. Bonkers. —JONATHAN HORSLEY

FINAL GASP

Mourning Moon RELAPSE

A breath and a scream

It’s unclear what Boston’s Final Gasp must be so depressed about—they’ve struck a delectable balance between gothic rock and metallic

hardcore on their formidable debut album, Mourning Moon. In fact, a little clarity is about all that stands between them and black nail-polished glory. The appeal of their music comes from their fusion of tight, post-punk rhythms and chorusedout guitar tones with vocalist Jake Murphy’s vamping aggression, pun intended. Stomping opener “Climax Infinity” and fan favorite “Homebound” will turn lycanthropic concertgoers from wallflowers into enthusiastic wall-ofdeath participants. It’s a rare combination, but not an unprecedented one: Mourning Moon feels like the record Life of Agony could have recorded after Decibel Hall of Fame-inducted River Runs Red if they hadn’t gone grunge, or if sister band Type O Negative had doubled down on D-beat rather than doom. There’s nothing wrong with apparent influences; Final Gasp often put their best foot forward when citing their sources. “Unnatural Law” gives Killing Joke’s robot rock a nice tuneup, and “Temptation” lovingly adores the pinch harmonic grooves that give the first few Danzig albums life after said Misfit’s kitty litter overdose in 1997. (Right?) There’s still something to learn, though. Danzig did his dirtiest work when Rick Rubin dried his production and let Evil Elvis’ voice shine through—Murphy could stand the same treatment, even if turning the reverb down isn’t very “goth.” Similarly, Christian Death brought the (only theater of) pain in a half hour with 10 songs, and Mourning Moon feels a bit puffy when track 12 finishes. Regardless, this mascarasmeared debut is promising, even if there’s too much of it. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

FREYA

Fight as One U P S TAT E

The wrath of same-ity

There’s a certain satisfying sameness to 2000s-style hardcore, like a coffee from a major chain. You know what to expect, and if it’s what gets you moving, you don’t need anything fancier in that cup. Freya’s first album since 2016 is a lot like that. Founded by longtime members of Earth Crisis after that band’s initial split, the band served to keep Karl Buechner and company in the game before their main show got back on the road. For devotees to straightforward, no-nonsense hardcore, there’s a few bonuses in store, with songs featuring Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta, Madball’s Freddy Cricien and Terror’s Scott Vogel. Cricien’s cut stands out the most among these

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guest appearances, the title track having the most character with its infectious bounce and groove. The other two songs are fine on their own, but don’t really offer the best from either guest. Among the remainder of the tracks, “Back to Haunt,” “Beyond Despair” and “Destructive Path” stand out as the best. “Back to Haunt” has a lot of the same swagger as “Fight as One,” and therefore makes for a similarly exciting listen. “Beyond Despair” has an almost sludgemetal aspect to it, the slow pace and wretched screams giving it a weight that’s absent on many of the other tunes. Finally, “Destructive Path” is one of the few songs that feels like it actually goes somewhere and has tension that builds and releases. So, while Fight as One has some solid tracks and cool guest appearances, it wouldn’t make for much more than background music at a gig. Though you won't mind getting down to any of this in a live setting. —J. ANDREW ZALUCKY

GRAVERIPPER

Seasons Dreaming Death W I S E B LO O D

Thrash black heart attack

Resisting the urge to call this Indiana quartet a “blackened thrash” band, it nevertheless should be noted that this is a thrash band (verging on crossover at times) that has a distinct black metal influence. GraveRipper’s black metal/thrash take, however, is more about incorporating black metal passages in songs rather than, say, offering up a more unified sound with nods to both camps. Not to say that Seasons Dreaming Death is disjointed or something. No, it’s very well-recorded and the performances are tight and inspiring. This is a clearly talented outfit with plenty of interesting ideas. But the way GraveRipper seem inclined to add a black metal section (or sections) that stand distinctly apart from the more straight-up thrash sections begins to feel predictable. Like, “Here’s some thrash, and now we’re gonna go into this black metal part.” They do it all well, but the combination of the two strains of extreme metal could potentially be done more seamlessly. That said, Seasons Dreaming Death offers a relentless, start-to-finish high-energy attack with no shortage of solid riffs. Yeah, you can see a couple obvious influences here and there— Toxic Holocaust being pretty apparent—but GraveRipper also seem to be in the process of developing a distinct identity. This is a solid first full-length effort with virtually no filler and tons of potential. —ADEM TEPEDELEN 78 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

