Decibel #235 - May 2024

BRUJERIA MELVINS MY DYING BRIDE FULL OF HELL MATANDO GÜEROS HALL OF FAME

DEACONS OF TRASH

NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS

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EXTREMELY EXTREME

May 2024 [R 235] decibelmagazine.com

upfront 8

metal muthas Home is where the heart is

features 14 antichrist

siege machine Knives out

10 low culture For the people

16 witch vomit No rest for the wicked

11 kill screen:

18 skeletal remains Harder with age

imperial triumphant Under the influence

12 in the studio:

rwake

Don’t change that channel

20 ingested Black and blue collar 22 suldusk Going with the flow

28 vltimas Trvly themselves 30 my dying bride No time like the past 32 inter arma Holy mountain

reviews 40 q&a: melvins Guitarist Buzz Osborne and bassist Steven McDonald have no trouble talking trash cinema 44 the decibel

34 apparition Moving on from old haunts 36 full of hell Hometown heroes

24 couch slut A night (un)like any other

hall of fame With a little help from their friends, Brujeria cast a spell on the growing grind scene to conjur a persona of drug-fueled Satanists on debut LP Matando Güeros

69 lead review Inter Arma escape the doom of pigeonholing to craft something truly divine on new LP New Heaven 70 album reviews Records from bands that also don’t know what “onii-chan” means, including Bruce Dickinson, Folterkammer and High on Fire 80 damage ink Funny how?

26 jim jones and

the kool-ade kids W.W.J.J.A.T.K.A.K.D.?

Keep on Rotting COVER STORY COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS BY SHIMON KARMEL

Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., P.O. Box 36818, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $34.95. Periodical postage, paid at Philadelphia, PA, and other mailing offices. Submission of manuscripts, illustrations and/or photographs must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Postmaster send changes of address for Decibel to Red Flag Media, P.O. Box 36818, Philadelphia, PA 19107. © 2024 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

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May 2024 [T235] PUBLISHER

Alex Mulcahy

alex@redflagmedia.com

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Albert Mudrian

albert@decibelmagazine.com AD SALES

James Lewis

james@decibelmagazine.com DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND SALES ART DIRECTOR

Aaron Salsbury

aaron@decibelmagazine.com

Michael Wohlberg

michael@decibelmagazine.com CUSTOMER SERVICE

Patty Moran

COPY EDITOR

Andrew Bonazelli

BOOKCREEPER

Tim Mulcahy

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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

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

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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.

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Editing 235 issues of Decibel means a lot of things to me, many of which I’ll address over the course of the magazine’s 20th anniversary celebration throughout this year. One relevant consequence is the fact that I’ve been required to write something interesting in this small piece of real estate for 235 consecutive months, which has become the hardest part of my job.

Honestly, I’m happy when I can barf out two quality editor’s notes in a row!

Anyway, I’m not gonna lie; I haven’t got jack shit this month.

Mind you, it’s not due to a shortage of special Decibel undertakings directly related to that two-decade landmark. We’re currently juggling more unannounced new books, exclusive live events and records than any reasonable group of people could handle, which, ironically, has almost certainly contributed to my inability to string together coherent thoughts this month.

So, when every transition feels as forced as a Chris Barnes gurgle nowadays, I could resort to lukewarm takes on the past several weeks of manufactured metal scene drama: AI album art is good for literally no one; Slayer are making a mockery of breaking up and reuniting; Dying Fetus playing a hardcore show is only crazy if you exclusively listen to hardcore. But you actually paid for this magazine and Twitter still exists. I think.

Besides, this issue offers plenty to discuss. We’ve got the latest in our perpetual series of J. Bennett interviewing Buzz Osborne in as nearly as many strange locations as there are Melvins albums. Inter Arma—a band I watched win a local Richmond battle-of-the-bands competition in 2009—dropping an early album of the year contender. A loooooooongin-the-making Hall of Fame induction of Brujeria’s legendary Matando Güeros by José Carlos Santos, and a harrowing, in-depth Necrot piece by Brad Sanders—both contributors authoring their impressive HOF and cover story debuts, respectively.

Am I over 300 words yet? Thank Christ, because I gotta finish the parts of the magazine you actually want to read. Maybe the 236th time will be the charm.

Andrew K. Scherer Warwick, RI

You’re the Director of the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University. For the past decade or so, there’s been a tremendous growth in the field of “extreme metal studies” in academia, from coursework to full-blown conferences.

What do you attribute this to?

In the early days of extreme metal, commentary on the genre as a cultural force was largely the work of writers who may have only had a vague appreciation for the genre at best. Fast forward to 2024 [and] we are in a very different place, with lifelong fans of metal music now occupying university positions around the globe—folks steeped not only in the methods and theoretical approaches of academia, but also possessed of a deep understandings of extreme metal music and the artists behind it.

One area that this scholarship has really tapped into is the interplay between heavy metal music and understandings of the human past. Here at Brown, my colleague Tyler Franconi teaches a class “Somewhere Back

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in Time: Archaeology, the Ancient World, and Heavy Metal Music.” As I write this, we are just weeks away from the second Heavy Metal and Global Premodernity conference, organized by Charlotte Naylor Davis, Shamma Boyarin and Jeremy Swist. Courses and conferences like these recognize that metal, arguably more than any other genre, engages the human past. I argue this is because, since its inception, metal has been fundamentally about being against the status quo.

Beyond Powerslave and a Nile album or two, can you discuss what you feel are some of the most interesting intersections between archaeology and metal?

While not the first to sing about the archaeological or historical past, Iron Maiden deserves credit for laying the groundwork for archaeology in metal music. Decades later, you find metal artists continuing that tradition, presenting us with views of the past that might be real, imagined or utterly fantastical. Want to hear about Vikings at the Byzantine court of Constantinople? Check out Turisas’ The Varangian Way. Interested in World War I? Listen to the latest Sabaton albums. While a lot of this work is made

by European or European-descent artists writing about the European past, there have also been notable forays into other parts of the world.

Perhaps the most exciting thing is that now there are Latino and Indigenous artists who are themselves singing about the ancient cultures of the Americas. While the bands focused on the

Maya, Aztecs and other cultures of Mesoamerica remain somewhat obscure, rising stars of the U.S. black metal scene, Blackbraid, tap into their Indigenous ancestry for inspiration.

Vikings were at the heart of the rise of Nordic black metal, so it makes sense that Indigenous artists would use the genre as a vehicle to celebrate their own past.

Between the Decibel Hall of Fame series and our Decibel Books imprint, we might—after a few drinks—refer to ourselves as “archivists.”

Do we have a point or are we just coping with the fact that we never went to grad school?

Absolutely! I continue to pore through the latest Decibel Books [titles], most recently the updated version of Dayal Patterson’s invaluable Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult. I was lucky enough to get into extreme metal just as the key genres were coalescing in the early ’90s.

At that time, ska, another underground genre, was also in ascendancy. Here we are, 30 years later and metal is bigger than ever. I have no idea what happened to ska. My point being, I am certain folks are going to be listening and making this music for decades and even centuries to come. Since so much of the early history of extreme music exists in fragile forms of media (fanzines, traded demo tapes and the letters that accompanied them), the books being produced by Decibel imprints will be invaluable resources for future generations of fans and scholars alike. I should probably make sure Brown adds them to our library!

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

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

Well, here are the records that we spun most while we take the clothes, cash, cars and homes—just stop complainin’.

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

This Month’s Mutha: Elizabeth Fulmer Mutha of Ellis Ray of Exulansis

Tell us a little about yourself.

I have worked in the nonprofit sector most of my life, at YWCA Women’s Health Services in Oakland, Planned Parenthood of Sacramento, Friends of the River, Citizens Who Care and Davis Community Church. Currently I have a private practice in Davis as a Reiki Master Teacher and Spiritual Director.

You’ve been to exactly one Exulansis show.

What was the experience like for you?

The experience was totally immersive! There is an energy in the performance that goes beyond “sound.” It was a vibrational whole-body experience, all the way to my toes! I found Exulansis’ music to be gut-centered and often gut-wrenching. It was a unique musical experience for me.

We’re told that you home-schooled Ellis until their senior year of high school. What were some of the benefits?

We understand your father was an actor and a musician. What can you tell us about his creative life?

The biggest benefit of home-schooling was having the freedom to create an environment to support my children’s deep love of learning. In Ellis’ case, it provided them the ability to engage in constant music and theater opportunities.

In junior high, he was a featured trombone soloist with the Oakland Symphony. He also was an actor, director and writer. After World War II, he founded the Straw Hat Theater in the Bay Area during his college days at Cal Berkeley. He later created, wrote and performed as the Professor in Jack Daniel’s Original Silver Cornet Band, touring in community centers nationwide, at the Sacramento Jazz Festival, at Lincoln Center and the White House. The band had a PBS television special and released four albums. Ellis resembles their grandfather in many ways, most notably Ellis’ musical abilities and theatrical gifts.

At what point did you realize that Ellis had musical inclinations, be it singing or performing?

As a young person, Ellis had an auditory memory that was stunning. They could recall movies with nuanced voicing, accents and timing. After watching their older sister in The Davis Children’s Nutcracker four times, they could recite the entire production verbatim. Ellis could sing the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute with perfect pitch when they were 3. They were singing in choirs and performing in community theater at age 5. When Ellis graduated high school, they had been involved in more than 50 productions.

Ellis taught themself the guitar at age 12. They played piano, mandolin, banjo, bass… whatever was available!

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What’s something about Ellis that the average Exulansis fan would never suspect?

Ellis was very perceptive of others’ feelings.

I recall them saying to me, “Mom, what’s the matter?” and I would honestly respond, “Nothing’s the matter, I’m fine.” Upon further reflection, I would realize that there was something bothering me. So often Ellis could sense what I was feeling before I did! —ANDREW BONAZELLI

Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f  Terminal Nation, Echoes of the Devil’s Den  Inter Arma, New Heaven  Autopsy, Severed Survival  Hulder, Verses in Oath  Worm, Bluenothing ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e  Electric Wizard, Witchcult Today  Black Flag, In My Head  Black Sabbath, Vol. 4  Can, Tago Mago  Neu!, Neu! ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s  Necrot, Lifeless Birth  Deicide, Banished by Sin  Apparition, Disgraced Emanations From a Tranquil State  Imperial Triumphant, Vile Luxury (Redux 1924)  Brat, Social Grace ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r  Imperial Triumphant, Vile Luxury (Redux 1924)  Animosity, Animal  Mastiff, Deprecipice  Antichrist Siege Machine, Vengeance of Eternal Fire  Necrot, Lifeless Birth ---------------------------------Aaron Salsbury : m a r k e t i n g a n d s a l e s  Various Artists, NEF100: Burn After Hearing  Deadguy, Fixation on a Coworker  Deaf Club feat. HIRS Collective/ Fuck Money, Split EP  Fright, Cesspool  Destructor, Blood Bone and Fire

GUEST SLAYER

---------------------------------Tom Draper : h a n d s o f g o r o / pounder / spirit adrift

 Young Gun Silver Fox, Ticket to Shangri-La  Donald Fagen, The Nightfly  Cory Wong, Motivational Music for the Syncopated Soul  Tom Misch, Geography  Mayer Hawthorne, Man About Town

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Dark Souls Remastered [FROM SOFTWARE/BANDAI NAMCO]

ZACHARY EZRIN OF

IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT Don't I Know You? re you Neill Jameson?” tends to be a question that inevitably leads me to apologize for something I’ve done over the last 30 years. It’s led to ducking (or taking) a punch or two. It has never led to me getting laid. It has, however, resulted in some nice conversations where someone tells me they like something I do, and I react like the socially awkward 9-year-old girl I am. You can tell when this happens because you’ll see my number of social media followers drop.

Every so often, this happens outside of shows, or someone doesn’t know who I am, but thinks they have an idea that I’m someone they know from somewhere. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve worked to create separation from my personal life, my work life and my “Neill from Krieg” life—for protection of the sovereignty of each entity. Or maybe I just don’t need some asshole calling up my job to bring up something I wrote about a band they felt was sketchy because said band once pissed in the same rest stop on tour as members of Grand Belial’s Key. But mostly it’s because I carry a lot of anxiety with me wherever I go and being stopped to have a conversation with someone who actually thinks I’m anything more than just a middle-aged asshole who got lucky with record contracts and not dying of a drug overdose in my early 30s is like a shot to the neck.

That said, I will always try to be as polite and nice as I can be to someone who’s taken the time to talk to me because they like whatever I’ve done. That’s actually the one thing I took away from Blake Judd: Interacting with “fans” shouldn’t be placing yourself on a pedestal above them. His reasoning was that they’re the 1 0 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

people who buy your shit and keep you going, and he really wasn’t wrong. And this is where this month’s piece is going—a cautionary tale to musicians, writers and silly fucks who post records on Instagram and somehow have a status in the “scene” because of it. You (we) aren’t worth more than anyone else just because we’ve done something people appreciate.

You hear a lot about bands who just fuck off after shows, or worse, treat their fans like the anal fissure they’re waiting for their insurance to approve to remedy. Sure, we get tired after shows, and there are definitely days (lifetimes?) where talking to a stranger sounds as exciting as getting your dick caught in your zipper, but you better make sure—even if you’re trying to get them to fuck off—that you do it with poise and grace. The internet exists, and every opportunity someone gets to tear down a “public figure” just creates another precum stain their mom has to clean out of their underwear. You never know if the person you’re blowing off is that precummy lump or a genuine fan who might take the interaction to heart. It’s not just about lost sales; it’s about the people that support you.

I spend at least seven or eight columns each year trying to implore people to stop being abysmal shitheads to each other, and sometimes it feels like I’m yelling into a brick wall that’s been used as a public transient restroom. But this year especially is going to be a constant struggle, and the last thing we need to do is to contribute to the noise that will be swirling around to divide us in so many ways. It’s going to be a challenge, and I’m sure I’ll slip up, but try to remember to be fucking human as often as you can.

ON WHY ALL THAT’S TARNISHED IS GOLD odern day masters of the dark fantasy ARPG FromSoftware and their flagship titles—Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Elden Ring—are an endless source of inspiration to the underground metal scene, and have been a particular point of fascination for masked composer Zachary Ezrin and his avantgarde trio Imperial Triumphant. While our extended online interview goes deeper into the sonic connection to the notoriously difficult game series—including the band’s revisitation of landmark album Vile Luxury with support from current label home Century Media—this exclusive passage touches on a hallmark for the band: their visual aesthetic. Imitation, conscious or not, remains the most sincere form of flattery.

Does your love for FromSoftware games extend to this new crop of developers who are trying to do similar games, like Lies of P?

I just beat Lies of P. It was really fun, man.

They really nailed it. If you’re gonna copy a FromSoft game, don’t try to do your own twist on it—just kill it. I guess they did their own thing with a whole puppet theme, but as far as the gameplay goes, they’re not

Every RPG you ever played... at the end of the day,

YOU JUST WANT YOUR CHARACTER TO LOOK COOL. pretending that they’re not ripping this shit off.

But we as the consumer, we don’t give a shit.

You like it? You like it.

What’s so fantastic about that game is that they really stripped away all the parts of Bloodborne that you don’t really like, like farming for health, the super-long journey you gotta take every time you have to face a boss. That shit is just a drag. They were just like, “Don’t worry about it. We understand. That’s not why you love these games.” The only thing is that you have to play as this Timothée Chalamet-looking motherfucker, and every costume they give you is sillier than the last. It would be cool if they gave you something badass. You just look like you live on Coney Island, you know? [Laughs] Let’s be honest for a second: I think we can all admit [that] every RPG you ever played—World of Warcraft, Diablo, FromSoft games—at the end of the day, you just want your character to look cool. That’s all that matters. Or you want it to look funny. But you want to be proud of your 400 hours you put in.

Diablo II, I [Michael] was always hyped on the necromancer because the bone armor just looked the coolest.

Exactly. That’s why I picked it, too. [Laughs] All that matters is the bone armor. They always go,

“Here’s some new armor. It’s better—doesn’t look cooler, though.”

That was something that bothered me [James] about Dark Souls 1, especially when you got further into it. You would find some equipment that would be significantly better and every time your camera’s panning around, you’re like, I miss the old one.

It’s almost like they know. They’re like, “What’s that, some really lame jacket? Let’s make it super-powerful.” [Laughs] Have FromSoft games or any games in general had an impact on the visual aesthetic of Imperial Triumphant?

Not intentionally, but I would be a fool to deny it. There have been a lot of comparisons of my mask and other band members’ masks to From Software bosses and shit from Flash Gordon or whatever. I think, sure, maybe there is even a subconscious inspiration to it all. You know what’s another game that people always compare us to? BioShock. That game was all Art Deco and I think that’s really cool. I live in New York and Art Deco is my bread and butter. Anything that’s gold, Art Deco or somewhat extravagant, it’s probably either subconsciously or actively played a role in the design of the stage costume.

CONTINUE AT DECIBELMAGAZINE.COM PHOTO BY ALEX KRAUSS

D E C I B E L : M AY 2 0 2 4 : 1 1

RWAKE

A

ltogether, we did the album in nine and a half 14-hour

days,” wheezes Jeff Morgan, drummer of Arkansas STUDIO REPORT doom sludge veterans Rwake, about their return to action after a decade-plus “raising families, going to work, taking kids to school, making dinners and reading report ALBUM TITLE cards.” As exhausted as Morgan is, he’s more lamenting his TBD return to the normal world, saying, “I’m as good as one could be STUDIO after my first day back at work after being in the studio, but I East End Sound, wish I was still in the studio.”

Hensley, AR Rwake’s forthcoming sixth album is the product of two RECORDING DATES “channeling” sessions—one in 2018, the other in 2021—in January 26 which creative wellsprings were tapped for free-flowing hours February 4, 2024 of music. Those two slabs were then sculpted by the band’s six PRODUCER members, which dragged the process out further. After having Sanford Parker Rwake relegated to part-part-part-time status for most of the LABEL past 13 years, Morgan is excited about the band’s return and the Relapse still-unnamed album they’ll be returning with. He’s also excited RELEASE DATE to relate the story about East End Sound, where they recorded: TBD “The studio is about 30 minutes east of Little Rock in this spooky and spiritually active area known for ghosts and all kinds of stuff we heard about growing up. In the ’50s and ’60s, there was this famous pedal steel player from Arkansas named Zane Beck, who invented the levers under the lap steel that you play

RWAKE

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with your knees. He built his dream studio in that area in 1984, but died a year later. Business dwindled through the ’80s and ’90s, then dried up, so the studio was sealed and preserved like an archeological site or something.

“Fast forward years and there were flooding issues, and a guy we know ended up getting access to the property, opened it up and there was this amazing studio just sitting there with all sorts of vintage gear inside! The water damage was fixed, the studio was renovated and up and running in late 2019… just in time for the COVID shutdowns. After COVID, I went to check it out, and it was frickin’ incredible!

There were boxes of old photos in the attic, equipment Beck would use to make pedal steels… it was a really magical place. We had songs ready, but we couldn’t travel to Chicago to record with Sanford [Parker] like usual, so we asked if he wouldn’t mind flying down to record at this haunted studio, and he was like, ‘Fuck yeah!’” —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

ANTICHRIST SIEGE MACHINE

ANTICHRIST SIEGE MACHINE Black/death demolition duo stays sharp on album number three

W

e’ve had one singular goal and it’s to write fast, aggressive music,” says Scott Bartley, drummer and vocalist of Antichrist Siege Machine. “All we took from the last record was that the next one’s gotta be faster and meaner.” ¶ Dear readers, it looks like the Virginia extremists may have actually pulled it off. Bartley and guitarist Ryan Zell began pumping out their grinding, bestial noise in 2016, building momentum until 2021’s Purifying Blade made both them and the terrifying knife on the cover breakouts in the underground.

What followed was critical acclaim, impressive tours and a question of what could possibly come next.” ¶ “We wanted to think on it for a while,” Bartley says about preparations for their follow-up. “We have to be in the right mindset to write these songs. And we’re not just going to sit in a room and mash our instruments until something comes out. We both have to be in the zone.” ¶ This doesn’t exactly seem like the kind of band that takes measured, patient approaches to songwriting, 1 4 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

but regardless, it has produced Vengeance of Eternal Fire, a chest-caving maelstrom that refuses to go easy on the listener while rewarding anyone who can bare-knuckle their way through all 10 tracks. True to their stated aims, this is faster and it’s absolutely fucking meaner.

“Our profile or whatever being elevated was not intentional on our part,” says Bartley. “I mean, we’re not mad about it, but we’re not trying to sell this band to anyone.

What’s happened has been really cool and these opportunities have been amazing, but at the same time, we’re not living off of this and we’re doing it very much on our own terms. When you’re given more opportunities, you have to start exercising caution. Anytime we’ve felt pressured we’ve pushed away from it. If we ‘need’ to do something, then we don’t do it.”

The band will have even more opportunities when Vengeance of Eternal Fire drops and they start bringing these songs to the masses. And, in case you were wondering, the band will continue impaling a cab with their purifying blade at as many live shows as they can.

“I actually have a few of them at home,” Bartley says of the iconic and terrifying spiked weapon. “People have welded their own versions and brought them to shows, and it’s really cool. It’s been wild seeing how many people have gotten it as a tattoo and when you think of how this small idea has had that much of an impact.”

Just don’t expect them to take it through the airport.

“It was funny being in Europe with people asking, ‘Where’s the knife?’ Like, what do you think?”