HORRENDOUS

Ontological Mysterium

SEASON OF MIST

It’s no Stadium Arcadium, but…

Let’s cut right to the chase: Horrendous putting out a great record at this point shouldn’t be a surprise, right? All of their albums have all landed on our year-end lists, and deservedly so. Ontological Mysterium isn’t just great—it’s great. Like, so good it makes their previous work pale in comparison. It will definitely elicit divided responses. Make no mistake, though—this is one of the best records of the year and a breakthrough for the band. On their fifth full-length, these Philly boys dump genre boundaries in the metaphysical trash can. Instead, they draw on everything in the metal shop to build this masterpiece. Whether it’s the Deafheaven-like emoting of opener “The Blaze,” the Cynic-al fusion of instrumental piece “Aurora Neoterica” or “Neon Leviathan,” the best fucking progressive thrash song Watchtower and Coroner never wrote (why the band didn’t blast that out as their first single is beyond my mortal comprehension), there’s a dizzying amount of variety on display. No lack of death metal, either—“Chrysopoeia (The Archaeology of Dawn)” and the title track certainly deliver on that account. Sticking point for some (incorrect) folks: Damian Herring and Matt Knox employ a variety of vocal techniques, including clean singing and a weird Mustaine/Abbath hybrid on “The Death Knell Ringeth.” It works beautifully. This record is not only consistently exciting and surprising; Horrendous also succeed in the rare feat of making every song feel unique. It honestly reminds me why I love extreme metal. Only downside is that it’s hard to imagine how you follow this up. —JEFF TREPPEL

KK’S PRIEST

The Sinner Rides Again N A PA L M

Sad wings of density

What’s endearing about metal is how its veteran musicians and fans exude the same energy as teenagers. What’s off-putting about metal is how many of them still have the mental capacity of teenagers. For instance, it’s depressing and petty whenever a former member of a beloved band incorporates some or all their old band’s name just to stick it to their old mates. If the artist is confident enough, they’ll do their own thing instead of clinging to the past b®and. If the music rules,

the fans know who’s playing—metal fans are smart like that—and they’ll find it. Sadly K.K. Downing is so consumed by sour grapes that he’s fronting KK’s Priest to obnoxiously latch on to the Judas Priest name. His band’s second album, like the first one, has “Sinner” in the title. Hell, there’s even a “Sentinel” callback in the title of track one. Then again, with music as ordinary as what’s on The Sinner Rides Again, barring writing better music, I suppose any diversion is needed. From front to back, the slickly produced new material is serviceable in a Primal Fear kind of way, sorely lacking any of the magic Downing played a big role in creating with Judas Priest. While former bandmate Ripper Owens does his best with the songs, for all his shrieking, there are nowhere near enough hooks for listeners to latch onto. Bravo to K.K. for staying active, but Judas Priest fans deserve better than middling music and even more drama from him. It’s insulting. —ADRIEN BEGRAND