—SHANE MEHLING

WITCH VOMIT

Portland death dealers get sick on first LP in five years

THE

bible tells us that “the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud.” Your pious granny’s favorite speculative fiction novel typically doesn’t hold much weight around here, but Portland, OR death fiends Witch Vomit are simply built different. The cemetery-haunting quartet may have stepped away from the studio after releasing 2019’s gory banger of an EP, Abhorrent Rapture, but wicked they are, and wickedly busy they’ve been. ¶ They’ve played far-flung festivals like Denmark’s Kill-Town Deathfest and Maui’s Volcanic Strike Festival, toured Europe, stormed Mexico City, and hit the East Coast with Left Cross, all while writing and rehearsing for the new record in between. The result, Funeral Sanctum, is a grotesquely satisfying romp through death metal’s sickest cobwebbed corners, replete with sepulchral orations, infernal blasts, icily intricate melodies and ghostly dive bombs. ¶ “We wanted to write a melodic and headbangable record where each song was unique from the others,” 1 6 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

founding guitarist/vocalist Tempter explains. “The result is a very extreme and dense record that took a lot out of us to create, but in the end it’s something we’re all very proud of.”

He and drummer V.V. formed Witch Vomit as a duo back in 2012, and while the ensuing decade has seen both the band’s lineup and sound expand, they’ve consistently managed to up their collective game without veering too far from their roots.

“You’ll hear a lot of those same themes on the new record, but played with more focus and intensity,” Tempter says. The album is awash in death and blasphemy, and highlights like “Decaying Angel Flesh” and “Black Wings of Desolation” really hammer home the band’s morbid obsession with all things decaying, unholy and wretched. Tempter’s lyrics lend an especially eerie element, with ominous lines verging upon the poetic.

As he says, “Funeral Sanctum is a

barren world where life was corrupted and poisoned by evil,” and while it may be tempting to draw parallels with our own current hellscape, rest assured that Witch Vomit are far more interested in splatter flicks and graveyard shenanigans.

Tempter’s own interest in the dark has a classic origin story: stumbling upon horror flicks and monster movies at a tender age.

“I was pretty imaginative, and that stuff really drew me in,” he remembers. “The interest in horror grew into books and music, always looking for something sicker/more obscure than I’ve seen or heard before, and that just never stopped.”

With a killer new album safely in the can, Witch Vomit are free to fling funeral mud all over your hometown. First up is a spring tour with Phobophilic and Mortal Wound, and after that, only the devil knows. “Come see us if we’re playing near you, buy the new record and succumb to the darkness…” —KIM KELLY

PHOTO BY KENDRA FARBER

WITCH VOMIT

A UNIQUELY STIRRING AND CAPTIVATING DARK ROCK ALBUM!

OUT: 19TH APRIL

AVAILABLE AS DIGIPAK CD, GATEFOLD LP (BLACK AND LTD. CRYSTAL CLEAR), CD HARDCOVER BOOK (18X18CM, 36 PAGES), AND LTD. BUNDLE (INCL. CD BOOK, LP, MC, ART PRINTS, CLOTH BAG, AND SIGNED/NUMBERED CERTIFICATE)!

WEIRD TALES

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AVAILABLE AS DIGISLEEVE CD, GATEFOLD LP (BIO BLACK AND LTD. GOLD), CD HARDCOVER BOOK (18X18CM, 36 PAGES), AND LTD. BUNDLE (INCL. CD BOOK, LP, PATCH, CLOTH BAG, AND SIGNED/NUMBERED CERTIFICATE)!

A DA R K M A S T E R P I E C E O F H E AV Y E L E C T R O N I C S , BROODING SYNTHS & H AU N T I N G T R I P H O P

B L E E D OUT: 5TH APRIL

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·

M E M O R Y

OUT: 19TH APRIL AVAILABLE AS 2CD HARDCOVER BOOK

(18X18CM, 48 PAGES, 8 BONUS TRACKS) AND GATEFOLD LP (TRANSPARENT ORANGE)!

SKELETAL REMAINS Veteran L.A. death dealers look to their past to reimagine their future

S

keletal remains guitarist Mike De La O is stoked about the future of the band. Having co-founded the project in 2011, he departed for nine years before returning and has been back for two albums. He’s joined by founding guitarist/vocalist Chris Monroy, plus a comparative newcomer rhythm section: drummer Pierce Williams and bassist Brian Rush. ¶ De La O says that the band’s basic approach to things hasn’t really changed. They still play death metal; they’re just doing it at a higher level and they’re touring a lot more. ¶ “The only difference is where we’ve gone musically,” he tells Decibel. “We kind of edge our levels; this is almost too hard to play. That’s pretty much the only change I would say since our last. We’ve gotten busier, thankfully.” ¶ Titled Fragments of the Ageless, the latest Skeletal Remains album is more technical than previous efforts, a result of the new members’ musical pedigrees, which include long lists of death metal bands. It took nearly three years to write, in stark contrast to the six weeks 1 8 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

of predecessor The Entombment of Chaos, but Williams and Rush helped when De La O and Monroy ran into creative walls.

According to De La O, “Having Brian and Pierce come along and open our minds a bit to where we felt some of this was starting to get repetitive in certain parts, having them come in with fresher brains and somewhat of a different background, I feel really helped with this record. A lot of things that we wouldn’t have thought to try, to give a shot, we did it this way because we had these guys.”

Their other source of inspiration was legendary cover artist Dan Seagrave, who returned for his third Skeletal Remains cover. Depicting a large, radioactive alien creature ritually summoned from a crevice in the earth, Seagrave’s early sketches inspired lyrics to a trio of songs on Fragments.

“I just felt really inspired,” De La O gushes. “Looking into the artwork

and having the overall vibe of the music, there was just a certain set of songs that we were working on that I felt like, ‘This just works with what this image is and what it brings, what it captures.’”

Fragments of the Ageless was recorded at various studios; drums were tracked at Trench Studios in Southern California, while vocals were tracked at Birdcage Studio.

The majority of guitar and bass recordings were handled at home, due to the members’ spaced-out locations and to allow for more natural writing.

“It’s given us more time to really home in on what we’re trying to pull off,” De La O explains, “More time to sit on it. It gives us each our own time to work on this.”

With a number of record release shows booked around the album’s March street date, you can bet Skeletal Remains won’t be sitting around for long. —EMILY BELLINO

PHOTO BY ALLEN FALCON

SKELETAL REMAINS

INGESTED

Working-class U.K. death metallers resume to consume

I

ngested first rolled out of Manchester in 2006, when its members were all in their late teens. Eighteen years later, they’re in their late 30s and still playing brutal slamming death metal with the realization that, even as they continue to amass a fanbase, there are those who have been in the crowd since the start. Vocalist Jason Evans is giggling at the proposed notion of creating separate merch lines: one for the young’uns who care not about walking around covered in zombies, guts and gore; and another for those having to worry about office dress codes, PTA meetings and HOA gossip. ¶ “To be fair, we did do a really nice button-up shirt with an embroidered logo,” he offers. “It was proper class! The way we’ve built this band. I feel that many of our fans are lifers who have grown up with us. But our very modern death metal sound also appeals to younger fans. To me, that means something is connecting with extreme metal fans across the board.”

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The core of drummer Lyn Jeffs, guitarist Sean Hynes and Evans have been on a tear since 2018’s The Level Above Human. Back-to-back albums and tours have come annually, almost without fail, with the band’s latest, The Tide of Death and Fractured Dreams, being issued 18 months after Ashes Lie Still. In fact, to have Evans recount the timeline, it’s no joke to say the triumphant air created by the soaring melodies on Tide of Death could have come before its predecessor!

“We wrote Ashes and as soon as we had everything demoed, scratchtracked and ready for the studio, we started writing the next one before we’d even recorded the last one,” he laughs. “We went into the studio, recorded Ashes, and it came out November 2022. In December 2022, we went into the studio and recorded the new album.

“That’s just the way we are,” Evans explains. “Our work

ethic is very much to do with our backgrounds. We’re all workingclass guys from council estates in Manchester and Wales. Personally, I grew up poor as shit. From leaving school at 16, what was instilled in us was everything you get, you work for and earn, and when we formed the band, that was the mentality. We’re always on tour, writing, recording, doing videos.

Right now is the longest I’ve had off since COVID, and even now, once I’m done talking to you, I’m going to get back to making props for our next video. Even when we have time off, we’re doing stuff! We just don’t stop. We love it so much and want it so badly. We’ve also never been a hype job or media darling band; we’ve had to fight tooth and nail for everything, and that’s why we never take anything for granted and appreciate everything we have.” —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

PHOTO BY EDUARDO RUIZ

INGESTED

SULDUSK

SULDUSK

Australian doomgazers blossom on second album

IT’S

quite an adjustment to go from a solo project to a six-piece. On Suldusk’s debut, Lunar Falls, Emily Highfield hired some musicians to help her flesh out her vision. Second album Anthesis required a more ambitious expansion. ¶ “Suldusk is a fluid project. It can go from one person to six,” Highfield tells us over email from Melbourne, Australia. “However, for this new album it is a six-piece. Performances with a full band bring a very powerful kinetic energy when all things align. Sharing the songwriting has been one of the highlights of my life. I get to work with people who have strengths and influences that I do not have.

Many hands make haste, or something akin to that? The other composers were Josh Taylor, who brought some eloquent acoustic progressions to the table, and Shane Mulholland, who is a master of a myriad of darker textures and sounds.” ¶ The striking cover art of a genital-less woman with a bandaged face on a self-supported cross (sourced on Instagram from artists Daria Endresen and Nhil) certainly cues the audience that 2 2 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

they’re in for a dark experience.

Its combination of dark folk’s quiet beauty and blackgaze’s allencompassing atmosphere feel reminiscent of Myrkur or the avant-garde despair of Oathbreaker, but anchored in Highfield’s acoustic roots. It’s also anchored in her philosophical views.

“The song ‘Sphaera’ is really the thematic driver of the album,” she explains. “In the track, we have sampled a quote from Carl Jung from 1959: ‘We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. He is the great danger. And we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man … far too little. His psyche should be studied—because we are the origin of all coming evil.’

“Whereas the first album was about gazing outwards and seeking solace in physical nature, Anthesis is about human nature and exploring our inner worlds [and] despairs,

and practicing radical compassion. We are in a world that rewards dissociation and disconnection of our own psyche by doomscrolling, chasing status symbols and worshiping false idols. The embracing of our own shadow by (at times painful) self-reflection, this allows us to affirm our existence as full humans living a full human life, with all the emotions that entails, and it is sad that today this is an act of rebellion. The music is really about going there. It is a safe space to go there if you are willing to delve deeper. It will hold you if you need it to.”

Those themes come from a very personal place. “‘Anthesis’ means to blossom. I think this has happened literally, musically. I also think that emotionally, in the last few years, many parts of me have died and something sinewy and vigorous have now emerged.” It’s a strength reflected in the album itself. —JEFF TREPPEL

COUCH SLUT

Cerebral noise rockers find a place to crash

U

nderground nyc provocateurs Couch Slut, a group known for pushing the boundaries of noise rock, kind of remind me of Steely Dan. Maybe I’m predisposed to that comparison because I’m reading Alex Pappademas’ illustrated history of that band, Quantum Criminals, but it seems apt. Both acts populate unconventional songs with a rogues’ gallery of unsavory characters, some of which may do bad things to children in their spare time. Besides, Couch Slut have now named two records after Boston songs, so all ’70s rock allusions are fair game. ¶ Okay, enough comparison; here’s the contrast: 11 years into their recording career, Steely Dan had already disbanded, but after the same amount of time, Couch Slut are returning with their latest (and possibly nastiest) album, You Could Do It Tonight. ¶ “I see each record as running as far away as possible from the last while remaining absolutely the same thing,” says drummer and primary composer Theo Nobel. “One way I differentiate it from previous material is that, harmonically, things have gotten weirder and weirder. The bass has developed strongly into its own character.

The interplay between the two guitars is far more elaborate.

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[Vocalist] Megan [Osztrosits]’s direct lyrics are more cutting, her opaque lyrics more mysterious.”

Back to comparison: You Could Do It Tonight sees Couch Slut increasingly exploring the theoretical nuts-and-bolts of their music—eat your heart out, Donald Fagen. “For this record, I came to the band with notated compositions,” Nobel says.

“That way of writing music started several years ago on [former Couch Slut guitarist] Kevin Wunderlich’s suggestion. It’s become an important tool over the years, necessary during COVID when I needed to write music that I couldn’t play.”

Those notated parts were brought to life in part by new guitarist Dylan DiLella of avant-garde tech-death phenomenon Pyrrhon, whose dexterous playing adds depth and texture not present on earlier Couch Slut records. “I can’t imagine anyone stepping in and handling what was an immense and difficult task as well as Dylan did for us on this record,” enthuses bassist Kevin Hall.

One can feel DiLella’s presence on songs like the subtly black-metallic “Energy Crystals for Healing” and the proggy finale “The Weaversville Home for Boys.” Elsewhere, DiLella’s Pyrrhon bandmate Doug Moore contributes to the album’s abrasive and captivating edge with guest growls, while Zachary Ezrin and Steve Blanco of Imperial Triumphant add nuance to You Could Do It Tonight’s broadened sonic palate.

But don’t expect a total departure from the band’s AmRep adorations, either. Couch Slut’s stock and trade remains bludgeoning riffs, turgid rhythms and dissonant melodies. As always, Osztrosits’ haunting storytelling and visceral singing cut through the chaos, confronting listeners with uncomfortable (and occasionally humorous) cocktails of autobiography and half-truths.

Don’t expect her to explain the lyrics, and don’t expect anyone to blast it off the bow of a yacht, but somewhere out there, Walter Becker is grinning with unsettling rows of white teeth. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

PHOTO BY JOSEPH BONE

COUCH SLUT

JIM JONES AND THE KOOL-ADE KIDS

Michigan doom thrashers reissue their truly cult debut… nearly four decades later

IN

the summer of 1986, Jim Jones and the Kool-Ade Kids released their debut album, Trust Me... As hinted at by their moniker—a backhanded salute to the cult leader who orchestrated the mass-suicide of his followers with cyanide-laced Flavor Aid—the quartet from tiny Grand Haven, MI, began life as hardcore band in the vein of other jocularly named outfits like J.F.A. (Jerry Falwell’s Army), R.K.L. (Rich Kids on LSD), D.R.I. (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles) and M.S.I. (More Stupid Initials). But as many of those bands got thrashier and more metal, J.J.A.T.K.A.K. got more metal by easing their Chucks off the accelerator. ¶ “We formed in 1983 and over two years morphed into Trust Me…, which we recorded in April ’86,” explains guitarist Paul Pretzer. “Some of the hardcore I was listening to, like C.O.C. and Battalion of Saints, was turning into crossover. We subconsciously started merging that with Black Sabbath and side two of My War. We loved slowing things down; the dirtier the sound, the better!” ¶ The transformation from “punk songs about people we didn’t like at school” to Trust Me…’s

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seething rawness (propelled by a doomy, gloomy Dream Death and Hellhammer sludge) happened over a quick and decisive four months.

“We released a demo called Adventures in Distortion in the summer of 1985 in the vein of Minor Threat and SoCal hardcore,” Pretzer continues. “We started writing a second release, but our singer quit on the first of the year because he didn’t want to tour. So, we scrapped everything, wrote all new stuff and recorded in April.”

After recording, the band consulted a stack of Maximum Rocknroll magazines for pressing plants, distributors, show bookers and promoters sympathetic to a bunch of label-less Midwest kids who wanted to get their material out there. And they did a decent job, touring Trust Me… before it was even off the presses.

“We didn’t get the albums in time for our tour because the

place pressing them was making copies of Lionel Richie’s album at the time,” laughs Pretzer.

“Dancing on the Ceiling was such a huge hit that they shelved ours for a few weeks to make extra copies, so we went on tour with no merch.”

After a planned Southern Lord reissue stalled in 2010, Dark Descent Records’ Matt Calvert caught wind of Trust Me… floating in the breeze for 35-plus years and approached Pretzer with a remastering and distribution offer, which the band is looking forward to bolstering by getting back onstage.

“We’re all still friends and have discussed reunion shows for years,” Pretzer says. “We’ve actually been talking about lining some stuff up for this fall or winter. We’d love to do it; it’s a complete honor that anyone gives a shit.” —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

PHOTO BY JAMES KELTIE

JIM JONES AND THE KOOL-ADE KIDS

IF WHA WH AT IS IT IT’S IT.

EXTREME METAL SUPERGROUP

VLTIMAS

RETURNS WITH A GRAND DECLARATION OF MORE story by CHRIS DICK photo by JOLANDA SIEMONSA

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ex-Morbid Angel vocalist/bassist David Vincent is the

evangelist of VLTIMAS, then former Mayhem guitarist/ songwriter Rune “Blasphemer” Eriksen is the grand architect. The Norwegian guitarist/songwriter evidently had something to prove (to himself) and needed an outlet for his deviceful musical constructs. In 2015, he, along with Vincent and Cryptopsy drummer Flo Mounier, steeled their respective wills and decades of metal dominance into VLTIMAS. The group’s 2019 debut, Something Wicked Marches In, wasn’t entirely death metal, though we did describe the nine-song affair as “intricate, immaculately executed death metal” when we put it under the Best New Noise floodlight.

Calling VLTIMAS extreme metal is simplistic enough but robs it of its true purpose–intent. So, perhaps the new album, EPIC (yes, all caps), is somewhere deviously between. ¶ “Whatever it is, it’s VLTIMAS,” says Vincent, his baritone voice booming with anticipation. “I’m not into anything that implies limitations. This time, it [the songwriting] was as organic as it could possibly be. When we were in a room, it was magic. That’s what happens when you have creatives together. I don’t say that lightly. Rune would play something, and Flo would play something just as ridiculous. It wasn’t a jam session. We were riffing on ideas together–it was real. It was my job to get all that stuff down. So, this is what we do. We’re appreciative of it, protective of it, and revere it.”

“In the creative sense, I’d say that the word ‘organic’ describes the writing process, jamming things out the ‘old school’ way,” Eriksen adds.

“We’re in a band exchanging ideas and energies instead of sitting and programming stuff through a lifeless device—the same with being in the studio. We emphasize anything ‘real’– amps, drums, whatever. There’s warmth in a real Marshall that you can’t find anywhere else. It’s almost spiritual.”

Fellowship isn’t just a Tolkien buzzword, not in VLTIMAS. With Dutch bassist Ype TVS (exDodecahedron) and Portuguese guitarist João Duarte (Corpus Christii) joining the Luciferian league full-time, the multi-nationals now have their force multipliers on lock. Throughout the journey to EPIC, the advantages of a postpandemic world had an impact. After two years, the crux of VLTIMAS was in place, in person, and ready for battle. Whereas Something Wicked Marches In was predominantly an Eriksen/Mounier operation—and it showed in “Praevalidus,” “Monolilith,” and the wild title track—EPIC leaned heavily into the collective.

“David came in and had really good ideas about structure and approach,” says Eriksen, “This enabled us to move forward more directly.

More focused on getting to the core of the song without losing the originality of the songs or the purpose of them. Personally, I’m a huge fan of Priest, KISS and Sabbath. In my eyes, they had/ have very focused songwriting, hit after hit.

Their songs still move me. I wanted to capture that spirit without losing our integrity.”

“I’m looking for where the holes [in the songs] are,” Vincent says, referencing “Miserere,” “Nature’s Fangs,” and the muscular groove of ‘Mephisto Manifesto.’ “Not everything has to be on 10 all the time. I’m into bulldozers, but I also like moments where there’s some breath.

Because that’s the ‘why, I oughta’ before I punch you in the mouth. I see no reason to compete with myself [musically]. I like it when things come and go and cascade from one part of the song to the next.”

Vincent ain’t wrong, either. EPIC undulates snake-like throughout its commanding, if brisk, 37 minutes. “Scorcher” and “Nature’s Fangs” are blasty black, while “Exercitus Irae”

and “Invictus” revel in Eriksen’s angular riff mischief, but it’s “Miserere,” the album’s tombstone “Spoils of War,” and title track where VLTIMAS cast ominous clouds. That it’s all balanced on Mounier’s top-tier drumming—who, at 50, is faster and more precise than at 22 slinging “Slit Your Guts” or “Lichmistress” on None So Vile—demonstrates this isn’t a phonein by a bunch of dudes who happened to tour together at one point and now have time to kill.

VLTIMAS are on the hunt.

“I’d say ‘Miserere,’ ‘Mephisto Manifesto’ and the title track represents a band on the right track,” says Eriksen. ‘Mephisto Manifesto’ is one of my favorite tracks off the album. Very heavy metal driven yet with a distinctive and peculiar flair. That’s right up my alley. And I hope that this is something that will be cherished for what it is. Never stop the personal unfolding. There is a long way from Rocka Rolla to Painkiller, yet it’s all unmistakably Priest.”

“I’m happy with every song,” Vincent discloses. “There’s not a single song [on EPIC] that I wouldn’t stand behind 100%. We had a hard time choosing which tracks would come out first, like ‘Miserere’ and ‘Scorcher,’ which is one of the fastest songs I’ve ever done. I love the diversity song to song—that’s the main thing I’m superhappy about.”

VLTIMAS and EPIC are statements. This also translates to the cover art by Italian illustrator Daniele Valeriani, who’s also crafted for Candlemass, Mayhem, Unanimated, and other metallic nasties. Valeriani was instructed to be simple yet bold, unlike Zbigniew Bielak’s intricate line work for Something Wicked Marches In. The three-headed eagle crest on EPIC is all that.

Again, Eriksen and Vincent’s gibbous aesthetic is strength and permanence, all classic themes of bygone empires.

“The messaging is about strength and honor,” says Vincent. “I incorporate these fundamentals into my life, and they’re the things I believe in.

I want to share with others in the hopes that they’ll take note and possibly incorporate some of these things into their own lives. Look at the cover. It doesn’t look modern. What Bielak did was great, but it’s so complex. We wanted a bold and iconic cover that was like the music.”

WHATEVER IT IS,

it’s VLTIMAS. DAVID VINCENT

D EDCEI C BIEBLE :L A: PMRAY IL 2021 4 : 29

The Return of Doom lords

My Dying Bride

MY

invite you to their latest great escape

stor y by J ONAT H A N HO R S L E Y | pho to by M AT T W E L L S

Dying Bride’s latest studio album, A Mortal Binding, is a

reminder that the death-doom pioneers are nothing if not a welcome respite from modernity, trafficking in an immersive sound that eclipses reality, a taste of the archaic, a pal-

atably bleak tonic for good times and bad. ¶ “I purposely keep—or try to keep— contemporary items out,” says Aaron Stainthorpe, the MDB frontman giving us the impression he writes lyrics on vellum while stocks last. “You won’t hear mentions of guns, airplanes, computers. You won’t find any of that in My Dying Bride. I like to take people on a journey.” ¶ For Stainthorpe, that journey always starts around midnight, his golden hour. Longtime MDB fans might be familiar with the ritual, the candles, the warm buzz from the red wine before putting pen to paper. ¶ “I know it sounds unbelievably cheesy,” he says. “But it’s practical! Because no one is going to be emailing. There are no texts. You can focus. And that wine will start to, as Jim Morrison said, open some doors which are closed during the day. Because during the day you’ve got taxes and living and not crashing your car—real-life stuff.”

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A Mortal Binding is operating on a different timeline from ours entirely. Some of it is written from the subconscious, like one recurring dream in which Stainthorpe bore witness to the apocalypse. Others are legends local to Yorkshire, England (MDB’s home county) history, something that Stainthorpe is incorporating in his writing, such as the water nymphs of “Thornwyck Hymn” that call men, women and livestock into the sea to drown.

“All these little places all have a bit of folklore about them,” he says. “They all claim to have the oldest pub in England. They are all haunted.

‘Thornwyck’ is one of the few songs on the album that has an easy-to-explain subject matter: it’s nymphs that are going to drown you.”

Others are more illusive, an exercise in freeform writing, Stainthorpe putting one word in front of the other to see how they land.

“There are real-life issues in my lyrics, but they’re not upfront and blatant,” he explains.

the Beautiful “Because for a lot of our fans, and for me myself, our music is escapism. You’re not going to pick up a My Dying Bride album and get Napalm Death lyrics. There’s no politics. You are not going to be reading some subtle dig about the Prime Minister. It doesn’t work that way.”

So, the eponymous character in “The Apocalyptist,” A Mortal Binding’s most physically punishing track and centerpiece—holding melodic grace and heavyweight guitar in equilibrium—is not about anyone specifically, except perhaps Stainthorpe, or you or I. “Some people will see it as Godzilla,” says Stainthorpe. “You can see who you want it to be.” It’s like MDB’s “Sympathy for the Devil,” 11-plus minutes of guitarist and principal composer/arranger Andrew Craighan’s long-form vision of doom.

A Mortal Binding has plenty of moments of beauty, but Craighan insists it was always going to be more primal and heavier than its predecessors.

“I had most of this sewn up before we started,” he says. “I had all of these riffs in bunches of threes and fours, sometimes more. I would get up before work and rehearse what we intended to do that day, go to work, and then go to rehearsal, ‘This is the plan.’ And it worked. Everyone was happy with the results, which is rare.”

Bassist Lena Abé, keyboardist/violinist Shaun Macgowan and Neil Blanchett—who joined on guitar in 2019 and is making his debut proper here—all contributed, writing harmonies, helping with arrangements. Craighan’s economy with melodies, saying more with less, is an MDB

hallmark. He attributes their sound’s recent evolution to Stainthorpe’s absence at rehearsals. “We fill the gaps with harmonies and lines that we think the vocals would probably take,” says Craighan.

“When there are no vocals to fill those voids, you fill it with harmonies, or violin, piano, keys.”

that’s more performance art than traditional doom. Their second act, a restart ushered in by signing with Nuclear Blast in 2017, now has real momentum that can’t be stopped even if the modernity occasionally interrupts. Those online forms to satisfy streaming platform Ts and Cs

YOU’RE NOT GOING TO PICK UP A MY DYING BRIDE ALBUM AND GET NAPALM DEATH LYRICS. THERE’S NO POLITICS. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE READING SOME SUBTLE DIG ABOUT THE PRIME MINISTER.

IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY. They nag Stainthorpe to rehearse more, but maybe it’s better this way. Through MDB’s many lineup changes, Stainthorpe and Craighan have held firm. A Mortal Binding was tracked with Mark Mynett, who handled production on 2020’s The Ghost of Orion, for which Mynett pushed Stainthorpe to the brink, with vocals taking a year to record. There was to be no repeat this time. “I know my boundaries,” says Stainthorpe.

“There are some notes I just can’t get.”

What he lacks in range he makes up for in delivery. There are death-growls, whispers, barks.

“Her Dominion” opens the album with a vocal

—Aaro n Stai nt h or p e

confuse Stainthorpe—is “fellate” explicit? Who knows? All Stainthorpe knows is he wants A Mortal Binding to be savored like Candlemass’s Nightfall, where you can hear Messiah Marcolin’s breath between words, details that pull audiences in deeper, further away from reality’s ugly gravity.

“I want people to listen to our music with their massive headphones on, turn it right up and have a glass of wine,” he says. “Just leave the world behind for an hour. And okay, it’s not a pleasant journey, but it lets you escape the rat race for an hour. For some people, that is all they need.”

D EDCEI C BIEBLE :L A: PMRAY IL 2021 4 : 31

richmond genre-benders

Inter Arma find themselves, and possibly the album of the year story by

Chris Dick

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R

ichmond-based nonconformists Inter Arma have haunted our hearts for

years. We’ve fully capitulated to their dauntless multiplexing and uniquely American upheaval. Whether that’s awarding Sulphur English’s intemperate yet incessant volley of death, struggle, doom and anxiety a spot on our venerated Top 40 Albums of 2019 list or using the Flexi Series to immortalize the Virginians—via a re-recording of “Hallucinatorium”—Inter Arma are always welcome to BBQ at dB HQ. The group’s latest album, New Heaven, is beautiful destruction and cascading desperation, and we’re all about it. ¶ Says drummer T.J. Childers, “After Sulphur English, we said, ‘Hey, we could continue going down that path and just keep getting heavier and more aggressive and more oppressive, noisier and dissonant.’ I like those types of records, but we wanted to take the band on a different route. We did a lot of editing, and we did actual pre-production.

This time, I had my whole recording rig set up, and we would record practices.

I spent almost every moment writing and recording riffs, seeing what I liked the best and how many repetitions felt good for a riff. That was a pretty big game-changer, I’d say. We weren’t trying to take a more commercial route, but we wanted to focus on what we do best.”

If Childers is right, this is Inter Arma at the knife’s edge—sharp and dangerous. Whereas albums Sky Burial to Sulphur English undulated like brutal, humid reflections of the Appalachian Mountains, they’re now focused less on peaks and valleys. Inter Arma’s penchant to crush (“Citadel”) and uplift (“The Long Road Home”); the group’s ability to fillip (“Purple Rain”) and devastate (“Transfiguration”); and their film score-like prowess (“Nomini,” “Observances of the Path”) have coalesced sublimely into New Heaven’s nine-song downward exorcism.

“It kicks you in the face immediately,” Childers promises. “Then it very gradually goes downhill, and then it’s over. Like, you’ve come off the mountain—now you have to think about everything that happened on the way down.

That’s different for us—it’s a totally different journey. It’s an interesting perspective because a lot of records want to either come out of the gate sliding or end the record sliding. We also made a more concise record. Initially, that wasn’t 100 percent by design, but it manifested that way.

We trimmed as much fat as we could everywhere we could.”

Certainly, New Heaven isn’t as sprawling as its predecessors. Clocking in under 50 minutes, it’s almost an EP by Inter Arma standards. But it’s still a fucking ride. “Violet Seizures” heaves in black anticipation, restless in its brisk, bristled attack; “Gardens in the Dark” has an ominous Nick Cave “Red Right Hand” thing going for it; “Endless Grey” vibes like a Southern cousin of Metallica’s “Orion”; “Concrete Cliffs” shimmers like the moon upon a crumbling gravestone; and “Forest Service Road Blues” is heavily imbued with singer-songwriter John Prine’s heartache. It all sublimates into Inter Arma’s signature turmoil.

“I hope New Heaven elicits the whole gamut of emotions,” says Childers. “I hope it makes people happy. I hope they feel sadness about something tragic that happened in the past. And I hope that whatever feeling they’re looking to get out of it, they get out of it. Whatever emotion you’re looking for, I think good music can pull it out of you.

So, hopefully, that happens.”

There’s heft in Mike Paparo’s lyrics. Not the weight of death metal’s trappings or the typical Count Chocula boo-boos of black metal, though.

The frontman tackles mental and physical struggle on New Heaven. Sure, the album title’s

an in-band joke about Deafheaven ghosting Inter Arma, but deep down, the shit’s real. From apathy and victims of war to depression and addiction, Paparo dives headlong into humanity’s harshest realities on “Desolation’s Harp,” “The Children the Bombs Left Behind,” “Gardens in the Dark” and the title track.

“I fucking love all that shit,” Childers laughs, referencing Cannibal Corpse classic “Fucked With a Knife.” “I’m not gonna knock it at all. For us, that sort of thing feels disingenuous. The Satan and the gore shit is well-trodden ground, and it’s been done better by somebody else before. We’re not the brightest bulbs in the lamp, but we’re like, ‘Let’s discuss something else.’ We do have a lot of wild, existential conversations in the van on tour and when we hang out. We want to go into the shit that we talk about and care about.”

The intriguing cover art by Pulitzer Prizewinning documentary photographer and filmmaker Louie Palu, an Inter Arma fan, ties the group’s artistic ambitions together. While Inter Arma’s road to New Heaven has been paved with discord—to wit, bassist Andrew Lacour exited, and Wretched’s Joel Moore entered—any band with a solo like “Concrete Cliffs” must have an iota of fortune in the works. Hopefully, they’ll be on the right side of the flip. If not, it’s gonna be fuel for whatever comes next.

It kicks you inThen the itfaceveryimmediately. gradually goes downhill, and then it’s over.

Like, you’ve come off the mountain—

now you have to think about everything that happened on the way down.

— T. J . Chi l ders —

D EDCEI C BIEBLE :L A: PMRAY IL 2021 4 : 33

SHADOW

VALLEY california death metallers

Apparition

carve their own path to haunt

MPAY BIEBLE L 34 : A R I 2L022042:1 D: EDCEI C

story by

photo by

SARAH K I T TERI N G H A M

CH A RLE S D OA N

W

ithout a doubt, the members of emerging death metal outfit

Apparition are not entirely comfortable with candidly discussing Apparition. Although the band was scooped up postformation by tastemakers Profound Lore, who released their debut Feel in 2021, there are almost no interviews with them online. Now on the cusp of releasing their second record, Disgraced Emanations From a Tranquil State, the band’s main songwriters—including vocalist and drummer Andrew Morgan, alongside guitarist and synth player Miles McIntosh— do not have pre-established scripts about what their band is or what their music means. Instead, they’ve opted to let their music do the talking.

Apparition are unusual in this and many other contexts. They play classic death metal with an obvious love for Morbid Angel, but unlike many of their contemporaries in the OSDM scene, they completely avoid the trap of simply recreating classics from ages past. Instead, they’ve injected a heady dose of improvisational free jazz into their music, giving it an eerie, uncanny and unfamiliar sound. It’s progressive and doomy; idiosyncratic and challenging. Additionally, they operate only one social media account for the band; at press time, their lyrical themes were listed as “not available” on Encyclopaedia Metallum (a more accurate description could be “existentialism”), and the idea of breaking out and touring frequently makes them both contemplative and pensive, rather than thrilled. With this seemingly anti-image approach, it certainly does not appear that Apparition are a band destined to have more longsleeve variants than tracks.

Instead, they’re unassuming.

“We were in the jazz department, and actually we were in line for our auditions,” begins Morgan, who met McIntosh at Cal State Northridge University in California’s San Fernando Valley, where they both grew up. “I just remember seeing, like, a dude with long hair and a Sunn O))) tattoo, and it’s like, ‘Oh shit.’ So, that’s just how we met.”

The pair eventually bonded over a developing admiration for a diverse string of musicians.

After cutting their teeth on punk, Slayer and Judas Priest in their early years, they moved on to prolific composer Anthony Braxton, drummer and pianist Jack DeJohnette, multi-faceted Swedish metallers Katatonia (see album closer “Circulacate”), brutal death metallers Deeds of Flesh, alternative gothic Americana musician David Eugene Edwards (of Wovenhand), USBM antiheroes Weakling, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and the utterly bizarre progressive death metal outfit Wicked Innocence. This unlikely hodgepodge clearly outlines the sound of Apparition, whose labyrinthine death metal transforms in unexpected ways. Conceptually, that’s courtesy of the theoretical framework they’ve applied to the band.

“I met with Wadada Leo Smith,” explains Morgan. “It was part of a clinic that he did… He has this highly personalized approach to music, which is what I think we also do. It’s a way of living. Your art is a reflection of your life. His whole approach to making art was so free, like not really giving a fuck about what happens to it or to just create for your sake.”

He continues: “They’ve created their own game, basically. If you look at the music of, let’s say Leo Smith, it doesn’t look like normal notated music … He grew up playing music with Anthony Braxton. They have this super highly personalized approach to music and what they’ve done with graphic notation and how they’ve come up with things, and their whole philosophy behind it is just making this music as in some kind of way to transform things, especia Anthony Braxton.”

“Him talking about his music, it is very esoteric,” Morgan adds. “He said something about writing prescriptions for the ear, like a pharmacist does.”

Braxton’s theory went something like this: Instead of treating annotated notes as requiring exact playback from the musician, they should be treated as guidelines for improvisation.

“I’m not knocking this, but take Bolt Thrower, for instance,” the band posits. “Bolt Thrower sounds like Bolt Thrower all the time. We didn’t want to necessarily call it a trap, but I don’t have a better word for it right now. We decided to focus on making things sound different throughout the album to keep it interesting.”

This methodology is heavily embedded in both Feel and Disgraced Emanations. Shifting in speed and feel, the record feels fundamentally unfamiliar, with throaty howls and floating guitar lines that often feel at odds with the melee below. Captured at the Pit Recording Studio by Apparition bassist Taylor Young (also of Twitching Tongues and Deadbody, among others), the record is rounded out by secondary guitarist Andrew Solis, and features a bass clarinet appearance from Michael Mull (Wax People; a former teacher and now friend). Dense and heady, their sophomore outing amps up the weirdness substantially. It also points to Apparition’s ethos and discomfort with concretely defining themselves or painting themselves into a corner via the usual pathways.

“We got into this because we just wanted to play,” the band concludes. “Putting out an image is just… it’s what people think they’re forced to do. And it’s kind of tired. I’m not saying that everyone acts like a rock star, but like everything’s presented to you in that way. It’s like this template: You got to put yourself out there. That shit’s tired. I don’t know how else to explain it.

I just want to play. I just want to play this music because that’s what’s fun.”

BOLT THROWER sounds like BOLT THROWER all the time.

We didn’t want to necessarily call it a trap, but I don’t have a better word for it right now.

We decided to focus on making things sound different throughout the album to keep it interesting.

D EDCEI C BIEBLE :L A: PMRAY IL 2021 4 : 35

STORY BY

DANIEL LAKE PHOTO BY

ZACHARY JONES

AND THE ACQUISITIO N OF ABSOLUTE TRUTH

R I 2L022042:4 D: EDCEI C 36 : A MPAY BIEBLE L

HOW

long have you been listening to Full of Hell?

Has it been since they landed on Profound Lore for their faith-flaying 2017 masterpiece Trumpeting Ecstasy, the launching pad for what became a sort of trilogy that grew fiendishly jointed legs on Weeping Choir and culminated with 2021’s deathgrind detonation Garden of Burning Apparitions? Or have you been onboard for their early collaborations, those genre-shirking vehicles of discovery they created with the Body and Merzbow, continuing right through last year’s releases with Primitive Man and Nothing? Real long-timers might mention the band’s earliest splits or EP releases, but few have championed the band as long as Dom Romeo, devoted scene rat and founder of Baltimore-based label A389 Recordings, who ushered Full of Hell toward their first frenetic fulllength record, Roots of Earth Are Consuming My Home, more than a dozen years ago.

“He’s one of our biggest advocates ever,” confirms Full of Hell vocalist and occasional noisenik Dylan Walker. “He’s DIY as fuck. He was so DIY, he was building his own mailers. That’s not even a good idea! There has been this patchwork of people over the years who have made me who I am as an adult now, and he’s one of those guys.

If there’s any wisdom in my blood, it’s due to being around people like Dom. And he’s a good role model as a father, too.”

This last assertion is at the top of Walker’s mind at the moment, as we catch up with him on the phone shortly after he’s put his not-yet-twoyear-old toddler to bed. He’s been spitting fire in Full of Hell since all of those guys were putting the finishing touches on their teen years and just getting used to the idea of their 20s. They’ve traveled a fraught and fortuitous road since then, and the onset of their mid-30s has a totally different texture than the desperate hunger that birthed the band.

“I think I’m more passionate now than I was then,” Walker muses, “but maybe in a quieter way. The motivation changes. It’s more dynamic now, and it’s better. It’s like a marriage—I hate to put it like that, but it really is. You fall in love with something and there’s a rosy period, but it takes work. There’s a lot of levels to it. It can eat you alive and break your heart and make you disillusioned. It snaps you in half. Over time, it deepens, and it’s serious fucking business now.

“As long as I can remember, I wanted to be in a band. I was six years old, pretending I was in a band called Satan’s Penis. When I finally started a band in school and played shows, I quit everything else. I didn’t know how the music business worked. I didn’t know what was up against us. There was no limit to what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. I didn’t hope for it out loud, but I would do anything. I wanted it really bad. I don’t feel like that anymore, and I’m better for it.”

OBSIDIAN SUN

BURNING OBSIDIAN SUN

SATANIC BLACK METAL MASS FEAT. OBSCURA OF ASAGRAUM OUT: 03.29 FORMAT: CD/LP/DIGITAL

It’s that sense of a deeper passion, of life lived, of experience gathered and heightened, that permeates this year’s furious flashbang, Coagulated Bliss. Lessons learned at the hands of collaborators and tourmates like Converge, the Body, Thou, Immolation and others lend Full of Hell’s sixth proper album an air of confidence, craft and character. It also doesn’t hurt that Walker took inspiration from a friend and found a way to ground the record, to invest it with the terroir of central Pennsylvania and eastern Maryland, the places that he and his bandmates have always called home.

“We hired our friend Brian Montuori to paint the record cover,” says Walker. “Early on, before he even painted one stroke, we were discussing ideas [for the cover art]: I wanted a familiar setting, some kind of nightmarish version of an Appalachian forest or something, and he just called me and said, ‘It’s time for you to write a record about your hometown. You have a daughter, and you guys are getting older. You need to write the record about where you come from.’ I’d never really considered it, but as soon as Brian said that, I was like, ‘Goddamn, yeah!’ I always write about what I’m experiencing, what I’m feeling, whether I understand it or not, but on the last trilogy of records I tried to be as metaphorical as possible. To write about something so directly, so literally, felt pretty fresh. There’s so much to draw on from my own surroundings. It’s a story that was so easy to tell—the things that plague these small rural towns—because I knew it so well. It was like getting smacked on the head.”

When Full of Hell aren’t touring, Walker lives a life apart from his bandmates’ Mid-Atlantic vacation town, in an unencumbered rural lifestyle that suits him just fine. “I love it. I was made to live out away from people. I don’t want to be around people every day—it’s not

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DUTCH DEATH METAL RETURNS WITH 4 BRAND NEW SONGS AND 5 LIVE RECORDINGS. OUT: 03.22 FORMAT: CD/LP/DIGITAL

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D E C I B E L : M AY 2 0 2 4 : 3 7

enjoyable to me. I’m very settled here; I’m never leaving this place. If you tour for a living, you have such a unique ability to breathe, to see other places. If I was stuck in this little redneck town with 2,500 people and I never left, I might not feel the same about it.”

As for Full of Hell’s Ocean City contingent, Walker audibly grins: “I didn’t know beach rednecks were a thing before I went down there. My bandmates are all beach rednecks. Ocean City is a super classic beach town. I love going down in the off-season. It’s farmlands right up until the coast. It has all the trappings and downfalls of rural, lower-income living, slapped up against an ultra-overpriced tourism industry. That’s a pretty unique thing. It’s got ups and downs, but I don’t think those guys are ever going to leave. Sam [DiGristine, bassist], the only guy who moved up to Philadelphia, is going back to Ocean City. I get why they stay. They have connections there, and it’s beautiful.”

Walker’s clarity in the writing process for Coagulated Bliss is accompanied by a burgeoning certainty, too. “With this one, I’m the closest I’ve ever been to legitimately not caring what anybody thinks about it. There’s a little bit of armor, because I just feel good about what we made. I like bragging about those guys. I don’t want it to come off like I’m saying, ‘We’re really good!’ But those guys are all so talented. I’ve watched them, over the past couple years especially, exercising their music brains. They want to challenge themselves.”