LASTER

Andermans Mijne PROPHECY

Let’s go obscure dancing

Hear me out: Laster's Het wassen oog was 100 percent my favorite album of 2019. These weirdos—a power trio—took black metal and turned it completely inside out; their sound up to this point was an art school take on the post-Virus/ Ved Buens Ende “post-black metal” approach, but with a heavy emphasis on aesthetics and, most importantly, movement. Calling themselves “obscure dance music,” Laster are rhythmic above all else, but on their new album, Andermans Mijne (“Other’s Mine”), something changed. Where’s the black metal?! many will ask, and my answer is clear: They got tired of it. Of course, losing the whole “black metal” thing is inconsequential in this case, as Laster were hardly a black metal band on their last few albums anyway. Vocalist (now “singer”) and guitarist N. all but completely eschews harsh vocals (aside from one or two accent screams), opting to actually sing here, but for the most part Laster haven’t really changed all that much. Black metal fans will still choose to decry this very surface level change, because, you know, BLACK METAL and whatnot. Dropping black metal’s superficialities ultimately does Laster a service, though, as now it’s easier to digest this trio’s musical prowess and compositional grace. A lot happens on this album, from oscillating keyboards to Mike Patton-esque voice lines and full-body-motion drumming. Laster are, for all intents and purposes,

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an active band, and their “obscure dance music” on this album sidesteps the black metal and ’80s trappings of previous outings in favor of finding something unique. And, to be frank, ridiculous. —JON ROSENTHAL

NGANGA

Phthisis

SELF-RELEASED

They’ve been working out

Whoa, this sounds like Weakling! I excitedly proclaimed, having first heard North Carolina-based black metal avant-gardists Nganga’s debut EP, De Muerte, earlier this year. Featuring much shorter songs than their inspiration’s sole album (and if you haven’t heard Dead as Dreams, shame on you), this little tape took John Gossard and co.’s vision and compacted it into something a little more digestible, if not even more bite-sized. I know what you’re thinking: Why not just listen to Weakling? Sure, true, but what was nice about Nganga was that these youngsters had potential. While many have attempted the “Weakling sound,” so few have latched onto just how strange and complex their music is. But Nganga got it. Now on the precipice of releasing a new EP, Phthisis, Nganga all but drop the Gossard-esque majesty in favor of finding their own sound, which is just as exciting as their figuring out “the formula.” Though still discordant and majestic, Nganga go for the angular and difficult, more so on Phthisis than the room they were given on De Muerte. Big chords and odd time signatures are the name of the game here, and with a raspy howl does this band portray themselves with the comportment of something bigger, more than just a bunch of twentysomethings who make “weird black metal.” Nganga’s debut EP (as De Muerte is canonically a demo) challenges American black metal’s stagnance and presents the world with something bigger and weirder. How is this an independent release, anyway? —JON ROSENTHAL

PROFANATICA

Crux Simplex

SEASON OF MIST

Christ Suplex

Paul Ledney’s purity is perhaps the most endearing quality of both the man and his music. He has never doubted his artistic purpose. He has never wavered. He will never bow. When John McEntee veered ever so subtly from the path with Incantation, Ledney pulled the ripcord to establish an unpolluted Profanatica. Throughout a 30-year recording history, his Christ-debauching black 80 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

metal focus has remained raw, rancid and razorsharp. Crux Simplex is succinctly and aptly named, announcing yet another chapter in Ledney’s ghastly bible of unalloyed rhetoric against that po-faced messiah and any of his followers. It’s this demand for unerring consistency that constricts Crux Simplex’s ability to transcend Profanatica’s already lengthy legacy. Ledney’s prowess as a drummer is undeniable, as he has proven on albums like Havohej’s Table of Uncreation, but most of the songs on Crux Simplex blur by on samey-sounding rhythms and haunted-chapel riffing, with a few occasional creative injections (“Meeting of a Whore”) and gory slow-downs (“Compelled by Romans” or “Division of Robes”). Comers already bitten by the Profanatica bug will find everything they love here; skeptics might appreciate the band’s dedication to blasphemy, but conversion seems unlikely. These songs are ferocious and ugly-fun in their predictably uncomplicated nature. Crux Simplex’s inspired twist hinges on a perversion of the Stations of the Cross, a meditative Christian tradition that follows Jesus’ death march from the end of his trial to his burial. Curiously, Profanatica have trimmed off the actual crucifixion, turning in a concise 10 tracks in 36 minutes that denies the story even the closure of death. Whether this truncation denotes thematic intent or indicates the band’s future direction, only time (or Ledney) will tell. —DANIEL LAKE