In the wake of the writing and recording Coagulated Bliss, Full of Hell invited a new member into the fold to help them chase those creative challenges even further. Gabe Solomon had been a friend and guitar fill-in with the band

for some time, and in 2023, he took up the fulltime position as Full of Hell’s second guitarist.

“The whole thing was: How can we make everything sound crazier? Having a second guitar is opening up a lot of avenues to deepen the songwriting. If we’re doing something a little freeform, Gabe follows along, and he’s able to accent Spencer [Hazard]’s parts really well.

He’s a perfect fit. All the guys are so weird, in a cool way, and Gabe is totally his own ultra-talented weirdo. He’s a pure beach guy. His dad ran a skate shop in Ocean City. I’ve known him since he was really little, and now he’s over six feet tall, by far the tallest guy in the band, just this hulking, shredding-ass guitar player. He played in a band with H.R. from Bad Brains, which blows my fucking mind! He didn’t tell me about it for multiple tours, but he has all these insane stories about playing with H.R. I’m not a very talented guitar player myself, but as far as I can discern, it’s not easy to play dub-style or reggae music using the proper techniques, but Gabe has the chops to play reggae properly. It adds a whole dynamic to the band, having another dude there who’s weirdly the same breed of freak.”

If you saw the filmed Full of Hell set that they recorded for Decibel’s virtual 200th issue celebration, then you know exactly the breed of freak we’re talking about. (If you didn’t, get your ass to YouTube and watch the whole stellar event right now.) And while Coagulated Bliss continues the band’s trend toward melding death metal with doom, grind, noise and most other types of audio extremity, freaking out characterizes the actual band members less and less over time.

Walker’s evolution into fatherhood is just one representation of Full of Hell’s transition from young phenoms to wizened veterans.

“There is no truth in life,” Walker announces ominously. “I’ve always had a lot of existential fears, and I obsessively wrote about them for years. I couldn’t think about anything else—not knowing if anything is right or wrong, what’s up and what’s down. I’m still not sure about much.

But I’ve found that having a daughter is such a positive thing, a rare absolute truth. It gives me a feeling of confidence that I didn’t have before.

The relationship with your child is 100 percent a good thing, the right thing. I must have done something right to get here. All the choices in my life led me to this absolute truth. It’s a reassurance for a very unsure human being.”

Through blasting, violent hair-raisers like “Vomiting Glass,” noisy experiments like “Fractured Bonds to Mecca” and moody crawlers like sax-capped closer “Malformed Ligature,” Coagulated Bliss teems with all the angular hardcore-lurching and death grooves run amok that we’ve come to expect from Full of Hell, but the songs also flaunt the freedom that the band feels to take their sound anywhere they want. “[Garden of Burning Apparitions] felt like the final note on something,” Walker says, “so we knew that the next one was going to have to come from a different place. There was no way the sound wasn’t going to change. Through all the collabs, the path we’ve paved gives us a little wiggle room to switch things up. We’ve been working on this dub record with Andrew Nolan that, in vague terms, has some Godflesh vibes. That’s sounding pretty sick. But all of our eyes are just on this record. We really want to play this record out. We’re playing the Sound and Fury Festival [in July]; we’re doing Asia and Australia in August. We’re doing New Zealand and going to see Hobbiton and all that shit. I’m really fucking pumped.”

I’M STILL NOT SURE ABOUT MUCH. BUT I’VE FOUND THAT HAVING A DAUGHTER IS SUCH A POSITIVE THING, A RARE ABSOLUTE TRUTH. IT GIVES ME A FEELING OF CONFIDENCE THAT I DIDN’T HAVE BEFORE.

The relationship with your child is 100 percent a good thing, the right thing.

Dylan Walker

A PAY R I 2L022042:4 D: EDCEI C 38 : M BIEBLE L

interview & photos by

QA j. bennett

WI T H

MELVINS frontman (and bassist Steven McDonald!) on John Waters, censorship and the band’s unique new album

4 0 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

P

ope of Trash. That’s the name of the excellent John Waters exhibit more sensitive than they were in 1972. Hopefully

at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. Decibel is here with Melvins mastermind Buzz Osborne and bassist Steven McDonald, also of punk legends Redd Kross. It’s the latest in a series of adventures we’ve had with Osborne and various Melvins dating back to their 2008 album, Nude With Boots. To discuss that record—and the hard-drinking, union-busting, Nazi-sympathizing antics of Walt Disney—we went to, um, Disneyland. Subsequent outings included a Dodgers game, Osborne teaching us how to play golf, and a cruise around Hollywood with Osborne piloting our trusty shitbox down Sunset as we gawked at a woman with a prosthetic leg wearing a miniskirt. ¶ Given that history, the John Waters exhibit seems only fitting. Plus, Melvins covered the Divine-sung theme from Waters’ Female Trouble on their 2013 album Everybody Loves Sausages, which also featured covers of Venom, Lead Belly and Roxy Music. But also because Melvins’ 27th (!) and latest album, Tarantula Heart, kicks off with a 19-minute song called “Pain Equals Funny,” which is a sentiment that Waters would surely appreciate. The album was pieced together from jam sessions that Osborne, McDonald and Dale Crover had with Ministry drummer Ray Mayorga, although you’d never know it by listening. “The world keeps getting weirder,” Osborne says. “You never know what’s gonna happen next.”

What was the first John Waters film you saw?

McDONALD: I also loved his 1959 announcement

OSBORNE: Pink Flamingos. But my favorite is

for a puppet show that we saw in the exhibit.

He was a real DIY self-starter, even when he was 12 or however old he was back then. He wasn’t gonna wait around for someone to hire him. He was gonna make it happen.

Female Trouble. I saw them on VHS tape because there was no one showing those movies in the shithole I grew up in. But we’d see more as we went on tour. People would have these weird copies. When we got Steven in the band in 2016, we knew he was a big fan of this stuff as well.

So, I figured it would be perfect to bring him today. Both of us can quote lots of stuff from his movies, especially Female Trouble.

McDONALD: I was indoctrinated at an early age. I used to go see Pink Flamingos at midnight showings in L.A. in the late ’70s and early ’80s. But it’s not just John Waters that I like. It’s the cast of freaks that he elevated. In the exhibit, they’re showing that scene from Female Trouble where Divine is on the electric chair, basically accepting her award.

It’s beautiful that it’s in the Academy Museum because it’s an Oscar-worthy performance. It’s a shame that Divine didn’t get to see that for herself.

One of the things I like about his movies is that the real villains are the uptight people, the morality police and the homophobes.

OSBORNE: Right. They’re conservative. Back in the day, Lenny Bruce was fighting against the government. Now, the government doesn’t give a shit. They’ve advanced. It’s the public that has retreated. It’s sickening. John Waters’ parents were very conservative, but he understood that if what he was doing wasn’t funny, it didn’t work. It’s funny first.

To me, Melvins share a sensibility with John Waters. Do you think so?

OSBORNE: No question. We’ve always had a super dark sense of humor. Uptight people don’t get it.

I don’t necessarily push it on them, but that’s where we come from. People that I really like can handle that kind of humor. I’m an adult—I can handle it. I don’t need to be treated like a child. I don’t need anything censored for me. I’ll be the judge of what I think is right or wrong.

McDONALD: To me, the social commentary in John Waters’ films—especially early John Waters—is very akin to the Melvins’ manifesto. And my band Redd Kross, too. When I was younger, we didn’t really think about that stuff—we just lived it. As I’ve gotten older, I have more perspective. I can see the similarities and why it makes sense. I think Buzz expresses outrage in a very John Waters-esque way. It’s anger; it’s outrage; it’s absurdity.

I’ll see him at the Mosswood Meltdown this summer. It’s this festival that he MCs up in Oakland each year. Redd Kross has played before, and he introduces the bands. Last time, I was tuning my instrument when I heard him talking about us and a tear came to my eye. It was a serious honor. So, I think I’m gonna offer my services to him. I’m gonna offer up your services as well, Buzz. I think you could star in a John Waters film.

OSBORNE: He’s a champion, and his movies are a huge deal to me. You look at a guy like him and you realize that you can do whatever you want. I don’t wanna be like anybody else. I don’t wanna make records like anybody else. I don’t wanna be part of some team or some group.

Have you ever used any lines from John Waters films in a Melvins song?

OSBORNE: No, but that’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll do that. He’s a massive inspiration, though. Just like John Waters, people are getting something from us that you’re not getting in your normal life. That’s what we wanna do. Our new album is like that, too.

Good segue. Tarantula Heart starts with a 19-minute song, which is an unusual thing to do.

Which automatically makes it a very Melvins thing to do.

OSBORNE: Oh, fully. I’ve made a lot of records, you know? If I can think of something that gets me interested, instead of just a normal thing to do, I wanna pursue it. I’m way beyond thinking, “Oh, we’re gonna have a hit!” Or even that we might do something that everyone’s gonna like.

I have no concept of what people are gonna like.

What I’ve done for a long time is—and I think we’ve talked about this in the past—I figure that I have good taste, so if I do things that I like, maybe other people will like it. I don’t worry about, “What will this person like?” because I have no idea.

McDONALD: Then how come you had our last record tested by focus groups? Did I misunderstand that process?

OSBORNE: Oh, that’s good. We should do that. But wouldn’t you say this is the oddest record you’ve ever made?

McDONALD: I didn’t even realize we were making a record!

How is that possible?

John Waters hasn’t made a movie in 20 years, but apparently he’s about to direct one based on his novel, Liarmouth.

McDONALD: I feel like we need a John Waters

movie now more than ever. People are even

McDONALD: I mean, I knew we were recording,

but I didn’t think it was necessarily a record. Roy played “Night Goat” with us onstage during the tour we had just done with Ministry, so I thought maybe we were just trying to recapture D E C I B E L : M AY 2 0 2 4 : 41

 Any last words, goon face?

(from l) McDonald, contributor J. Bennett and Osborne pose under the royal visage of Edith Massey as Queen Carlotta in 1977’s Desperate Living

being hyper-critical in the studio, this wouldn’t work. I’ve already had that experience. Not that I think that that’s wrong. But at some point, you just have to be more adventurous or you’re gonna be fucking boring.

The other thing I wanna say about this record is, if we hadn’t decided to talk about how we did it, no one would’ve noticed. But what we got out of it was, for example, the drums are played in a way they never would have played them if the song was structured more.

The first song is called “Pain Equals Funny,” which makes me think of the Three Stooges or Tom & Jerry. Am I getting warm?

The way I live my life now is I pretend that I escaped from prison and I don’t wanna go back. When you do that, you don’t leave a trail of bodies.

B UZ Z OS B OR NE some of that energy. Buzz had some basic ideas, and he just encouraged everyone to join in. It wasn’t a very traditional kind of process. We basically just captured a bunch of raw stuff.

That’s how I perceived it. But then Buzz and [longtime Melvins engineer] Toshi [Kasai] did a mad scientist thing to put it together.

It sounds like a ton of editing.

OSBORNE: There was hardly any editing. What I didn’t wanna do was go in and chop beats. We recorded about 10 20-minute jams, so we had hours of stuff. Toshi made rough mixes, and I just sat there and listened until I found sections that sounded like something. Like, here’s a four-minute section that could be a song. So, I’d cut out that section as-is, with the drums intact. Then I’d take the original riff and maybe write something new that went along with it. I’d write the riffs and vocals to fit with what they’d already done. And what comes out of jams like that is the kind of energy you can’t get from flogging songs to death in a rehearsal space. When I had Steven come back in to do some bass overdubs, he was like, “When did we do this?”

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When you cherry-pick improvisational jams like that, do you accept that a lot of what you’re choosing from might not be very good?

OSBORNE: Oh, most of it’s not good. But you just find the stuff that is good. It’s sort of like digging for gold. You cut a bunch of shit away and find the sparkly stuff. I just didn’t know if it would work. I thought it might work. I know I wanted it to work. But when Steven came in and said, “What is this?” I knew it had worked.

McDONALD: The thing that I’ve observed about Buzz is that, in many ways, he’s a creature of habit. He likes things to go a certain way. He always routes the tours in a way that considers weather, for instance. If it’s gonna start getting cold, we’ll be in the South. But when it comes to making records so far during my tenure, I’ve noticed that he doesn’t like to have a set process.

He seems to enjoy throwing himself a curveball.

He doesn’t rely on a formulaic process, even if it’s something that really got a lot of acceptance.

You’ve done things the opposite way, though.

You’ve had much more stringent recording sessions.

OSBORNE: If I hadn’t had the experience of

OSBORNE: I got it from Larry Sanders. It was either him or Rip Torn, but it was on The Larry Sanders Show. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but The Larry Sanders Show was genius. Without that show, there’d be no Curb Your Enthusiasm. It’s a total ripoff, I think. But I understand Larry David’s pain.

I understand what he’s upset about. I just think Larry Sanders is better. I think Garry Shandling was a better comedian.

We were talking about censorship earlier, which is something that John Waters had to deal with all the time. Now we’re banning books again in parts of this country. What’s your take on that?

OSBORNE: There’s a long history of music and movies being blamed for certain behavior. Well, what music was Hitler listening to? What movies was he watching? If you have a child who can’t distinguish between reality and a movie, you’ve got a far bigger problem than a movie. You as a parent need to figure out what your kid can and can’t watch, but don’t make me do it. Fuck you and your fucking kid. If I wanna show my kid an R-rated movie, it’s none of your fucking business. If I wanna feed my kids Twinkies and lighter fluid, that’s none of your fuckin’ business either. I get to decide what goes on.

You don’t have kids.

OSBORNE: Right. And I don’t care how anyone raises their children. Nor do I care to be involved in raising their children. People like John Waters battled that forever. The Church Lady factor is worse now than ever before. The way I live my life now is I pretend that I escaped from prison and I don’t wanna go back. When you do that, you don’t leave a trail of bodies. I wanna continue doing what I’m doing, so I’m going to keep my intimate thoughts to myself. The world is not a safe place for that. So, fuck those people. I hate them with every fiber of my being. Smug, hypocritical assholes. Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. They can kiss both sides of my ass.

the

definitive stories

behind extreme music’s

definitive albums

Seis Seis Seis the making of Brujeria’s Matando Güeros M AY 2 0 2 4 : 4 4 : D E C I B E L

by

josé carlos santos

D

uring one of our many conversations for this

Hall of Fame entry, the great Shane Embury, Napalm Death leader and the man of a thousand other bands—including Brujeria, of course, where he is known as Hongo—says this: “The beauty of Brujo is the chaos. You have to let it go.

He comes from different angles than most of us, which I appreciate more and more. A lot of people have a certain structure, a certain itinerary, but Brujo doesn’t have any of that. He is chaos, and when you let go and tag along, it’s quite beautiful.”

Shane is obviously referring to his bandmate, Brujeria frontman, lyricist, leader and founding member John Lepe, a.k.a. Juan Brujo, but as Brujeria have proven to be very much an expression of Brujo’s artistic m.o. (he is the only member to never have been in another band), the same could be said about the band itself. More specifically, about their legendary debut Matando Güeros. It could be argued that its follow-up, Raza Odiada, is a “better” album, with improved songs, superior-sounding and more structured, but there is a wild streak to Matando Güeros that is absolutely unrivaled by any album, Brujeria’s or otherwise.

Lyrically, it conjures up some of the most gruesome and extreme images ever, no matter in what language, while musically, it does sound like it was recorded by a bunch of Satanic drug dealers in a remote barn somewhere near the border. Let’s not forget the element of peril this album brought with it in 1993. With no internet, Brujeria were one of the last bands to ever feel truly dangerous. Anonymous from the beginning—and without live shows—they really had us fooled there for a while, getting a whole generation to believe this was the work of real criminals, the people capable of committing the sort of violence the legendary—and immediately censored—original album cover suggested.

However, there is more to Matando Güeros than its sensational side. A product of a burgeoning scene at the time that lacked almost any kind of representation, Brujeria became the answer that thousands of grind-obsessed Latino kids were looking for in the late ’80s/early ’90s.

Latino-led Terrorizer were early grind kings, but even they never took the step of singing in Spanish or addressing the most serious issues kids and their families were facing. Though often tongue-in-cheek—and sometimes just outright stupid—buried underneath that exterior exists real social critique. There is a violent reaction against racism, inequalities and bigotry; an unflinching look at real life, taking direct inspiration from some of the hardest stories in the news at the time. Is Brujeria chaos? For sure, but so is the reality on which its allegorical world is built.

Even if the recording didn’t take place in a barn populated with Satanic drug dealers, it was enough of a wild and messy party for no one to be completely sure of who did what to this day, so Matando Güeros’ complete lineup might be lost forever. We settled on the consensual six who wrote and recorded the bulk of it, namely John “Juan Brujo” Lepe, Dino “Asesino” Cazares, Pat “Fantasma” Hoed, Shane “Hongo” Embury, Billy “Güero Sin Fe” Gould and Raymond “Greñudo” Herrera. Welcome to the Hall of Fame, banditos.

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Matando Güeros ROADRUNNER JULY 6, 1993

Nothing seems right in cartels

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BRUJERIA matando güeros Narcos Satánicos  (l-r) Fantasma, Brujo and Asesino, live and uncut

A lot of the early history of the band has always been shrouded in mystery due to the anonymity you guys maintained at the time. How did Brujeria really begin?

JOHN “JUAN BRUJO” LEPE: It was 1989. We were in L.A. and all the old Earache bands were popular, the early grind like Napalm Death, Terrorizer, Carcass. We got a flyer that Terrorizer was playing, but they wouldn’t let them play in clubs because their following was a bunch of Mexicans with long hair, and the clubs in Hollywood didn’t want that crowd. They were playing in a backyard in East L.A., and me, Dino, Pat and Junior—a guy we lost contact with over the years, but he was there in the beginning—all went to the party.

We got there, and I’m looking around… it’s all Mexican guys. No one there spoke English! The only people speaking English were us, it was a completely Hispanic crowd, and that was pretty amazing to me. I mean, the lyrics were mostly incomprehensible growls, so there was nothing really there to follow; I guess that helped it being popular with the Spanish-speaking guys.

So, I turned to them and I said, “Guys, we have to give these people what they want! Let’s make a band in Spanish, it’ll go over big. I know what we’ll call it—it’ll be Brujeria. We’ll do it all in Spanish, we won’t use our real names. I’ll do the singing because I’m the only one who knows that much Spanish.” I had never been in a band before. I wasn’t a musician; I just said I’d be the singer because I knew the language, but the idea just rolled off of me like that.

DINO “ASESINO” CAZARES: Yeah, the original members from the very beginning were Brujo, Billy Gould, Pat Hoed and me.

BILLY “GÜERO SIN FE” GOULD: I went to school with Pat and John. They were the guys in my class who were into punk music. Pat went to really early punk gigs in L.A., and I got into it a little later than them, but only for a few months, so we really bonded about that. I moved up to San Francisco soon after, but we stayed in touch, and I would come down to L.A. and go to shows together with them, just hanging out, drinking beer and listening to music. Pat was really into Napalm Death and I hadn’t heard them yet, and I remember one time we were in my car and we put it on and it was amazing. I hadn’t heard anything like it before.

PAT “FANTASMA” HOED: Funnily enough, though he had nothing to do with Brujeria, Roddy Bottum from Faith No More was also in our class!

But yeah, me and Brujo, we went to a Catholic high school. We had already been at a Catholic pre-school, so we had a pretty strict upbringing.

We had that… I don’t want to say stigma, but the religious education in the background plays a big part in your upbringing. By the time we

“We had $600 to make the record.

We spent $300 in the studio and the other $300 on drugs and beer.”

JUA N B RUJO got to high school, let’s just say we were ready for something different. We both embraced punk rock, and the scene—especially here in L.A. at that time, around 1978/’79—was really strong.

We graduated high school in 1981 and kept in touch over the years. I went out to Loyola Marymount University and was involved with the radio station there, KXLU, and I interviewed a lot of the big upcoming thrash bands and local hardcore bands. Me and Brujo would go to a lot of these backyard parties, and at one of them, the idea of Brujeria just popped up. We wanted to put together something that would speak to the Hispanic community, or to anyone who spoke Spanish, really. There’s something about the language, too: With the hard consonants, you can sound very fired up. We thought that we could make something special happen with this idea. It seemed like a perfect avenue for what we wanted to do.

The social climate at the time also helped to encourage a band like this, right? There were some stories in the news that were surely inspiring.

JUAN BRUJO: Yeah, at the time Matamoros [in Mexico] was a big thing in the news because they had a cartel there and they kidnapped and sacrificed some white kids to protect their business, so I wanted us to use fake names and pretend that we were from Matamoros and that we were all up in bad shit. It’s funny how the names all came up instantly. I was like, “I’ll be Juan M AY 2 0 2 4 : 4 6 : D E C I B E L

Brujo!” and Dino replied immediately, “I’ll be Asesino!” Pat was like, “I’ll be the Fantasma!” All of us were making up our names right there. We had the idea of Brujeria and we were all excited to make it happen. Before we even had the band together—we had no drummer—Pat, he was already hyping us up on the radio, going like, “Look out for the new Brujeria record!” People were calling in, talking in Spanish, wanting info on how to find the record.

How did Shane and Raymond get involved so early?

RAYMOND “GREÑUDO” HERRERA: I came in a bit after they became a band. When Dino and I first started jamming together, he was already doing Brujeria with Juan, Billy and Pat. The second EP, ¡Machetazos!, had just come out. They asked me to play on the record, and I was happy to do it. It probably helped that I was Mexican! It was interesting because they didn’t really have a lot of songs. When we went to record the album, there wasn’t a lot of material apart from a few reworked songs from the EP and a few riffs. It was very different from Fear Factory and from how I was used to doing things.

SHANE “HONGO” EMBURY: Pat’s DJ name was Atom Bomb—this goes back to 1985 when I was tape-trading. I used to get these tapes with him interviewing Katon [W. De Pena] from Hirax and Slayer and stuff, and I was like, “Who the fuck is this Atom Bomb guy?” When I eventually met Brujo, backstage at the Reading Festival when

RE!!

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 Bienvenido al show de armas

A press photo for “Brujeria,” circa the mid-’90s

“The whole idea behind that record was to make it sound like a drug lord recorded it in a barn with a bunch of chickens around to fit the whole Brujeria thing, which was that we were part of a Satanic drug cartel on a ranch, packing the trucks with cocaine and stuff.”

DIN O “ASE SINO ” CA ZA RE S Faith No More played, I knew a little bit about Brujeria already, but that’s when I learned that the famous Atom Bomb and Pat Hoed were one and the same. Billy had told me already about these friends of his back home who had this crazy band called Brujeria, and he introduced me to Brujo then. Brujo told me the next time I was in L.A. we should hang out and stuff. It was nice.

I went there in December of 1990 and we did.

Brujo and Junior used to drive this old black police car—it was crazy! On numerous Napalm Death tours after that, Brujo would always come down with Peach [Ciriaco Quezada] and Pat; the parties were always mental. At one point, he told me they were going to record the first proper full-length Brujeria album. I remember me and Jesse Pintado [ex-Terrorizer, ex-Napalm Death], bless him, were going to see Alice in Chains at the L.A. Palladium one night, and we got a call from Brujo, which was typical Brujo: “It’s happening tonight! You got to be there!” Luckily, I had my bass guitar in the back of the car, so we went over there to participate in the recording.

So, there wasn’t all that much of a build-up to the recording, right? No rehearsals, no writing as such. You basically went in and did it. Legend has it that it was quite a five-day party.

JUAN BRUJO: Yeah, we never planned to make an album. It was hard to get together because the other guys’ bands were taking off, but around Christmastime we all happened to be in L.A., so we thought we’d book some time at an old beatup studio, like $15 an hour, and see if we could make something with Brujeria. We just showed up there and started writing the songs on the fly.

It was all done on an eight-track tape recorder.

We had just gotten Raymond—who actually did Brujeria before he was in Fear Factory; it was his first thing—and he had double kick drums, so we had to get one track with the split, a wire with two mics and stuff. It was hard to set it up.

I don’t know how to describe the sound we got for the album, but it’s very brutal. There’s a lot of feedback. Whatever came out, came out.

Write the lyrics, get up there, do something and go—that was it. You’re really hearing something totally raw and spontaneous; it was so much fun.

Guys would stop by the studio, they’d do a riff on a song… I can’t tell you how many people came by and added parts, it’s like the album just wrote itself. After four or five days, we had enough for an album, which was Matando Güeros. It was really like that: We went into the studio with nothing and came out with an album. Getting a studio a day in advance was all the planning we did for it. We had $600 to make the record. We spent $300 in the studio and the other $300 on drugs and beer.

ASESINO: It was almost all written on the go.

Whoever had a riff, we wrote the song around it.

Ninety-nine percent of the time it was me and the drummer—Raymond or whoever we had drumming, because we had different drummers.

Shane played on a few, Pat Hoed on a few others, a bunch with Raymond. So, mostly it was me, but Pat actually wrote the main riff on the song “Matando Güeros.” I heard it and I was instantly like, “That’s it!” Boom, we wrote the song. I wrote the chorus and the middle part and we got it finished. It was all very spontaneous, very fresh, very fun.

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Once we got the music down, then it was all about the lyrics, which took a longer time.

Brujo was writing them as he went, but the whole studio was a party. Everybody was drinking, smoking weed. Brujo would write one lyric and everyone would spend hours laughing and talking about it because it was so funny. Then we had to write another one. When we finally got the lyrics down, Brujo would try to sing the song and, well… if you listen to some of the first record, a lot of the vocals are chaotic. There was not a lot of rhythm, but somehow it fit with the music. With the intensity and the darkness with the style, it worked out really well. The whole idea behind that record was to make it sound like a drug lord recorded it in a barn with a bunch of chickens around to fit the whole Brujeria thing, which was that we were part of a Satanic drug cartel on a ranch, packing the trucks with cocaine and stuff. We were supposed to sound like a Mexican band in a barn recording with bad production. We wanted to make a statement with that record.

GÜERO SIN FE: I don’t even know how many musicians ended up actually playing on the record, because I remember at least 10 guys who were always hanging out, but some of them weren’t part of the band or whatever, I guess. It was more of a scene than a band, you know? I can compare it to making hip-hop, where it’s a vibe; that’s kind of what it was all about. Brujeria wasn’t a band that existed in the real sense. We actually vowed to each other at the time that we’d never become one of those bands that get successful over time and things become less personal and it kills the vibe. We wanted things to never

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happen like that. So, it was really more of a community. We were hanging out anyway, all of us, regardless of there being Brujeria; I think that’s the thing. We were all friends, we were all part of that community. It wasn’t much different from, say, guys getting together to play golf. [Laughs] We just had a little grindcore club, something that we could all do together. We grew up together in a weird way, and we had similar tastes.

HONGO: It was a lot of fun. I was a bit drunk, to be honest! We tried to have Jesse record something, too, but he was too drunk to even try. I believe I still have videos of that session. I must go through my recordings to find it; I know it’s on a VHS somewhere. It was all very spontaneous. We switched around quite a lot; the chaos of that recording led to doing a lot of that. I think I’ve only recorded bass, but I might have played guitar as well on some riffs that I came up with.

It was usual for everyone to pick up something and just play. We jammed a lot. Raymond and Dino were there keeping things as tight as possible musically. They were always jamming, always playing for Fear Factory, and they were the only ones that had some bits and pieces prepared beforehand, because otherwise songs weren’t defined at all. They would record a riff, I was like, “Come on, show me that riff,” I’d play something to it… all while drinking god knows what.

[Laughs] It was all in the spirit of Brujeria.

It was fucking brilliant. Quite manic, really. I always think of Matando Güeros as the equivalent album to From Enslavement to Obliteration: that spontaneity, the way it was put together, everything about it. It’s perfect for me in many ways.

I remember when Brujo sent me a tape with a note saying that one song really sounded like Napalm Death, and as I watched the video I was like, yeah, that makes sense, because I wrote it!

It was “Greñudos Locos.”

FANTASMA: When I was doing my parts, I could not face the other guys in the control room. I would just laugh. People could think, when they see the lyrics and hear the music, that it’s a very serious project—well, if you had a camera set up at the time, all you’d see was guys rolling around on the floor laughing nonstop. We weren’t trying to make a total joke of it, we weren’t a joke band at all, but we sure weren’t Darkthrone or something like that. Brujo had never had a band before. In terms of production, we didn’t really know how to get the sound we wanted in the studio, so we’d just go for whatever we got. If it sounded raw and heavy, we were going to use it.

Brujo, did you have to be in any kind of particular mood to write the lyrics?

JUAN BRUJO: Look, we’d be doing lines of coke and someone would walk in and go, “I don’t want those mouse tails, I want a rat tail!” Rat

tail, like “cula de rata?” That’s how songs came up! A song title would come up from us talking shit and we’d write the song right there. “We got to do a song about killing white people!” someone would say. “Oh, you mean matando güeros?”

[Laughs] But yeah, we wanted it to be really mean and rude. We weren’t using our real names or anything, so we felt some freedom there. We felt that we had to push it.

Past the initial gruesome impact of the lyrics, there is some depth to them. There is a lot of social commentary, a lot of hard truths, and it being spoken from the Latino perspective, makes it unusual and relevant.

GREÑUDO: The interesting thing is that I didn’t

know what the lyrics were going to be. I had no idea. John was kind of writing stuff as we were recording. He would spit out different lines and titles of songs, and I was like, “Oh my god,

“I always think of Matando Güeros as the equivalent album to From Enslavement to Obliteration: that spontaneity, the way it was put together, everything about it.

It’s perfect for me in many ways.”

S HA N E “HO NG O ” E MB URY what’s he calling this one now?” It wasn’t until later, when I saw the whole picture, that I realized there really was a message there. Some stuff was just funny, but on a lot of songs, he really had something to say. There’s both sides of the coin. After the release, I got to read everything he was writing and there was a lot of political and social messages there, about the border, racism, drugs in general… it was very pro-Mexico and it was definitely interesting.

GÜERO SIN FE: Exactly, there was an exaggerated sense of stereotype. It was like taking the stereotypes that people had, taking them to an extreme, and then shoving them back into those people’s faces. It was powerful and really funny—if you were the recipient of that kind of prejudice, you got the joke. It was kind of fighting back. Nobody was really doing anything like this; it was kind of uncharted territory. We could be doing something really stupid, we didn’t M AY 2 0 2 4 : 5 0 : D E C I B E L

really know, and that was part of the element of danger that we felt in the band in these earlier times. That’s why it was so exciting, too.

But it felt right, on a lot of levels. Kids in East L.A. were listening to Terrorizer and Napalm Death, and that was great, but this was closer to their experience, so why wouldn’t they like it?

Why wouldn’t they identify with it? I have to say that, as the “güero” in the band, I took their lead on a lot of stuff. I trusted them. A lot of it, I was kind of along for the ride, in a way.

JUAN BRUJO: Everything has another meaning, yeah. It’s like the Mexican corridos; I think there are some similarities. They always tell a story, and there’s all kinds, there’s drug-running stories and shit like that because it’s part of their lives. It’s for real. We’d have the metal version of corridos with Brujeria, basically. We’re telling what we see and what we know. A lot of the songs are true stories, or at least based on true stories.

ASESINO: I felt that through Brujeria I could speak about the shit that had been happening to me, traveling around the United States and seeing the racism. Not even just the U.S., but the U.K. as well. In England they were making fun of me for being Latino, for being Mexican.

“Go eat a taco,” they would tell me. When we did Matando Güeros, it felt like a fuck you to all of these things. Of course, there are some songs that are like, why did we sing this? Like “Molestando Niños Muertos,” come on. Why did we do that?

Some of the lyrics are like, whatever. But yeah, most of them come from a place of truth. The album itself, in general, is a statement.

Oh, the artwork: Where did you come up with it?

ASESINO: It was originally inside a newspaper

that we got here in L.A. called ¡Alarma!. They showed the most extreme photos of people getting murdered, car crashes, domestic violence… they actually showed the real murder photos.

They once published a priest who had gotten shot in the head. So, one time, they had a picture of this guy, and the story was a drug deal that had gone bad. Whoever the other person was got this guy, put him on the train tracks, then the train came and both his head and legs got cut off from the torso. They didn’t know who the victim was. They didn’t know anything about him. As soon as we saw it we were like, wow! We thought immediately that would make a great album cover. We called it the “coco loco”! It was a newspaper, so the photo wasn’t all that great, so Brujo was like, “Hey, let’s contact the newspaper and see if they’d give us the photos.” I didn’t want to do it. I mean, sending money to some fucking newspaper in Mexico, I thought they weren’t going to send us shit! But he tried anyway.

JUAN BRUJO: It was actually Peach who made the call! Somehow he was able to convince them to send the photos. You know, I learned Spanish from those magazines. I hate to say it, but I did.

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¡Muerte al gueros!  A Roadrunner trade publication ad, circa 1993, showing Roadrunner staffers—including the severed head of Monte Conner (r)—recreating the controversial Matando Gueros cover

I looked at the horrible pictures, trying to figure out what had happened, and that’s how I learned.

And the Spanish they use in those magazines is worse than mine! As soon as I saw that one issue in the shop, with that picture on the cover, I immediately got it. I knew it was our record cover.

ASESINO: So, a month later we got the actual fucking real photos from the coroner! We sent the photos to Roadrunner Records, saying that this was the album cover, and they weren’t happy at all. We were like, “Come on, man! You put [out] Suffocation, Immolation, Deicide, all that shit—this is brutal stuff! This is real! It’s not a drawing, it’s real fucking shit.” They eventually agreed. We did the whole layout, and the label sent it to the place that manufactured the CD. In the plant, there were Mexicans working there who didn’t want to print it; they had to convince them. I had a friend who was working at Tower Records here on Sunset Boulevard, and he actually showed me one of the boxes that contained the CDs they had ordered, and they had written a prayer in Spanish inside the box. They were blessing the box! I remember I took a photo, scanned it and faxed it to Roadrunner Records to show it to them. I thought that it was amazing how much of an impact a simple image had had on people.

Roadrunner probably regretted printing it, too, as soon as the album came out.

JUAN BRUJO: Yeah, eventually they had to ship it with a black slipcase around the CD. It was that and the lyrics, too. The day it came out, the Roadrunner people were horrified. They called me at six in the morning, asking me what the record said! I was like, I told you it was hardcore.

And they were in a panic, because people were returning it. They hadn’t even put a parental warning sticker on it or anything; that was a big thing at the time. They had told me we didn’t need a sticker because it was in Spanish.

But now they were asking me for a full translation by noon. They were blaming me, but I had told them it wasn’t nice! There was a reason we weren’t using our names!

Half an hour later I got another call, and people were starting to return the record along with the whole Roadrunner catalog. Twenty countries were returning it on the very first day. The Germans went nuts; they were getting sued by the Anne Frank Society and all kinds of organizations. All of this because of Brujeria! [Laughs] And all the time, I’m thinking to myself, It worked! We wanted a strong reaction, and we got it!

How was it dealing with the whole anonymity thing in these early days when no one knew you were in the band?

ASESINO: I thought it would be cool for the story,

for the gimmick, of course, but also there was another reason for it: Billy Gould couldn’t use his real name. He was signed to Warner Brother Records, and they wouldn’t legally allow him to do other projects. So, that helped.

GÜERO SIN FE: I think that helped keep things like a club, like a personal thing. Like a scene, how I said earlier about the vibe during the recording. It was hilarious, it was really funny.

In fact, to me, that’s the main thing that kept it fun. Faith No More was taking off by then already. There were a lot of things that came with that, and honestly, I didn’t want to bring any of that shit into this thing. So, yeah, I got a kick out of it. It’s also very punk rock. I’ve always listened to it. It was always this subversive music, there was an element of danger to it, but how dangerous is it really? How subversive is it really? How can we take something like that and go even further with it? And this was something like that.

GREÑUDO: That just added to the comedy of it, for me. The whole point was that no one knew who M AY 2 0 2 4 : 5 2 : D E C I B E L

we were, and I liked that idea. It was kind of unique. It’s counterintuitive to what you’d normally want to do in a band; usually you want to promote yourself and for people to know who’s in the band, and this was the opposite. It’s hilarious, and I totally went with it. Because we did that, though, it added another layer of intrigue, because now people wanted to know who it was!

FANTASMA: It was great, and it worked! If it wasn’t for that initial “marketing campaign,” for lack of a better term, the band wouldn’t be where it is today. That was a stroke of genius.

JUAN BRUJO: When the truth came out, no one believed it. Billy Gould is a part of this? Bullshit!

This John guy is an accountant at a hospital?

Bullshit! Everyone thought it was all bullshit.

It was only when Dino started to say he was in it and taking credit for it that people realized it was really true. They actually put my name on a Fear Factory record, like John “Brujo” Lepe, and I’m like, thanks a lot for putting my real name out there! He tried to ruin it because he wanted to take credit to his name, but he didn’t know that that was the best thing to do. I became connected with it more than anyone, as I’m the only one that doesn’t have any other band, no one knows me. No one has anything to compare

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BRUJERIA matando güeros

me to, or to get to me. You get to me and that’s it, it’s the only band I’ve ever done.

What are some of your favorite songs on the album?

GREÑUDO: Maybe “Seis Seis Seis,” I think that

was the first song I ever played. For some reason, that was my favorite. There are others, obviously, but that stands out as more special. I like the fact we updated it a little bit for the album, too.

HONGO: I love “Leyes Narcos”; I wrote that one! We used to open up shows with that one because of the intro. It’s pretty controversial.

That’s a good one. The title track is also great, particularly as a set closer. It’s become one of those tracks like [Napalm Death’s] “Scum”: You have to play it. It’s always chaos with people coming onstage and stuff; it’s a lot of fun. “Seis Seis Seis” is a classic. It’s very difficult to play live, although it’s quite a simple track. If you overthink it, it becomes very hard, which tells a lot about that spontaneity and chaos of the first record. We didn’t think about it and it just came out like that; it was fucking crazy. Oh, and “Cruza La Frontera” and “Desperado” are also great ones. I like Brujo’s little dance during “Desperado” when we play it live. Brujo always wants me to do the dance with him. I’ve tried, but I always fuck it up. The whole fucking album rules if you ask me!

FANTASMA: Gosh… I like “Desperado,” some of the stuff that came from ¡Machetazos! like “Cristo De La Roca”… I mean, “Cristo de la roca / vendiendo pura coca,” that’s hilarious! Musically,

I like the little grinders, you know? The fast, quick ones. “Desperado,” also “Seis Seis Seis,” “Sacrificio”—that’s all great stuff.

ASESINO: The title track is the big song for me.

I still play it with my band Asesino. “Greñudos Locos,” “Chingo De Mecos,” “Narcos-Satánicos,” they’re all my favorites. “Desperado,” I love the riff on that one.

JUAN BRUJO: The title track, of course, it’s the best one. “Leyes Narcos,” because it was the very first one. “Castigo Del Brujo” I like a lot, too.

There’s a lot of good ones. You know, we just finished playing the tour where we played the whole record, and I like them all, honestly. Every single song has a real purpose and meaning.

Though a couple of you are still in the band, what does it feel to have been a part of this album?

Do you view these times as a sort of landmark in your career?

HONGO: It became something really larger than life. Those first times with the band were so exciting. I fed off that a lot playing with them. I feed off energy and I could always feel that with Brujeria. I love it. In a way, it was a very similar situation—I knew the Napalm Death guys and I became good friends with them before I joined Napalm Death, and the same thing happened with Brujeria.

GÜERO SIN FE: There’s something special about it, yeah. I mean, Dino is a great guitar player, always was. Raymond is obviously amazing, but there’s a certain kind of thing, you can tell in the music that not everybody in the band was polished.

There’s wildness to it, there’s a magic there, sometimes it feels that it’s hanging on by the seat of its pants. The way John sings, too, there’s

something very unpolished about it. It’s not slick in any way; it’s more animal than anything else.

It’s been a long time… This feels like a very specific period of time in my life, and I don’t know how to put it another way. This is what it is.

FANTASMA: It was that feeling of being a kid in school learning stuff and just absorbing everything from the experience. We were learning how to get the sounds that we wanted, how to arrange songs better. It was a great educational process. From that point, I consider it a really fun thing to have done.

GREÑUDO: Brujeria was kind of thrown together.

I had never done anything like that, but it was a lot of fun. It was really hilarious. Juan’s lyrics are outrageous, and it was a blast putting the record together.

ASESINO: I’m 100 percent proud of it. I’m very lucky that the two big bands that I created are still relevant today in their subject matter.

Fear Factory with the whole technology thing, and Brujeria with the race politics and social inequalities. I’m very proud of both of them.

JUAN BRUJO: It reminds me of having fun, and how the fun we had affected the world. We play Matando Güeros anywhere—in South America, in Japan, in Europe—and people show up and they go wild and react to it. There’s 13-, 14-year-old kids at shows today, all wide-eyed, going like, “Ohhh, it’s Brujeria!” I have guys constantly coming up to me and asking me to be in the band, some of them famous musicians. If you know Spanish and you like metal, you’re done, it’s going to get you. I can’t believe it, but it starts over every few years. It’s still working and it makes me kind of proud. I’m going to go out an old man having fun with this.

“There was an exaggerated sense of stereotype. It was like taking the stereotypes that people had, taking them to an extreme, and then shoving them back into those people’s faces. It was powerful and really funny— if you were the recipient of that kind of prejudice, you got the joke.

It was kind of fighting back.”

BIL LY “ G ÜE RO SIN F E ” G O ULD M AY 2 0 2 4 : 5 4 : D E C I B E L

PHOTO BY HANNAH VERBEUREN

 ¡Viva la Raza!

Over 30 years later, Brujeria remain unapologetically heavy

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LIFE

BRAD SANDERS

SHIMON KARMEL

battle through hells—personal and global— and triumph with the career-defining Lifeless Birth 56 : SEPTEMBER 2023 : DECIBEL

M AY 2024 |

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a lifetime to build,

AN INSTANT TO DESTROY

In the weeks following the release of their flesh-peeling sophomore album, Mortal,

Necrot were riding high—as high as anybody was riding during the plague summer of 2020, anyway. The gambit to put out a highly anticipated new record deep in the pandemic doldrums, after being forced to cancel the hundred-odd dates they’d booked to promote it, had paid off. The Oakland trio cashed in the goodwill they’d built up since forming in 2011 as a hard-touring, DIY-rooted death metal band, transfixing the underground with a career-best collection of bulldozing, riff-driven tunes. ¶ Pretty soon, a skeletal hand shot up from the soil, and it wasn’t just the underground paying attention. A vinyl run that was supposed to last all year sold out on the third day of preorders, and Mortal landed on 13 Billboard charts. The critical reaction matched the fan enthusiasm and robust sales; Necrot were a fixture on 2020’s year-end lists, netting the #6 spot in this very periodical. (Decibel readers who haven’t been able to successfully suppress their memories of that year might also recall Necrot appearing on the cover in September.) Both empirically and vibes-wise, Necrot seemed to be on top of what was rapidly becoming a very different world.