SORROW

Death of Sorrow XTREEM

No more short shorts

Slo-mo death metal act Sorrow haven’t been seen since their 1992 debut, Hatred and Disgust. An eternity later, the New Yorkers reformed with lineup intact, surprising near-geriatrics by recording the songs they had planned for the follow-up to Hatred, plus a demo gem in the form of “Hidden Fear” from pre-Sorrow outfit Apparition. Apart from wallowing in sheer nostalgia—some of us still remember the confusing label “transition” from R/C to Roadrunner—the question about Sorrow reigniting old doomed-out flames begs, does any of this matter? Three decades is a long time to spend in the proverbial coffin. Since the material originates in/around 1992, the basic quality of Death of Sorrow feels right in today’s tech-driven, performance-checked environment. The subto-mid-tempo gait—at its slowest like Cianide (“Mindscrape”) and its fastest not unlike Obituary (“Rotting Ways”)—hits home, while the riffs of Brett Clarin (also of Journey Into Darkness fame) and Billy Rogan leech grave-old Trouble

on “Doom the World,” “Judicial Falsity” and “Scar.” Andy Marchione’s bone-dry croak is fully intact, if slightly too forward in the mix. This is where Sorrow fall off the cliff. Apart from a few standout leads (“Hidden Fear”) and meaty sections (“Remembered Eternally”), Death of Sorrow screams mundane. There’s points for treating 30-year-old material with the reverence it deserves, but it wouldn’t have hurt to add some variation, something “Scar” hints at with its haunting midsection. Sorrow did get most of the production right, however. The opening “helicopter” salvo of “Judicial Falsity” is fuzzy brutality. It’s uncertain if Sorrow will follow up Death of Sorrow with new music, but if the resurrected verification is desired, point your mullet to Morgoth’s ill-fated comeback album, Ungod. —CHRIS DICK

TAAKE

Et Hav av Avstand DARK ESSENCE

Hot Taake incoming

Taake’s music will forever be overshadowed by the past dipshittery of multi-instrumentalist Hoest. That’s just an expected consequence when you scrawl a Nazi insignia on your emaciated chest for shits and giggles. As a composer, however, the dude displays a lot more class than his past actions as a live edgelord would suggest. Across seven LPs since 1999 that have twisted the second-wave tenets of Norwegian black metal, Hoest has amassed an important, influential discography, and created his own niche while doing so. Consequently, Taake’s daring approach to incorporating outlier instrumentation/styles and non-linear song structures into chilling BM has been adopted by many underground artists, most of whom are too conscious of social criticism to quote Hoest as an inspiration. But regardless of the lack of public acknowledgment, the impact unquestionably exists. Taake’s latest release, Et Hav av Avstand—the band’s first since 2017—maintains the high artistic standards previously set by Over Bjoergvin graater himmerik (2002) or Noregs vaapen (2011). Four songs in 40 minutes, this LP is economical in its construction and fervent in execution. Each of the four serpentine compositions are spotlighted by Hoest’s hellish psychedelic rock approach to BM riffery. Given his blending of atypical guitar phrasing with the traditionally extreme, supported by queasy rhythms, Hoest imbues his music with a constant sense of perpetual motion, regardless of whether the tone of the passage is strident, melancholic or exploratively progressive. It’s a shrewd skill that few possess—and it’s what makes Taake’s music so

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engrossing, as it’s a feat to concurrently sound cerebral and primeval. —DEAN BROWN

TERMINALIST

The Crisis as Condition

INDISCIPLINARIAN

They certainly told us!