“I remember being kind of shocked how much attention it got for not being able to tour,” guitarist Sonny Reinhardt says. “It was not how you normally promote an album, because it was in the middle of what was happening with the pandemic. Maybe everybody was just stoked to have some new stuff out because everyone was locked up. But it was strange.”

“It was also weird because we put out an album that was called Mortal and everyone got

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to face his own mortality right there,” bassist and vocalist Luca Indrio adds. “We were all like, ‘Oh shit, who’s gonna die next?’ Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, when people were fucking freaking out. [And] we come out with an album that’s called Mortal.”

Brushes with mortality would come to define the next several years for Necrot. By all accounts, the return of touring in 2021 should have been a hard-earned victory lap for the band,

a chance to crush the countless skulls they’d converted with Mortal. The timing would have been perfect; per Reinhardt, “When everything opened back up, I think it was in September 2021, the floodgates were just like, ‘Boom!’ Everything was so crazy. I work in stage production and sound, and I’ve never been busier than that, that first six months after everything opened up again. People were so stoked to do shit.”

Instead, Necrot were forced to endure a Biblical litany of personal trials, resulting in a four-year gestation period for Mortal follow-up Lifeless Birth. (“Four years of disasters,” Indrio grimly notes.) Lifeless Birth is an unqualified triumph, a third-album level-up in the Master of Puppets/Reign in Blood mold. It distills everything Necrot did well on Mortal and 2017’s Blood Offerings into a more potent brew. The heavy parts are heavier; the melodic parts are more memorable.

It has approximately eight trillion riffs. But the band sure as hell had to earn it.

The tribulations began in 2020, when drummer Chad Gailey finally sought treatment for a herniated disc, exacerbated by years of road-dog life. “I needed surgery to fix it,” Gailey says.

“So, I was able to go through the process of going through physical therapy and seeing a neurologist and getting the surgeries done. And I had a complication after the first one, which was a CSF [cerebrospinal fluid] leak. It’s where spinal fluid is leaking from your skull into a different part of your body. So, your brain is rattling around inside of your skull. They didn’t know what it was for like two weeks, so I was just fucked up for Christmas and New Year’s, and finally I got the second surgery on January 6 [2021]. I came to after the operation to the Trump storming of the Capitol, so I was like, ‘Oh great, the world is ending, and I’m fucked.’”

After the quelling of the would-be Iced Earth insurrection, Gailey went to physical therapy.

At that point, the COVID vaccine was beginning to trickle into the most vulnerable populations, but touring was still a distant dream. That gave Gailey plenty of time—not only to convalesce, but to reinvent his drumming technique. “I had to readjust every aspect of the way I play,” he says. “I spent six months after recovering from the second surgery, doing physical therapy every day, working out every day and readjusting my drums at the very beginning of that, just so I could be more comfortable when I played.

Because previously, I was doing stuff that I shouldn’t be doing. And that was eventually going to hurt me in the end.”

“And, you know, if things are regular, you don’t get a year off from touring and doing band stuff,” Indrio chimes in. “So, he was able to deal with all of that because we stopped. If the pandemic didn’t stop it, we would have probably kept touring until [his] back was completely fucked. Because that’s what you do: You just keep going.”

D E C I B E L : M AY 2 0 2 4 : 5 9

In December 2021, Gailey went into Oakland’s Earhammer Studios to track Upon Desolation, the second album by his death/doom band, Mortuous. He had stayed on top of his physical therapy and exercise regimen, but he was still nervous about how it would go. Could he still beat the shit out of the drums in a death metal band with his surgically repaired back? “I finished the drums in two days,” he says. “I think that was the fastest I had ever tracked a death metal album. So, it was a really great experience for me, just knowing that I could pull it off even after facing all this adversity.”

While Gailey dealt with his back issues, Indrio was busy making colossal life changes. The frontman emigrated from his native Italy to the Bay Area in 2008, and he became a U.S. citizen in 2016. When the pandemic hit, work dried up, and the exorbitant cost of living in the Bay drove him to a third country: Mexico. He met a new girlfriend there, who soon became his wife. In a time of widespread consternation and suffering, Indrio had, for his part, found a soft place to land. Then, in late 2021, he got a phone call from Italy.

“When everything was starting to start again, my mom called me and was like, ‘Your dad is really sick,’” Indrio recalls. “My dad was about to fucking die. She was like, ‘We need your help.

You need to come over here and help us out.’ My dad got a rare form of blood cancer. He had to take this medicine that almost killed him. My dad also used to take care of my grandmother.

She’s dead now, but at the time she was really old, and my dad was taking care of her. I had to fly there, and that’s when we finally had the new tour booked. And we had to cancel it before it even got announced. And I was stuck there for over three months.”

Indrio’s father got well enough to get out of the hospital at the end of 2021, but his recovery felt touch-and-go enough that Necrot didn’t make any new plans right away. Indrio thought he might be summoned back to Italy at any time, so the band stayed in neutral. Because no one should be left out of all that glorious torment, it was around that time that Reinhardt realized something was wrong with his hands. He couldn’t play the way he was used to playing, and the symptoms had started getting scary. “My hands started locking up, and they were getting real swollen a lot,” he says. “I went in to the doctor for that, and they were like, ‘Oh, you have carpal tunnel, too.’”

That would be a major problem for any guitarist, never mind one as uncommonly dexterous as Reinhardt. Unlike Gailey, who used the pandemic pause to get his surgeries, Reinhardt decided to tough it out. He managed to track Lifeless Birth through the pain, but that took its toll. “Eventually, it just led to getting three surgeries, all at once, on both hands,” Reinhardt says. “I’m doing pretty good, but it’s still not 100 percent. But I am playing better, I think.

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So, that’s good, at least. That was the main thing I was concerned about.”

Before they could even get into the studio for Lifeless Birth, Necrot had one more obstacle to overcome. Indrio had returned to Mexico after his dad’s recovery, at the end of 2021.

By that point, Necrot had moved on from the idea of doing a proper tour to support Mortal.

Indrio started writing the next record instead.

Creativity wasn’t a problem; the music flowed, and after a few months of Indrio sending song ideas to Reinhardt and Gailey over email, Necrot had enough for a new album. Two days before Indrio was supposed to fly to Oakland to join Reinhardt and Gailey at Earhammer… well, we’ll let him tell it: “I fucking got Bell’s palsy. Half of my face, I couldn’t move it. I couldn’t taste anything, and I was drooling [out] of my mouth.”

At the risk of sounding glib, it’s difficult to sing when you can’t move your mouth. Bell’s palsy is one of those stubbornly pernicious medical mysteries. Its cause is unknown, though various unproven theories abound. There’s no treatment and no predictable recovery period. “You go and see a doctor and they say, ‘It’ll go away eventually,’ but you don’t know,” Indrio says. “It could be two weeks; it could be six months.” At what had surely felt like the end of the gauntlet, the universe had thrown down one last banana peel. Necrot were put on hold yet again.

“We had to cancel recording the album with Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer,” Indrio says.

“And he’s like, ‘It’s super booked.’ It’s not, like, you cancel now and go back the month after. It was like, ‘OK, when do you have another opening?’ And he was like, ‘In six months.’”

ONLY DEATH WILL PERSEVERE “We absolutely felt like we lost steam,” Tankcrimes label founder Scotty Heath says. “But also, no one in the band, or me, ever thought for a second that we couldn’t get it back. We just knew we were doing this forced hiatus and that we could make it work again. And so, we have.”

Heath has long been Necrot’s biggest booster, putting out all three of their albums on Tankcrimes, but he’s also a close friend and an auxiliary fourth member. (He says, with a note of pride, that he’s the lone non-band-member in the Necrot group chat.) He helped orchestrate the strategy that made Mortal a hit, and he rode the surging wave of success and visibility that followed with it. All waves must crash, though, and Heath was also there while the band suffered its string of setbacks.

“There was this time where it became obvious that I had to back off a little bit, because there was no good answer of what to do,” Heath says.

“I had other releases, and we had completely

This community is accepting all the fucking weirdos, because especially in the metal and punk scene, there’s so many weirdos that would be cast out otherwise.

IT’S A SCENE THAT WELCOMES PEOPLE. LUCA INDRIO

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exhausted social media. And now bands were getting back on tour and doing stuff, and we didn’t have anything. I gave the guys some space. We’re not gonna be able to pick up right now, so let me move on and do what I’m doing, and I’ll keep checking in on everyone.”

Slowly but surely, the Necrot machinery wheezed back to life. Even the most cockeyed optimist would struggle to find the silver lining in the band’s extended reenactment of the Book of Job, but after the final insult of Indrio’s Bell’s palsy diagnosis, they found themselves with more time than they’d ever had to obsess over a new record. “The album got way better,” Heath says of that unplanned six-month delay.

“It made us a little bit better at practicing on our own,” Indrio confirms. “I think the big difference was having more time. Mortal was rushed, in a way, because we were doing so many tours that we didn’t have that much time to fully concentrate on the album.”

“For Mortal, I think we rehearsed for no more than two weeks, maybe less, before we went into the studio,” Reinhardt says. “I felt like I had the most time, and was the most prepared, for all the solos and melody stuff [on Lifeless Birth].”

Lifeless Birth was the first album written while Indrio was living in Mexico, while Reinhardt and Gailey remained in California. The idea of remote writing wasn’t new to the band—Indrio

has always written the riffs alone and delivered the sketches to his bandmates—but the extra space afforded by not needing to have an immediate opinion improved the album.

Reinhardt could absorb a song for days or weeks before settling on a solo. Sometimes, Indrio and Reinhardt’s chemistry collapsed the gap between them, despite the many months they’d spent apart. As reference for album highlight “Drill the Skull,” Indrio sent Reinhardt videos of Dimebag Darrell’s live guitar solos. It turned out Reinhardt had already been thinking about Pantera while working on his leads for the song.

Gailey writes his own drum parts, too, and when the band finally gets into the rehearsal room together, everyone arrives fully prepared.

“We were never a band that goes into the practice space and is like, ‘Ah, let’s jam and let’s see! Let’s throw some riffs together!’ We never worked like that,” Indrio says. “Most of the work happens separately, and then you get together, and that’s when things become really cool.

Because then you have everybody’s input.”

As hellish as the years leading up to the writing process for Lifeless Birth were, Indrio says he’s now in a much better place than he was going into Blood Offerings and Mortal. Despite all the well-worn clichés about suffering for one’s art, his improved mental health undoubtedly helped the record. “My life is better than what it used

I got … surgery on January 6 [2021].

I came to after the operation to the Trump storming of the Capitol,

‘OH GREAT, THE WORLD IS ENDING, AND I’M FUCKED.’ CHAD GAILEY

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to be,” he says. “So, I’m in a better headspace to write cool songs, in my opinion. I feel more comfortable. Before, the band was the cool thing about my life, and almost everything else was shit. But now I’m happier about my life outside of the band.”

“This album was written on the fuckin’ beach in Mexico,” Heath laughs. “[It was] a very bold choice to just leave Oakland in the pandemic, because [Luca] didn’t meet his wife until he got down there. He just went to Mexico to be by himself. He found all this happiness there, which is so awesome. But I think [it was helpful] writing the album in that much more relaxed and very happy position, and not in Oakland during the pandemic.”

The long layoff may have had an even bigger impact on the lyrics. After hastily scribbling the Mortal lyrics in tour vans and green rooms, Indrio suddenly had all the time in the world to write and refine his words for Lifeless Birth. “I had so much shit [from] the last three, four years that needed to come out,” he says. “It’s a process, because for me, writing lyrics for an album, it takes months of hours and hours every day, dedicating to it. It’s a way longer process than actually writing the riffs for the songs.”

Lifeless Birth opens with “Cut the Cord,” a devilishly catchy tune about the little technological miracles we voluntarily torture ourselves with all day long. (“If we, as a culture, weren’t addicted to our screens before the pandemic, we fucking are now,” Heath says.) It feels like a nod to Death’s “Pull the Plug” and an episode of Black Mirror all at once: “Endless sorrow is fed to you / From a device, into your mind … Break your chains and get away / From your miserable life.”

The irony of promoting that song—Lifeless Birth’s lead single—in 2024 was not lost on anyone.

“We were like, ‘All right, let’s market this on our phones,’” Heath deadpans. “Tell everyone to put the fucking phone down, but actually, it’s the only place you can hear this song for the next two months.”

Writing a death metal song about doomscrolling feels bold—arguably bolder than it should.

Even the sharpest, most cerebral death metal bands tend to couch their societal critiques in poetic, somewhat tortured language. Indrio is much more direct. On Lifeless Birth’s title track, he embodies the perspective of an enraged, betrayed fetus, dead in the womb. After the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, more and more stories have come out about women being forced to carry doomed pregnancies to term. Indrio finds the death metal essence in that grim reality.

“Years ago, a long time ago, when we were writing the demos and whatnot, I would feel weird about writing stuff that was too actual, too about modern times,” Indrio says. “Because I always felt an attachment musically to bands that were more from the late ’80s and

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’90s. Now, I’m more comfortable throwing some shit in there that refers to actual reality.”

But Indrio’s lyrics always betray a political sensibility forged in the fires of his punk background.

This is the guy who organized the “Metal vs.

Racism” initiative in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. With all due respect to the many masters of the form, you won’t catch him writing death metal songs about a zombie apocalypse.

“I’ve always felt this oppression on people, and the way people are forced to live in this society, and the way people are forced to appear, and all the bullshit that is fed to people on a regular basis,” Indrio says. “People get tricked to live these ridiculous lives. I feel like there is so much that is pushing people to be divided, and I feel that politicians especially use every fucking occasion to put everybody against each other.

And it’s something that has always pissed me off so much, because it doesn’t really need to be like that. It’s the opposite.

“Music is something that really teaches you that,” he continues. “The metal scene, the punk scene, going to shows, sharing music, is really cool. People are helping each other. This community is accepting all the fucking weirdos, because especially in the metal and punk scene, there’s so many weirdos that would be cast out otherwise. It’s a scene that welcomes people. It’s so important for people to experience situations like that, where you feel accepted, and you can be a weirdo, and you can express yourself.”

The same spirit that animates Indrio’s lyrics drives Necrot as a whole. They operate with a little bit of a chip on their shoulder, and with a pronounced nasty streak. It’s an approach that’s obviously colored by their origins in DIY punk, but they’re intent on blazing their own path and obsessed with perfecting it. “My perspective is that Necrot has always been very direct, in the way we do things, in the way we talk about stuff, in the way our music sounds,” Indrio says. “We are a very much in-your-face band. We’re not trying to please anybody. We’re not trying to hide behind some jokes. We’re like, ‘Boom. This is how we see things. Judge us or not. This is how we sound. Judge us or not.’”

WINDS OF HELL, THE NIGHT IS YOURS “Oh, I was fuckin’ blown away, dude.”

That was Scotty Heath’s genuinely awestruck impression the first time he heard Lifeless Birth, on a hike in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Heath always takes new Tankcrimes releases out into the woods with him, to experience them for the first time amid the natural majesty of Northern California. “Cut the Cord” stopped him dead in his tracks.

“I got out there on the hike, I hit play, and I went, ‘Fuck yeah. This is fucking Necrot,’” Heath says. “It was so rewarding to me. I got fuckin’ goosebumps, because I was like, we have a sound.

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Necrot has their sound. I’m not just recognizing Necrot because I have so much experience with their music. Any fan is gonna get this right away.”

Heath is right. There is an indefinable yet selfevident Necrot-y quality to everything the band does. Their sound is built on a sturdy foundation of formative influences—the punkish lurch of Autopsy, the mutant thrash of Possessed, the razor-edged erudition of Death. But after three albums of steady refinement, they’ve found their own corner to dominate. Though they were once considered a part of the so-called old-school death metal revival, Indrio is now ambivalent about Necrot being called death metal at all.

“We’re never worried about being a death metal band,” he says. “That’s none of our worry. If one day someone says, ‘You’re not a death metal band!,’ I’ll be like, ‘OK.’ And if someone says, ‘You’re a death metal band,’ I’ll be like, ‘OK.’” That feels as much like a sign of Necrot’s development as it does proof of the maturation of their generation of bands. “Necrot, Blood Incantation, Gatecreeper, Tomb Mold, all those bands are coming up with their third and fourth albums now,” Heath observes. “The bands that came up under them are working on their second and third albums, too. A lot of the newer bands caught up to the older bands in production. You can see Necrot and Blood Incantation and Gatecreeper are now taking a more mature approach as they’re becoming the scene elders.”

The pupil becomes the master, in other words, and so the death metal line of heredity that began in the ’80s continues to extend. By that same token, the influence becomes the peer.

Autopsy’s Chris Reifert is one of the foundational pillars around which Necrot have built their sound. As a fellow Bay Area scuzzmonger (and fellow death metal punk), he’s taken a keen interest in the band since the very beginning.

“It’s been fantastic seeing and hearing them getting better, heavier, and somehow more crushing with each release and live assault,” Reifert says.

“Gotta love those rascals! I recommend them to anyone who digs death metal that will turn your bones to shit and your shit to bones.”

Last May, Autopsy headlined one of the few shows Necrot have been able to play since the release of Mortal, at L.A.’s 1720 venue. “Sharing the stage with them is fuckin’ ace,” Reifert says of the experience. “I think they have their own thing going, which is why I like them so much.

Their own identity, ya know? And Bay Area spawn or not, it is indeed great to see them not only carrying the torch, but shoving it point blank into the eye sockets of humans that are deserving of such.”

What Reifert rightly identifies as Necrot getting better and heavier is borne out of a deep-seated perfectionism in the band. It’s an impulse that was evident in the way they made the most of their unexpected extra time going into Lifeless Birth, tweaking lyrics and solos and

hunkering down in the studio until they were totally happy with the result. (When they eventually re-booked Earhammer, they were there for a month.) That perfectionism extends to things like their album artwork, for which they’ve always enlisted the acclaimed Dutch illustrator, Marald van Haasteren. In the middle of his work on Mortal, van Haasteren suffered a retinal detachment and had to undergo eye surgery. He completed the piece wearing an eyepatch cut out from a Necrot sticker. While he was drawing tortured souls flaying themselves, his right eye was covered up with the word “ROT.” Even so, Lifeless Birth might have been the more painful process. “I had to remake the whole front at almost the final stage,” van Haasteren says. “Because it didn’t work, and I knew it didn’t work. And I knew that way before, which maybe I should have been more clear about.”

The 11-hour revision that saved the cover came from a pair of ideas. First, Indrio suggested that the central figure should be a demon, like the Chernabog from the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence in Fantasia. That reminded van Haasteren of a 1977 painting by the legendary Heavy Metal illustrator Richard Corben, also titled Night on Bald Mountain. In that painting, a swarm of nude figures encircles a cloaked demon playing an organ. Working from those two reference points, van Haasteren conjured one of the gnarliest images in recent death metal history.

“I proposed to [Luca] a classical figure of Satan, where there’s the eating of people, but also the perpetual [cycle], where they’re coming out of another mouth, the crotch-mouth or whatever you call it,” van Haasteren recalls, perhaps inventing the term “crotch-mouth” in the process. “[It’s] a permanent cycle, which would tie more to the album title. Because the initial idea was to depict a lifeless birth, but when we decided to change the whole main figure, we had to somehow tie it again to that title.”

With Lifeless Birth, the Necrot/van Haasteren partnership joins the hallowed ranks of iconic death metal band/cover artist team-ups. Think Ed Repka’s work on the first three Death albums, or Vince Locke’s ongoing collaboration with Cannibal Corpse. For van Haasteren, it’s the first time in his long career that he’s done three consecutive album covers for a band. “I’m honored to do it,” van Haasteren says. “It’s always a pleasure to work with them. We share the same values, so it’s really easy to work with each other.”

He pauses, then adds: “Even though the work process is sometimes a struggle.”

HEEDLESS HUMAN BEINGS It’s always better to struggle with friends than with strangers, and Necrot’s longstanding network exemplifies that philosophy. Apart from a brief spell in 2011 where Kyle House from Acephalix was, at least theoretically, Necrot’s guitarist, the band has always comprised the

D E C I B E L : M AY 2 0 2 4 : 6 5

We are a very much in-your-face band.

We’re not trying to please anybody. We’re not trying to hide behind some jokes. We’re like,

‘BOOM. THIS IS HOW WE SEE THINGS. JUDGE US OR NOT. THIS IS HOW WE SOUND. JUDGE US OR NOT.’ LUCA INDRIO

same three guys—Indrio, Gailey and Reinhardt.

(House left on good terms when he learned that Indrio wanted Necrot to be everyone in the band’s top priority.) Necrot have released all three of their albums with Scotty Heath on Tankcrimes, Marald van Haasteren has done all of their artwork, and Autopsy’s Greg Wilkinson has produced all of their albums at Earhammer Studios. There’s a shorthand that develops as those kinds of relationships deepen, and for the most part, Necrot now runs like a well-oiled machine.

“Greg’s a huge part of that,” Heath says.

“Greg’s skills have advanced massively in all the years that they’ve been working with him. He just gets better and better.”

“I think we all kind of grew, each time,” Reinhardt adds. “But [Greg] has really come

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a long way with what he’s able to do with the space, and the type of equipment that he has. He is also really good at capturing our sound. We’ve definitely helped create a sound together, as far as the way the records sound. I’ve even had people tell me that they’ve heard other albums come out of there, and said, ‘It sounds just like Necrot!’ Or, ‘We want that Necrot sound!’”

Indrio laughs, “You can’t get it!”

Necrot’s alliance with Tankcrimes has been a crucial part of their history, too. The band and Heath both insist that there has never been a homie deal, in spite of how close they are. Heath prepares his pitch, comes up with his best possible offer, and hopes the band takes it. “With the whole label, it’s a huge point of pride with me that every band stays,” Heath says. “After Blood Offerings

came out, the big labels all came. They had offers from the big guys, and I had to work it.”

Heath started talking to Necrot back when they were gigging around the Bay Area and releasing cultish demos in obscenely limited runs. He was eager to get the ball rolling, but Indrio held fast to his original plan for the band.

“When we hooked up, many years ago, they were very deliberate,” Heath says. “I was like, ‘Let’s do an album!’ And Luca was like, ‘Well, we are going to release three demos. And then the demos will be collected on one collection. Then we will release our first album.’

They’ve had a vision since day one.”

Heath did eventually get Necrot onboard, though, and they’ve stuck around—par for the course for Tankcrimes bands. As this issue goes to press, Necrot are on the road with labelmates Ghoul and Dead Heat, on a run headlined by Tankcrimes alumni Municipal Waste. “I first heard Necrot about a decade ago, when we played shows together around the Bay Area,” Municipal Waste bassist Phil “LandPhil” Hall says. “Municipal Waste had also toured with [Reinhardt’s stoner metal band] Saviours before that, so it was cool hearing Sonny play some death metal riffs. You could tell immediately that they had a good approach to their music.”

A decade after they first crossed paths, Necrot and Municipal Waste have remained closely entwined. Tankcrimes is like that. This run has been dubbed the Brainsqueeze Tour, after the legendary weekend festivals that Heath used to throw in Oakland. “Scotty and Tankcrimes are like family,” Hall says. “We have grown together in this industry and learned a lot. Together we have accomplished so much, and I couldn’t have done it without his creative input and work ethic. I would put Scotty on my Mount Rushmore of important people in my career. It would take a novel to describe all the fun and craziness we have experienced together these past decades.”

As for Necrot, Lifeless Birth points a way into the future, and gives them a do-over on the doomed Mortal cycle. Everyone in the band is in peak physical condition and excited about the future. After four years of enduring their respective personal hells, it’s finally their turn to rain extreme metal hell on the masses.

“When we started Necrot, we had an idea of what we wanted to do, and we’ve been doing it, no matter what happens,” Gailey says. “We’re not being influenced to do something else. This is what we’ve wanted to do since the beginning, whether people liked it or not. We’ve been putting in the work, so it’s cool to have our hard work pay off.”

“We had to fix a bunch of shit,” Indrio concludes. “And now, we feel that we’re finally back where we were right before the pandemic.

And it feels really good after going through all that shit.”

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INSIDE ≥

72 BRUCE DICKINSON Scream for me, Dr Necropolis 72 PUREST FORM I’m so impressed

ALL THE NOISE THAT FITS

76 HANDS OF GORO Flawless victory 76 HIGH ON FIRE Pike's peak?

79 SUFFER Keep on rotting

A Highest Place INTER ARMA

Richmond heavies don’t need a subgenre to be one of America’s best metal bands

MAY

1

Record from a guy who used to be in Carcass

1

Record from guys who really want to be in Carcass

1

Record from a guy who used to be in Carcass that sounds nothing like Carcass

1

Record from guys who really want to be in Carcass that sounds like Carcass

W 9

hen decibel checked in with Inter Arma a few months ago to find out what we could expect from their upcoming album, New Heaven, drummer T.J. Childers told us, “I have full confidence that right out of the gate INTER people will think, ‘What the fuck is wrong with these guys?!’”. ¶ ARMA With those prophetic words ringing in my ears, I pressed play New Heaven on the Richmond destroyers’ latest LP—and, as promised, was RELAPSE immediately staggered. Throughout their two decades together, Inter Arma have resisted all efforts to box themselves into one genre; experimentation is an integral part of their musical DNA. Getting weird is another one. The last we heard from them was a covers album; turns out its tracklist sported a few hints about where their heads were at, and some of those influences (particularly Ministry, Neil Young and Venom) really shine here. Anyone who’s stumbled across them over the past few years and been lulled into thinking of Inter Arma as “just” a doom band should prepare to get their shit fully rocked here. ¶ New Heaven announces its arrival with a dissonant squawk, and the title track careens between

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK RUDOLPH [MARKRUDOLPH.COM]

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pummeling noise rock and seasick Blut Aus Nord-inflected blackened death. It’s a beast, and it’s also a little bit of a fakeout. Lest you think Inter Arma had fully ditched psychotropic doom, “Violet Seizures” launches right back into the cosmos, and for the rest of the album, the band seldom dips back into the reservoir of untrammeled fury that kicked things off.

It’s gratifying to know that they can if they want to, but one of New Heaven’s primary strengths is its heterogeneity. The tracks flow nicely together, but each song is very, very different. The sulphuric “Desolation’s Harp’’ is a baroque nightmare, with its demented organ, stunning guitar work and furious blasts, and is immediately followed by the gorgeous instrumental “Endless Grey,” which sounds like a shredder’s vision of, well, heaven.

For all their allegiance to the dark, Inter Arma have never been afraid to be pretty. Mike Paparo’s voice is at its most powerful, and New Heaven fully cements his status as one of the most versatile mouthpieces in metal. His rich, comanding baritone turns “Gardens in the Dark” into pure gothic drama with the spirit of Type O pumping through its veins. Those pipes appear on “The Children the Bombs Overlooked,” too, but the mood is far more ominous; thunderous percussion and unsettling electronic flourishes accompany Paparo’s tormented roars, and chaos prevails.

That fades out into the gentle opening fuzz of “Concrete Cliffs,” which stands as the album’s closest approximation of a straightforward melodic death/doom track (but still shows off some nifty blues guitar licks, because you’ll never catch Inter Arma slipping). Closing number “Forest Service Blues” is straight-up dark Americana, the kind of shivery, lonesome ballad that’s meant to slip beneath your skin and chill the marrow. It couldn’t be more different from “New Heaven” or any of its siblings here, but it makes perfect sense.

Inter Arma have always dwelled at the crooked crossroads between Townes Van Zandt, Demilich and Neurosis, and on this new album, they’ve taken a long-awaited opportunity to remind us exactly who they are. We’re lucky to have ’em. —KIM KELLY

THE ABSENCE

7

The Absence

LISTENABLE INSANITY

Melo, but never mellow

Floridian fiends the Absence are over 20 years deep into their hellish joyride. In 2016, guitarist Taylor Nordberg (Deicide, Inhuman Condition) joined the band, first contributing to A Gift for 7 0 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

the Obsessed. Listening to their discography, it sounds like a stylistic turning point. The Absence started to indulge wider influences, blending ’90s melodeath with classic metal pyrotechnics.

The Absence have referred to their sound as “Tampa Florida Death Metal Evolved.” Their new self-titled record is a strong statement supporting that evolution, as Nordberg’s riffs take center stage with renewed power.

Dan Goldsworthy’s cover art obviously evokes the spirit of Like an Everflowing Stream. An affinity for Dismember ain’t a crime, especially in this genre. But opener “Communion Carbonized” reveals a band disinterested in the derivative. After its initial familiar gallop, second lead single “The Silent Eye” is a power metal ballad at heart. Hell, we even get a mid-album acoustic interlude/eulogy (“Surface of a Dead World”).

The harmonized leads and arena rock flourishes bring so much vibrancy and vitality to “Vagrant Death” and “Grieving Winds” that it begs the question: What would a straight-up heavy metal album sound like from this trio?

The melodeath components are slick, even if they occasionally feel like echoes from the past.

But their songs surge to life when they embrace grandeur and a dash of glam. Minimalism be damned, Nordberg’s guitar heroics are pure metal majesty. Hearing vocalist Jamie Stewart snarl the title “Fleshwalker” before kicking off a fiery sprint is the type of energy that elevates a banger to a set list staple. For the Absence, evolving doesn’t necessarily mean creating something new and alien. It means incorporating a wider spectrum of melody while nodding to the past, beyond Gothenburg’s greats and their American acolytes. —SEAN FRASIER

BRODEQUIN

8

Harbinger of Woe SEASON OF MIST

Decades of obsession

“Brodequin” is a Middle Ages torture method whereby a victim would be tied down in a sitting position while vertical wooden boards were sandwiched outside of and between both bare legs and secured with ropes. From there, shards of wood were hammered into any gaps between leg and board, and this was done until the pressure caused bone to shatter and leak both blood and marrow. Nasty, crippling shit! That’s why it’s an apt name for a brutal death metal act, like this Knoxville, TN band composed of brothers Jamie (bass, vocals) and Mike Bailey (guitars) and drummer Brennan Shackelford.

From the evocative Renaissance-style oil painting that adorns the cover to the modern

production that honors the requisite ’90s rawness while offering instrumental clarity and the barbaric-yet-catchy songs (well, as “catchy” as black/death inspired by the Dark Ages can get), Harbinger of Woe is easily Brodequin’s most realized effort to date. Not bad for a band that hasn’t dropped a full-length in 20 damn years.

At their best, Brodequin’s technically precise, tempo-shifting, powerfully rendered death metal is on par with Nile. But these guys are also adept at contrasting the warp-speed assault with grinding riffs and synco-grooves that could cause Dying Fetus or Devourment fans to jolt into a state of apoplexy. Given the current popularity of even the most grotesque death metal, the timing appears to be right for Brodequin to receive their dues—particularly given how impressive a return Harbinger of Woe is. This is the kind of musical extremity worth losing hemoglobin and bone marrow over. —DEAN BROWN

CASTLE RAT

7

Into the Realm W I S E B LO O D / K I N G VO LU M E

Into the cellar

Acid King to Windhand, and Gwyn Strang to Johanna Platow, vocal witchcraft from the fairer sex thrills thoroughly, continually and as pointedly as the wind itself. Hard to deny true criers amongst legion beards and beer bellies. Brooklyn troupe Castle Rat call themselves “battle babes” and follow a cascade of red curls named Riley Pinkerton.

Diva-adjacent on her father’s side—ginger guitarist John McCurry co-wrote “Poison” with Alice Cooper, while also notching gigs alongside Anita Baker, Belinda Carlisle, Taylor Dayne, Sheena Easton, Cyndi Lauper, Bette Midler, etc.—the bandleading frontwoman spearheads a medieval hard rock and doom ritual, fully costumed with choreographed swordplay. In her Eric Carr corpsepaint and sheer, thigh-lighting garb, Pinkerton incants Birmingham banes. Initial single, video and Into the Realm leadoff stake “Dagger Dragger” glimpses her as a demon hunter visiting loincloth bloodlust on Shadow beast Maddy Wright, while the Scandinavian snowscapes of second clip “Cry for Me” come lensed on VHS. Tracked inside Philadelphia church ruins, the quartet’s nine-song bow sounds recorded in a stone U.K. cellar—not so much its technical spectrum (production), but rather an aesthetic one (atmosphere). B-for-basement cinematic occultism, “Dagger” pounds drummer Josh Strmic and pummels Franco Vittore’s Pentagram riffing that then peaks him and Pinkerton closing with an early-Scorps harmonic axe dirge.

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Epic midpoint “Red Sands” churns and burns both elemental Iommi and the Wayward sisters from MacBeth, but the minute-long “Resurrector” from Ronnie Lanzilotta III makes its case for mandatory bass interludes. “Cry for Me” serves Pinkerton best. Stripped of dungeon reverb, she sings clear, commanding and comehither. Covens love a ballad, and this seductive dominatrix delivers. Welcome to fright night, ladies’ edition! —RAOUL HERNANDEZ

CELL PRESS

A

fter exploring the gothier side of the rainbow on his previous two albums, masked darksynth demilich GOST (real name James Lollar) decided he had some unfinished business: The world still existed. Prophecy [ META L B L A DE] aims to correct that. Hellish blasts of blackened industrial like “Death in Bloom” and “Digital Death” harken back to the digital demonology of 2018’s Possessor. While harshness eclipses hooks, mascara traces remain: “Widow Song” enjoys the silence of humanity’s demise. It makes for a nice respite as Armageddon rains down around it.

We haven’t heard chiptune inquisitor Master Boot Record’s modem boot up for a few cycles, but the Italian maestro returns with a new sinister symphony from side project KEYGEN CHURCH, Nel Nome Del Codice [ META L B L A DE] . It’s the Grid’s answer to Fleshgod Apocalypse. This operatic phantom makes cemeteries our cathedrals using an array of obsolete chipsets. No vox to ruin the connection to the firmament, just the Computer God looking down from his 16-bit throne and finding us all wanting. Impressive that he conjured such an infernal opus from digital detritus.

Only three songs (one for each member) in seven minutes, but the excellent self-titled debut EP from Los Angeles industrialized blasters PUREST FORM [ SEL F- R EL EA SED] answers the question of what would happen if Godflesh was born in a sweltering San Gabriel Valley basement instead of a damp English one. Story Beeson’s grindcore-honed scream shrieks overdriven screeds against technology’s inherent dehumanization, stuffing this ear candy with razor blades. There’s no fixing the rage that leads to a song like “Broke.”

On recent releases, Pittsburgh synth/bass/drums duo ZOMBI bent their synth-prog into some seriously sharp pentagram points by focusing on the latter two instruments. Direct Inject [ R EL A P S E ] pulls the smoother synthesizers back into the spotlight on highlights like the title track and “Improvise Adapt Overcome.” It creates a nice dichotomy with the more abrasive angle wrangling on “So Mote It Be” and “The Post-Atomic Horror.” They even get steamy on the “Sessuale” interludes! That variety of vaccines makes this their most balanced summoning in a while.

8

Cages

THE GHOST IS CLEAR/ ANCIENT TEMPLE

Breaking through the bars

An unsung element that makes really good noise rock a fun assault on auditory canals is the leeway bands are given to augment what’s going on atop the rhythmic lockdown. And how, when done with some creative daring, it can transport listeners to alternate times and places, like ’70s disco floors, ’80s TV show themes, the moral turpitude and danger of pre-Giuliani Times Square, that math class you flunked out of, off-the-grid slaughterhouses, the dirtiest of drug dens and the jammingest of juke joints. There’s a reason folks love bands like KEN mode, OXBOW, Cows, Great Falls, Sofy Major, Whores., etc. (I’ll leave it up to you to figure out who does the transporting to where).

Montreal’s Cell Press have roots and priors out the wazoo—the Great Sabatini, Biipiigwan, Barn Burner, the Chariot, to name a few—and have ferried their experience into a further rewriting of the rules Unsane (un)wittingly wrote. There are plenty of moments where Cell Press approximate the bruisin’ NYC trio, but the basics are noticeably enhanced and expanded upon.

Leadoff track, “Adult Baptisms” combines a terse staccato and barre chord boom underlaid with 20-second bursts of hypnotic second-wave Norse drum-blasting. “Things They Do in France” runs the blues through gutters and Coalesceheadlined basement shows. Subtract vocalist PQ’s weathered holler from the mix and there’s potential modern rock radio success lurking in “Original Uranium Baby.”

Parts of “Recoil (A Collective Behaviour of Violence)” spin a web that traps thrash, postpunk arpeggios and Buzz Osborne’s ’fro. Of course, there’s loads of traditional down-picking and drum burst stomping to be had on “Kissed by a Morose on Mont Royal” and “Dark Side of the North,” which may sound like you know who, but those balance things out for anyone thinking Cell Press might be getting too hoity-toity.

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO 7 2 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

GOODBYE BLUESKY

BRUCE DICKINSON 8 The Mandrake Project BMG

Whither Lord Iffy Boatrace?

Half the fun of listening to a Bruce Dickinson solo album is its sense of liberation, as though he’s relishing being freed from Steve Harris’ more rigid vision of how Iron Maiden should sound. During his seven years away from Maiden in the 1990s, Dickinson enjoyed an artistic rebirth, releasing

four vibrant albums fueled by his hunger for experimentation, while his former bandmates famously struggled. 1994’s Balls to Picasso, 1997’s Accident of Birth and 1998’s superb The Chemical Wedding have aged extremely well, portraits of an ambitious fellow with a seemingly endless supply of ideas. Even the precociousness of 1996’s Skunkworks, Dickinson’s only album without Roy Z as collaborator, is infectious.

Nineteen years after the release of Tyranny of Souls, The Mandrake Project finds Dickinson in prime form. “Afterglow of Ragnarok” makes

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brilliant use of his commanding, mid-range bellow: built around a churning riff that cheekily farts in Amon Amarth’s general direction, Bruce sounds perfectly suited for Swedish death metal. “Many Doors to Hell” and “Rain on the Graves” will thrill Maiden fans begging for a track that’s less than 11 minutes long. Roy Z adds some tasty string bends to the Sabbathesque “Resurrection Men,” while Bruce presents “Eternity Has Failed” (which appeared on Maiden’s The Book of Souls as “If Eternity Should Fail”) as he originally intended. Buttressed by some surprising departures—the harrowing “Face in the Mirror” and closing epic “Sonata (Immortal Beloved)”—this vibrant, imaginative album is a huge statement by an artist who is fully living up to his status as a heavy metal legend. —ADRIEN BEGRAND

DÖDSRIT

8

Nocturnal Will W O LV E S O F H A D E S

Döds-beat

Dödsrit absolutely rip— but what genre are they, actually? Nocturnal Will has crust parts (even neocrust, if you want to be specific), black metal forays and, hell, Dödsrit even dip their toes into some heavy metal now. So, what, they’re a metal band? A crust band? The balance is far too equal to really tell, but the important thing to remember here is how I started this review: They are an absolutely ripping, ferocious, rocking band.

Nocturnal Will is particularly special for its deviation from the norm. While most neocrust (read: stadium crust, melodic crust) bands look to post-rock and post-hardcore for inspiration/ dynamics influence, Dödsrit strike a frown, don their leather pants and vest combo, and say fuck that emo shit. Looking to heavy and traditional metal rather than emotional hardcore and punk, Dödsrit poise themselves more like Judas Priest than anything similar to fellow crust royalty Alex CF’s stumblings post-Fall of Efrafa. With a true metal band’s swagger, Dödsrit’s metal-meets-crust is truly refreshing and very exciting to hear as a fan of both halves.

With guitar heroics and D-beats alike, Nocturnal Will is an exhilarating fusion of two oft-mixed genres, but with their own twist.

Dödsrit are metal, yes—and crust, too—but here it’s safe to say that they’re actually metal instead of following the paradigm of louder, whinier punk in metal’s clothing. This is crust to listen to while riding your motorcycle, or metal to listen to while feeling the punkier end of societal isolation. Hell yeah, brother. —JON ROSENTHAL 74 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

DOOL

6

The Shape of Fluidity PROPHECY PRODUCTIONS

The thousandfold idea center

Decibel readers likely know the Netherlands’ Dool due to the band’s connection to renowned occult rockers the Devil’s Blood—the two outfits once shared a rhythm section and some superficial similarities. Though the membership overlap is a thing of the past, Dool still play loosely with heavy, psychedelic rock music while fixating on knottier and—for want of a better word—“artier” proclivities.

Those seeking satanic imagery should look elsewhere, but firebrand vocalist and guitarist Raven van Dorst oozes transgressive charisma on their third LP, The Shape of Fluidity.

If the album title didn’t give it away, gender is a lyrical theme on The Shape of Fluidity, and for good reason: van Dorst was born intersex and surgically assigned female at birth. Following Dool’s 2020 album Summerland, van Dorst embraced they/them pronouns, dropped their feminine given name and embraced the breadth of their delivery, gracefully shifting from nasally belting to delicate crooning and husky, gothic growling.

Their bandmates follow suit, embracing the propulsive power of post-punk on “Evil in You” and “Venus in Flames,” challenging the tense energy of folk-horror à la Fairport Convention on “House of a Thousand Dreams.” Genre-agnosticism is a thin screen for lack of solid ideas when lesser bands do it, but in Dool’s hands, a lack of identity in and of itself is the point.

Their greatest strength and burden is their ability to convey many ideas without committing to one. If there’s no universal mandate to adhere to one sex or gender presentation, why stick to one style or genre? Dool’s music is so beguiling that staying in one lane would be a wasted opportunity. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

FOLTERKAMMER

7

Weibermacht

CENTURY MEDIA

I didn’t expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition

How quickly can you rewire your brain to accept inputs that are wholly orthogonal to your norm? One way or another, this is the task you’ll need to undertake to appreciate Folterkammer’s antagonistically unique identity. If you appreciate bombastic, melodic black metal, acclimating to Andromeda Anarchia’s operatic vocal flights across the 45 minutes of Folterkammer’s sophomore album will be your primary hurdle. If you’re an opera aficionado,

then accepting the blast beats, sawed-off tremolo guitar tones and Anarchia’s equally effective succubus growls might have you stumped. If you come predisposed toward both… well, you’re not me, you’re not anyone else I know and you’re probably in Folterkammer.

Here’s the rub: Weibermacht is actually extremely good. Forget the genre mashup gimmick and chaff of overstylized promotional videos and band photos. This music works. The instrumentals might lack the drama necessary to keep up with Anarchia’s histrionic warble, but on careful inspection, they churn with all the dark meditative power anyone could want. They also consistently serve the needs of the baroque overtones—Weibermacht really shines as operatic music that has been mistakenly played by rock instruments instead of a pit orchestra, not really as black metal that happens to be accompanied by theatrical vocal performances.

But can you enjoy it? My own growing affinity for the record only exists through complete immersion after multiple back-to-back listens.

Trying to listen to this music amid a steady diet of any other music seems nearly impossible.