With age, I’ve found myself increasingly leery of bands that devise “new” descriptors and conjunctive captions for their sound. Not that the effort isn’t appreciated, but being let down by the heroes of depressive suicidal black metal, skatecore and funeral dirge doom more often than not has had me prejudicially second-guessing anyone bursting out of the gate with turds polished by snazzy nomenclature. Formed in 2018, Copenhagen’s Terminalist refer to their brand of noise as “hyperthrash,” which is supposedly the Danish way of saying, “We listen to a lot of Toxik, Realm, Agent Steel and Destruction, and decided to form a band that sounds like Toxik, Realm, Agent Steel and Destruction.” As one might imagine, The Crisis as Condition is teeming with high-impact and highvelocity everything. The drumming careens along at stunt car pace, but happily grooves deep in the pocket. The guitars never shy away from testing the limits of human forearm capacity and love mixing happy-go-lucky Euro thrash with smatterings of chromatic black metal inspired by stadium-sized Abbath/Immortal grandiosity. The vocals are one-dimensional and disposable. But where Terminalist really shine is in how Morten Bruun and Emil Hansen attach whitehot, flash-bang soloing to all corners of the compositions. This works to enhance bangers like the horror soundtrack-modulated “Last Remains,” the push-pull, stop-on-half-a-dime circle pit generator “A Future to Weave” and the fjord-melting giddyup of “Frenetic Standstill.” The pair’s handiwork also creates gemlike oases during the album’s more mundane moments, which makes The Crisis as Condition an album to tread carefully around, even as the good easily and noticeably outweighs the not-so-good. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

TRIVAX

Eloah Burns Out C U LT N E V E R D I E S

Trver than your stupid battle vest

Before we rise from our throne of ultimate metal judgment to proclaim the degree of awesomeness of this artifact 82 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

(spoiler hint: it’s pretty awesome), let us just consider this: Even if Eloah Burns Out turned out to be a mediocre record, its main creator, Shayan S., should be exempt from any further ribbing, for his services to the world of metal are worthy of the highest, most perpetual praise. Shayan is from Iran, where the current government’s laws regarding this kind of music can lead to imprisonment and death. This man left his home country and relocated to the U.K. mainly to be able to play black metal. Alongside bassist Sully, who himself left his native Syria, similarly facing imprisonment for his connections with metal, we attribute Trivax maximum metal cred points forever. Fortunately, the album easily holds up to the lofty story of freedom and sacrifice behind it. This is strong, impactful black/death metal, with a proper Middle Eastern feeling and sound (i.e., it’s not just a dude strumming a sitar every now and then), offering diverse and dynamic songs that effortlessly go from charge-ahead, blast beat-ridden black metal to pounding, pachydermic death/black stomp-alongs, with supremely expressive and powerful roaring vocals. Approaching death itself through a Middle Eastern theological perspective, a concept that actually translates in the music, everything just feels absolutely genuine. The best song, by far, is in fact the towering closer “‫ایند رخآ رد‬,” sung in Farsi, which sounds like a gigantic, fierce anthem of freedom and liberation. Hell, they actually re-amped the guitars in Tehran, at an underground studio in Ekbatan, to capture what they call the “air of home,” despite Shayan being unable to return to Iran due to his musical activities. —JOSÉ CARLOS SANTOS

UADA

Crepuscule Natura EISENWALD

Within the stars, our blood. Within our blood, the stars

Black metal lunar cult Uada have conjured a new record in the PNW’s haunted wilderness every two to three years for almost a decade now. Their moonlit melodicism and skyward gaze launched them to the battlefront of USBM. With the goth rock and nocturnal psych elements of 2020’s Djinn, Uada started nudging at the constrictions of black metal orthodoxy. Three years later, Uada’s fourth album, Crepuscule Natura, arrives to eclipse contrarian expectations. “The Abyss Gazing Back” opens the album by establishing the band’s signature blend of melodic majesty and blast beats. It’s sharply

written, slickly produced, and could give Nietczhe’s corpse whiplash. But it’s not until the title track that Crepuscule Natura reveals the recommitment to being a rock ‘n’ roll record—extreme in approach, but a rock album nonetheless. The song’s primal proto-black menace awesomely drags the album from the cosmos back to the Cascadian bogs. “The Dark (Winter)” summons Ravendark’s snowfall with epic riffs and splashy percussion. The song feels like it was carved from the same iceberg as Darkthrone’s last few LPs, paying homage to Swedish epic metal as hard as Norway’s second-wave blizzard. Lead single “Retraversing the Void” revisits the summery psych of Djinn with a track that feels comparatively mild and breezy. “Through the Wax and Through the Wane” is a true epic claiming 12 of the album’s 41 minutes, and most of the duration sparkles like a night sky. The guitars run supernova-hot before a tragic mid-track lull where they ride a central riff into the grave. Crepuscule Natura isn’t exactly a new dawn for Jake Superchi (and ex-guitarist James Sloan). But it’s a blast of light revealing influences and textures previously clinging to the shadows. —SEAN FRASIER

WARMEN

Here for None REAPER

Children of Middle

Warmen’s main instigator, Janne Wirman, played keyboards for legendary Finnish melodeath hellions Children of Bodom. This used to be his vehicle to burn off his prog/power tendencies. No longer. Here for None unapologetically sounds exactly like his old act, down to Ensiferum screamer Petri Lindroos’ soul-reaping screech. After Alexi Laiho’s premature death, it seems like Wirman feels beholden to inflict new Bodom beach terror on the world—something he as much as admits in the promo material. Laiho wrote pretty much everything in COB, but you don’t tickle the ivories in a group for 20 years without picking up some tricks. Most of those lessons seem to have been absorbed circa Hate Crew Deathroll. Fortunately (and I realize, controversially), that may have been their finest hour. The highlights—the title track, “Too Much, Too Late,” “Night Terrors,” even the closing Ultravox cover—hew so close to the Bodom formula that you’d be forgiven for thinking that these were unreleased B-sides from 2003. The keyboards play a slightly more prominent role, but it’s not like they were exactly buried in Wirman’s previous outfit. The one downfall is

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RUMBLY RU MBLY THROUGH A SPEAKER THROUGH

that Wirman doesn’t quite have Laiho’s knack for catchy choruses. It seems reductive to say, “If you’ve heard Children of Bodom, you’ve heard this.” But it’s true. The question then becomes, “If you’ve heard Children of Bodom, do you want to hear this?” In this case, yes. Warmen may feel like a cover band at times, but they’re a damn good one. —JEFF TREPPEL

WOE

Legacies of Frailty V E N D E T TA

Epitaphs embellished

Early reports indicate that, after years of delegating performance duties to a shifting roster of band members for the past few Woe releases, this fifth invocation is entirely the work of the band’s founder, Chris Grigg. Bullshit. Just a few seconds snipped from anywhere out of any of these six songs proves that this music was written and performed by unchecked, red-eyed rage, plain and simple. No other power could have captured the fury that characterizes nearly every moment of Legacies of Frailty. Drums roar like an avalanche. All the riffs hate you, me, themselves. Grigg’s vocals—if indeed they are his, and not the distillation and projection of all human bitterness forced through a microphone—scour and scathe indiscriminately. Listen to Legacies only if you’ve got demolition on the mind, in your muscles, upon your soul. Woe smash. But sure, let’s pretend that the promo materials aren’t flatly false, and this really is Grigg’s first true solo outing since 2008’s excellent A Spell for the Death of Man. Quite a bit has evolved since then, including trading up the screeching vocal timbre for these diamond-hard death snarls. They’ve been positioned high enough in the mix to be a true focal point—instrumental purists might wish for more prominent guitar and bass attention, but they’ll only get what Grigg is willing to give. Occasionally, the music lets up on full-assault mode for a few synthesizer accents, like those that belt themselves across the centers of “The Justice of Gnashing Teeth” and “Far Beyond the Fracture of the Sky,” underpin the finale of “Fresh Chaos Greets the Dawn” or buoy the midpaced march of “Shores of Extinction.” Otherwise, the anger on display throughout Legacies is its final impression. Get on board or get the fuck out of its way. —DANIEL LAKE 84 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

Tapes of Grace BY DUTCH PEARCE

ZHMACH

SEEPING PROTOPLASM

GRIME STONE

HEADSPLIT

Karyta Dzieda Platona “One of [Grime Stone’s head honcho] Abysmal Specter’s alltime favorite bands,” Zhmach are a Belarusian power (pop) trio who play their black metal upbeat and majorly influenced by early 2000s screamo. Karyta Dzieda Platona is their second demo in two years and fear not: It is definitely black metal. Catchy? Yes, deadly so. Evil? Certainly not. More importantly, it’s undeniably good in a way that only something created by a band unencumbered by fucks given could be. By the second track, which is called “Moss Icon”—for the crescendoing, chestslapping middle—you’ll know if it’s for you or if it’s a “hell no.” At 26 minutes, KDP is too atmospheric (and tight therein) to be gimmicky, yet too brief to be cloying.

CRONOS COMPULSION

Malicious Regression CALIGARI

Featuring Decibel’s own Addison Herron-Wheeler on bass and members of Phthisis, the Denver-based death-doomers’ latest EP demonstrates the trio’s ruthless power, as well as their disciplined poise. This exceeds expectations across the board with punishing barbarity and exemplary tightness, but it’s the sound of Malicious Regression’s drums that really steals the show here. A warm, almost fleshy tone underlies the mid-tempo battery that takes place across the four death metal bangers. By the time they release their nowoverdue full-length, Cronos Compulsion are set to be a forced not to be fucked with.

SEPTIC FUMES Promo ‘23

SELF-RELEASED

Five minutes of gross, sticky deathgrind from a brandnew Los Angeles duo calling themselves Septic Fumes. Mailed to the Speaker Rumbly by guitarist/vocalist J.R., this promo tape was otherwise available from Extremely Rotten’s webstore, but only briefly. Comparisons to early Undergang come easy, but the Fumes are gonna need more than two tracks, and soon. Also a third member, because it’s the basswork—specifically its tone—that really gives these tracks their blood and guts.

Exhale Extinction

After a promising demo last year on Night Rhythms, Tokyo’s Seeping Protoplasm are back with a full-length of raw and obscenely heavy death metal done the true old-school way. Probably there was a computer involved at some point in the recording of these nine tracks, but it sure doesn’t sound like Exhale Extinction got anywhere near modern technology during its creation. Not even a click track. The blasting, the slamming, the grinding, the gutturals—everything sounds so human, and all the more surreal for it. A devastating debut not to be missed!

SANCTUARIUM

Into the Mephitic Abyss GURGLING GORE

Formerly a solo project, now boasting a full lineup, Sanctuarium carry high the banner of old-school Spanish death metal like Necrophiliac’s Chaopula - Citadel of Mirrors or the Deformed Beyond Belief demo from Avulsed. Hooded Menace sound like a major influence here, too, which makes oblique sense considering it’s those ’70s Spanish blind dead flicks that inspire HM. Ultimately, Sanctuarium carve out their niche in the global death-doom catacombs, thanks to their own knack for dread-inducing melody and their penchant for strange cover art.

MOONSHRINE

Hallucinatory Forest Rituals AT R O C I T Y A LTA R

Moonshrine is the latest project from Oligarrheneae, a young, prolific Norwegian solo black metaller who goes by too many names to list them all here, though they’re all worth tracking down. Hallucinatory Forest Rituals, Rituals, the debut from Moonshrine, brings 30 minutes of malignant aural black magic into the world of humankind; it’s a collection of orchestrated nightmares and imprisoned ethereal phantoms as much as it is an album. Heed the Emperor Palpatine vibes on the cover: Great and dark power lies here. The atmospheric outer edges intentionally enshroud the riff-centric black metal shredfest that lurks within HFR HFR’s ’s middle tracks.

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EUGENE S. ROBINSON

DEAFHEAVEN?

WHERE? t ravel is so broadening. So said Sinclair Lewis, and this tends to be truer than not. A glimpse at where you were from afar. A look at where you are. And next thing you know? Your perspective has changed up. For the better, sometimes for the worse, but all for a fuller understanding of wherever your place in space was/is. Like in Porto, Portugal. The occasion being Amplifest. Started by André Mendes and modeled after Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival, it’s a jamboree of sights and sounds. All of which you can appreciate if you’re there, as I was. All of which you can appreciate if you’re awake, or at least have your eyes open, which I wasn’t and didn’t. But let’s back up a bit. Old/ weird habits die hard, and touring with Oxbow since 1990, there are certain aspects of band business that have just become writ. To wit: no days off. In other words, if you can’t fly in and play minutes after you fly in, why are you even doing this? And if you can’t play and then fly out minutes after having played, do you even understand what you’re doing? 88 : OCTOBER 2023 : DECIBEL

Of course, there are downsides. Appearing last year at Amplifest was Bunuel. Three Italian musical titans and me. The rest of the band was already in Euro time zone mode. So, yeah: awake. Me? Got on the plane in San Francisco with a fistful of gummies. Hating to fly means you do whatever you have to do to fly. I mean, I’ll be fine, right? Wrong. Sure. I’ll sleep on the flight, but I’ll be fresh as a daisy when I land, right? Really wrong. At this point, only a few months removed, I have no memory of how I got off the plane, how I got to the venue and how I got into my clothes. You could tell me aliens and I’d not be able to deny it. But out of it and not jolly? No way. I was jolly as fuck. Just glad to be there, wherever I was when my eyes actually managed to open. It was like a weird kinescope, this video of what I was seeing when my eyes were opened. Sitting on a drum case as I was and nodding out over my phone, I spied a guy. American by my measure. Stretching, nervous, but with an easy way about him. Someone comes

in and asks him to hand them something, and immediately I recognize my tribe. Not because of his accent, which supported my American guess, but in his enfeebled attempt to actually hand what was asked of him to who it seemed like was his drummer. “Ha… the first to start talking, the last to stop talking and never around to carry equipment!” He didn’t pause, stumble or stutter in his assertion that—and here we might as well have had a secret handshake—I was damned right. Someone looking on was confused, so I explained: “The singer’s credo!” “Nice to meet you!” He shakes my hand. “Nice to meet you!” I say, and avoid in total the whole “what band are you in?” deal. When two singers meet in the wild, unshackled from the burdensome work of having to carry musicians with our coruscating personalities, looks and wit, we know that matters less than that we alone understand, our damned tortured artistic souls. We bullshit a bit, but I start to find his dedication to “getting ready” contagious. So, I grab and

power down a Red Bull, open my eyes for an extended period and hustle to the side stage to see who it is I’ve been jawing with. And… it’s the singer from Deafheaven, George Clarke. I’ve heard so much about them, yet never heard them, and was much more than pleased to be able to do so. Even more so knowing that the singer was a hale fellow well met. A tap on my now over-amped shoulder and I hear it’s time for Bunuel to go on. Our record, Killers Like Us, is a killer to play live, and maybe it was not such a good idea to play hours after landing, but the show had to go on, and so I did. Post-show, the drummer asked me to pass him his crown and, fully fired by the spirit of singers, I reached out for it like I was actually going to get it before turning my hand into a finger that pointed. “Yeah. It’s right there,” I said, knowing damned well that that’s not what I was asked and knowing even more that somewhere not too far away, Clarke would have been well-pleased. It was the least I could do, to uphold the singer’s creed. Really, it was. ILLUSTRATION BY ED LUCE

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