Most human brains just can’t make room for the breadth of stimuli on offer. If this is your bag, though, then make sure to also check out Anarchia’s work in La Suspendida, a metal jazz opera whose audio version should also become available right around now. —DANIEL LAKE

GIVRE

8

Le Cloître EISENWALD

Just give ’er

Roman Catholic mystic and stigmatist Marthe Robin was bedridden for 50 years and claimed to subsist only on consecrated hosts until her death in 1981. Louise du Néant’s claim of mysticism was likely feigned madness as self-punishment for fear of 17th century French authorities.

Teresa of Ávila was famous for her “raptures,” which were most likely the result of epilepsy.

Marie des Vallées was believed to have been possessed by the devil. Margaret of Cortona’s grief over her murdered lover manifested in innumerable forms of self-mortification. Hildegard of Bingen, one of humankind’s most influential composers, suffered tortured visions that are believed by some today to be the result of migraines.

It’s perfect fodder for a black metal band exploring the more mystic side of Catholicism, and the new album by Quebecois act Givre is a spellbinding deep dive into the mental state of those six towering figures. Perfectly capturing the unrest, agony, instability and ultimate

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transcendence of the beatified, Le Cloître walks a razor-thin line between mellifluousness and dissonance—one moment channeling seminal early-’90s atmospheric black metal melodies, the other churning out the heaviest palm-muted riffs this side of Bongripper.

It’s on the fifth track, devoted to Hildegard, where the biggest breakthrough is made, a spellbinding, heart-wrenching excursion into the ornate doom of Candlemass. Were these women’s lives miraculous, deserving of sainthood, or were they just the result of oppressive religious culture and undiscovered illnesses? Were they charlatans or victims? Whatever listeners decide, Le Cloître is an empathetic, immaculately composed concept album. —ADRIEN BEGRAND

HANDS OF GORO

8

Hands of Goro BSP

Slightly less weird

Though Bay Area trio Hands of Goro consists of members of Spirit Adrift (guitarist Tom Draper), Slough Feg (bassist/vocalist Adrian Maestas) and Nite (drummer Avinash Mittur), the most apt musical comparison is definitely to Maestas’ quirky trad metal outfit. It’s a comparison driven home by the inclusion here of a different version of that band’s “Uncanny,” which appeared on 2019’s New Organon. Hands of Goro may explore similar musical territory on their debut, but the personnel involved definitely offer a little sharper, less funky approach to trad/NWOBHM-style metal.

Draper’s involvement certainly raises the bar musically, as his licks, solos, harmonies and riffs are everywhere—in the best possible way.

Mittur’s drumming is solid, if unspectacular, and Maestas’ vocals are fairly monochromatic (imagine a more in-tune Jess Cox of Tygers of Pan Tang), but with Draper’s guitar heroics, it all works brilliantly. Hands of Goro invoke the best parts of the NWOBHM’s early years when bands were experimenting with speed and rawness while still paying tribute to older heroes (Priest, Sabbath, Lizzy, etc.).

Best of all, HOG have a solid array of eight well-written tunes here, ranging from bluesy punchers (“Prince of Shokan”) to up-tempo rippers (“Demonizer” and “Uncanny”), with the odd epic thrown in (“Archduke of Fear”).

The general lack of polish on everything from the recording to the performances gives Hands of Goro a charming warmth and character that a lot of perfectly sculpted modern recordings/ releases lack. This sounds like a real power trio playing real songs, and it’s fucking great.

—ADEM TEPEDELEN 7 6 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

HAUNT

7

Dreamers IRON GRIP/ CHURCH RECORDINGS

In my dreams

Since Haunt—the solo project of Trevor William Church—debuted in 2017 with the Luminous Eyes EP, Church has averaged more than one full-length of new material every year since. When the dude isn’t touring, he’s writing new songs, recording it in his home studio and releasing it on his own label. He’s a freakin’ machine. That the quality of said albums is generally high is all the more impressive.

Having reviewed many of these records for Decibel (though not all), I’ve witnessed Church’s material progress in ways that seem unexpected based on his earliest efforts and his affiliation with doom trio Beastmaker. While the vibe and feel of Church’s first solo steps seemed more indebted to the NWOBHM, more recent efforts feel distinctly more influenced by power metal and early-to-mid-’80s L.A. glam—slick production, oodles of squealy guitars accented by fast licks/accents everywhere, ample keyboards and a definite emphasis on melody.

For better or worse (and honestly, no complaints here), there’s a very Dokken vibe, circa 1987, to Dreamers. And just to cement the whole ’80s feel, Church has included a metalized cover of new wave act Real Life’s 1983 hit “Send Me an Angel.”

The more albums Church releases, the more his production values improve and the further he moves away from what initially caught my ear.

Not a criticism, just an observation. And if you’re kicking out new material at such a rapid rate, progression is probably a good thing. There’s a consistency that runs through Haunt’s output—notably Church’s vocals—but Dreamer is a solid continuation in Church’s progression. —ADEM TEPEDELEN

HIGH ON FIRE

8

Cometh the Storm M N R K H E AV Y

Taking a Pike

Like classic rock, a.k.a. the Stone Age, compartmentalize the High on Fire catalog by its labels: Man’s Ruin (The Art of Self Defense, 2000), Relapse (Surrounded by Thieves, Blessed Black Wings, Death Is This Communion, 2002–2007), and E1/eOne (Snakes for the Divine, De Vermis Mysteriis, Luminiferous, Electric Messiah, 2010-2018). Then notch an honest-to-Odin golden gramophone for that last divine jolt in a category infamously christened by Jethro Tull.

Not six months after our Left Coast trio strutted down the Grammys’ red carpet, co-founding drummer Des Kensel exited. Produced by Kurt Ballou, who rode herd on the last three albums,

ninth full-length Cometh the Storm arrives on MNRK Heavy, the metallic rebrand of HOF’s previous imprint. Ex-Big Business/Melvins piston Coady Willis joins bassist Jeff Matz in the fuel depot alongside fire-eater Matt Pike, who here leads his new triumvirate past the band’s Bronze Age into its Iron Age. Less flammable than their last decade, these 11 tracks in just under an hour capture High on Fire transitioning eras. More spacious, porous—temporal—in the engine room, these millennial gas huffers motör past the high-octane psychotropics of De Vermis Mysteriis and Luminiferous into a high plains sandblasting. Cometh the Storm still thunders murderously, but now no one self-immolates.

All overdrive and undercurrent, the suspects remain: galloping opener and future show staple “Lambsbread,” strangulated roar “Trismegistus” and chugging HOF embodiment “Sol’s Golden Curse.” A Pike-less “Karanlik Yol” unfurls an Indian instrumental perfect for Axis: Bold as Love, while “Tough Guy” reverses the frontman’s tracheotomy. Bludgeoning sprints (“The Beating”) to melodic atomizers (“Hunting Shadows”) and a 10-minute feedbacker (“Darker Fleece”), Cometh the Storm builds. —RAOUL HERNANDEZ

KHOLD

7

Du Dømmes til Død SOULSELLER

Cruel intentions

After an eight-year hiatus, during which the members of Khold turned their focus to Tulus, the Norwegian black metal veterans made a compelling return with Svartsyn in 2022; an album that quickly secured a permanent spot in my music rotation for its captivating blend of grooves and mid-tempo black metal. Barely a year and a half later, Khold present Du Dømmes til Død, which could be viewed as their eighth studio effort or, more intriguingly, as the sophomore release from this reinvigorated lineup.

True to form, Du dømmes til Død delivers Khold’s trademark sound: mid-tempo black metal riffs, lyrics in their native Norwegian and distinctive cover art featuring a (somewhat more claustrophobic than usual) depiction of vocalist and guitarist Gard’s facial features. The continued inclusion of, um, more Crowbel (Tulus’ bassist) is noteworthy, as his playing brings depth and focus to the low-end thump that separates Khold’s from other Norwegian black metal acts.

However, Du dømmes til Død represents more than just a continuation of the group’s musical journey. It signifies a profound step forward in their narrative prowess. The album is a concept piece that plunges listeners into the dark corners of Norwegian history, recounting the grim tales of

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executioners and their victims. This thematic depth, combined with a production finesse surpassing their earlier works, propels mid-paced stompers “Vanviddfaren,” “Skoggangsmann” and “Misgrep,” in particular.

Yet, despite these strengths, I yearned for greater tempo and pacing variation. Such adjustments could have elevated the storytelling, fully showcasing the band’s evolved craftsmanship.

Nonetheless, Du dømmes til Død marks a pivotal moment for Khold 2.0, fulfilling the potential hinted at in Svartsyn and igniting anticipation for their next chapter. —TIM MUDD

LOCRIAN

7

End Terrain P R O FO U N D LO R E

Newer catastrophism

The last time we heard from Locrian, they had just emerged from a lengthy studio slumber with 2022’s New Catastrophism. An ode to their dronier and more experimental side, New Catastrophism was an exercise in deliberation and group improvisation— something familiar to Locrian fans who remember Greyfield Shrines and Drenched Lands, but maybe not to Relapse-era fans. Bringing more accessible and songwriting-based metal back to the table, Locrian’s impending End Terrain continues in the droning krautrock/experimental metal fusion direction this trio championed in the mid-to-late-2010s.

End Terrain is interesting as a Locrian album because, while it boasts the “sound worship” that defines their music, there’s an element of musicianship displayed here that might surprise even the most seasoned fan. Though early recordings showcased guitarist André Foisy’s guitar prowess, the majority of Locrian’s discography features songwriting taking the front seat compared to technicality; End Terrain shows Foisy’s ascension into a realm of guitar heroics, with lots of (very tasteful) tapping and melodies involved.

Drummer and electronics player Stephen Hess’s varied performance draws from his involvement with a variety of bands, ranging from Pan-American’s electronics to Cleared’s droning atmospheres, but with a distinctly “rock” edge that ties them together. Vocalist and synthesizer player Terence Hannum’s varied vocal performance, exploring new territory as both a clean singer as well as displaying a wider harsh range, also presents his mastery of the synthesizer— the album features some of Hannum’s busiest low basslines and most sophisticated textures.

As a more traditional “metal” album (the band refers to End Terrain as a “song album”), Locrian’s latest is one of their most accessible and catchy, but also showcases them at their most memorable and challenging. With this element of 7 8 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

musicianship bolstering their anti-traditional experimental kraut-metal sounds, Locrian reasserts themselves into the world as an accomplished metal band. Even if they’re blacklisted from Encyclopaedia Metallum. —JON ROSENTHAL

MASTIFF

7

Deprecipice M N R K H E AV Y

Enough is enough for grinding sludgecore Brits

Over the course of their decade-plus existence Mastiff have continued incorporating new influences, and on their previous full-length, Leave Me the Ashes of Earth, crammed hardcore, grind, death metal and sludge into a fairly intense cacophony. On their fourth full-length, Deprecipice, the English quintet have stuck with that formula, creating a more focused (if somewhat predictable) follow-up.

Even with all that stuff carrying over from the last record, this is a heavier event. The production is gnarlier, the vocals are crazier and the guitarists have cranked their HM-2 pedals into full buzzsaw mode. The songs tend to be a little longer, but this still grinds faster with riffs that are more menacing, and the band’s execution of the when the breakdown comes back, but slower meme—done well on the last record—is even better this time around.

And that last bit highlights the weakest aspect of the record. There are a few attempts to expand their sound—including a brief industrial-noise track—but there isn’t a marked evolution between the last record and this one, with a lot of the same tricks and sounds being revisited.

How many bands make careers off barely evolving? Thousands, but these guys have continually been pulling from such a bountiful well that their “pretty much the same, but heavier” step feels somewhat underwhelming.

For newcomers and less picky fans, though, that shouldn’t matter. There may not be a lot of progress on Deprecipice, but Mastiff are still getting better with each album. —SHANE MEHLING

MYRATH

7

Karma

EARMUSIC

A different kind of desert rock

Taking their name from the Arabic word for “legacy,” Tunisian prog-power outfit Myrath are well on their way towards accomplishing just that. Dutifully cranking out Middle Eastern-tinged melodic metal since 2007, the band has steadily amassed a following in Europe thanks to some well-timed

performances at Hellfest, Wacken and especially Sweden Rock. It was at the latter festival in 2019 that Myrath were thrust into the spotlight as an emergency replacement for a headliner, and their triumphant set made even more people take notice. Fast forward to 2024, and the hard-working band finally has a full-length follow-up to 2019’s breakthrough Shehili.

Very much like Orphaned Land and Melechesh, Myrath cleverly incorporate Middle Eastern tuning and instrumentation to their decidedly western-derived heavy metal, but what sets these guys apart is how accessible they make it. Aimed directly at the Dream Theater/Symphony X crowd, the 11 songs on Karma place heavy emphasis on the hard rock bombast of early-’80s arena rock atop some highly progressive arrangements, and when it connects, it’s remarkable.

Singer Zaher Zorgati is a dead ringer for Journey great Steve Perry and late Survivor singer Jimi Jamison (that’s a high compliment), and he sells the hell out of such standouts as “To the Stars,” “The Wheel of Time” and the terrific “Child of Prophecy.” If there’s one thing going against Karma, it’s that similarly arranged songs tend to bleed into one another, but the highs on this very promising record more than make up for any repetition. —ADRIEN BEGRAND

NEST

7

Endeavors HOUSECORE

Little big planet

Over the course of three fulllengths, St. Louis trio Nest, led by the well-traveled John Jarvis (Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Scour and Pig Destroyer’s first-ever bassist), have managed to slim down their records from 26 (2020’s Pretense) to 21 (2021’s Tipping Point) to a mere 19 minutes of music on Endeavors.

The music itself has actually followed that process of weeding out (pun kinda intended), and the punch each tune packs is now so tightly wound, so concise, so brutally to the point, that each of them is a one-hit knockout—but much subtler than that image might suggest.

While this collection of 10 songs does proudly fail to hit the 20-minute mark, it’s never at the expense of the punky, loose attitude they’ve always had; and, crucially, also never at the cost of letting slower, sludgier, more laboriously atmospheric sections out of the equation. In fact, some of the best moments—like the tension-ridden “Commiseration” or the sparse, yet sharply menacing “Burn Clean”—brood dramatically along as if they’re part of an hour-long harsh doom record (or of Ministry’s Filth Pig, for a more specific example), in absolute contrast to full-steam-ahead ragers like opener “Run Ahead” or the massive “Round Up.”

Jarvis himself notes in the press release that there are several shades of nasty at play here: “I wanted to make music with beauty in it, but also some ugliness and darkness. A lot can happen in between.” It certainly can. Short though it might be, but Endeavors contains fucking multitudes.

—JOSÉ CARLOS SANTOS

SHOCK WITHDRAWAL

8

The Dismal Advance B R U TA L PA N D A

Front toward enemy

Deathgrind trio Shock Withdrawal first scorched the earth with their self-titled EP in 2022. Featuring Mitchell Luna (Noisear, ex-Maruta) at the mic, their debut flexed lethal potential. Unfortunately, the crunchy production didn’t serve the bristling malignance and precision of their high-BPM attack. The Dismal Advance receives a weapon upgrade from Arthur Rizk’s mixing and mastering prowess, and every track hits like howitzer fire.

“Constant Fear of Annihilation” launches a scud assault from second zero. This album’s three singles total five and a half minutes, so the aim here is definitely all killer, no filler. Shock Withdrawal incinerate 21 minutes with this full-length, rarely pausing for a breath between drummer Jono Garrett’s blasts. Luna’s hopesmashing growl is as formidable as ever as Nick Emde’s guitars stab and slash through a hundred micro-genres. “Autonomian” is riffy and furious with a crust punk thrust. Both “Built to Suffer'' and “Resentment” ooze death grooves, a collision of Trap Them and Exhumed.

The album’s last quarter invites more rhythmic variation, slower tempos and deeper introspection. Beginning with “The Luxury of Accepting Failure,” the album shifts from a scathing scrum to something darker. “Pain Absorption Threshold” still features frenzied speed. But Shock Withdrawal stomp the brakes and veer into a passage of eerie sludge that bleeds into “Misery Calibration.”

Ironically titled finale “No Closure” doubles down on the haunted atmosphere with the album’s only completely mid-paced track. The song’s apocalyptic hardcore is a natural conclusion; a funeral for our necks and spines. Down to its final note, The Dismal Advance remains a muscular force. —SEAN FRASIER

STRESS ANGEL

8

Punished by Nemesis STYGIAN BLACK HAND/ DYING VICTIMS

Infectious grooves

I thought I had Stress Angel pegged. The Brooklyn duo played the first show

I took my 13-year-old daughter to, where drummer/vocalist Manny Sores introduced a song by announcing, in black metal rasp: “EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM… HAS THE FUCKING VENEREAL DISEASE!” Of course, my innocent, earplugged spawn turned to me: “What?” It’s just heavy metal language, honey, it’s nonsense; no one has a disease.

Both members skate (confirmed in Thrasher by our greatest living metal writer, The Larb), and a demo-era interview on Decibel’s own site reveals a penchant for substance abuse and a zeal for perversity that would put them in fine company with the burgeoning True New York City Scumbag Black Metal movement (which I just made up now) alongside Gravesend and blasphemic gooners Horns and Hooves.

That street-level scuzz is all over Stress Angel’s second full-length, Punished by Nemesis, for sure. Take the crazed energy of Show No Mercy and early Sodom—guitarist Nicolai Orifice’s picking hand rarely slows down—and add a hefty dose of primeval proto-death. The specter of Speckmann looms, not just Master’s selftitled debut, but the lesser-known Death Strike, too. If that was all Stress Angel had going on, they’d still be plenty of fun, like a coked-up, urban Aura Noir. But wait! There’s more! An otherworldliness hangs in the fetid air, and it’s not just the keyboards—also played by Orifice—that first appear in the opening title track and return throughout, or the moments when the vocals are drenched in reverb. It’s the twisted melodicism that recalls NYC brethren Negative Plane, pitching Punished by Nemesis somewhere between the gutter and the cosmos.

Expose yourself to it without protection; it feels better. —ANTHONY BARTKEWICZ

SUFFER

6

Grand Canvas of the Aesthete W I S E B LO O D

A canvas to paint…

The Indiana technical death metal band Suffer goes way back in time.

The band formed in 1989, released a handful of demos and disappeared. As we all know, nothing stays dead in metal—particularly death metal—and here the band is with a full album three decades later. The dedication and vision to return to an old project and finish what one started is admirable.

Grand Canvas of the Aesthete is an intriguing album. The playing is beyond solid, the production is strong, the songs are well-structured and the vocals are fierce. I’d have a tough time listening to it and picking out a single thing that is wrong. The struggle when I listen to this album is where to place it. Suffer have proof that they

were around at the time of death metal’s ascent in the ’90s. But it is impossible to listen to this album and not think about Carcass, for better and sometimes worse.

Carcass are one of the best bands ever, and such a comparison is an honor. There aren’t many people that can play Carcass, never mind creating something in the same language. That said, this album sounds so close to both Heartwork and 21st century Carcass that it’s disorienting. When the guitar plays, I hear Steer, and when it’s time for vocals, I hear Walker.

While I genuinely like what I hear, I know I can just listen to Carcass.

This is not a bad album, and I am on the record saying execution is more important than originality. In the case of Grand Canvas of the Aesthete, I’m interested in how Suffer build a vision that corresponds with their ample talents.

—JUSTIN M. NORTON

UTTERTOMB

7

Nebulas of Self-Desecration P U LV E R I Z E D

Arch enemy

In case the band name, artwork and album title didn’t give it away, Uttertomb’s full-length debut is doom-sodden death metal in the classic vein. Uttertomb studiously siphon the chasmal atmospherics and diabolical songwriting of Incantation, Autopsy and Asphyx, continuing the rich run of Chilean extreme metal of recent years.

Following a fairly nondescript intro—the seemingly near-obligatory inclusion that should be banned from albums at this stage unless, you know, it actually goes somewhere musically—the brilliantly titled “Exhumation of the Womb’s Splendour” and “Graceless Thaumaturgy” lumber, contort and blaze in inverted shapes. These songs rival contemporaries in Grave Miasma or Dead Congregation when it comes to creating a tangible aura of iniquity.

“Opisthotonic Funerals”—its title relating to the state of opisthotonus, where an individual’s head, neck and spine hyperextend into an abnormal arch due to trauma-induced spasticity—summons Finnish doom influences in sinister fashion. And while the eerie opening of “Aurora Cruoris” might subside too soon to be fully effective, the thrashing evil that swallows it is perfectly pitched.

This intensity firmly carries through the remaining songs, peaking with the title track finale, an eight-minute-pus summation of Uttertomb’s sound: from diSEMBOWELMENT-worthy creeps to the “burning in Belial’s pits” that Incantation pioneered. —DEAN BROWN D E C I B E L : M AY 2 0 2 4 : 7 9

by

EUGENE S. ROBINSON

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ…

AND IT’S JUST BECAUSE… SO

what’s the deal with

them?”

I was on tour with Scott Kelly, back when Scott Kelly was still part of a positive public conversation, and the long drives between shows had me doing a certain amount of housekeeping. That is, things I’d always wondered about that I figured he’d have an inside line on. In this instance, the Melvins.

“What do you mean?”

Any of these conversations, especially the ones with a local San Francisco Bay Area component, are… minefields. I had once halfmentioned to another guy in a band that I had tried to lure Diamanda Galás to sing with me on an OXBOW record, and a week later I got an angry email from her. On the occasion of? On the occasion of her reading that she and I were presumably screwing. The guy had written this up on his blog. I was mortified.

Like I said: a bad game of telephone, and a minefield to boot. So, I had to explain carefully.

Especially as I had a strange history with them. A band I’ve loved since Lysol, we, OXBOW, played with 8 0 : M AY 2 0 2 4 : D E C I B E L

them once. Our drummer at the time, though, was an acerbic shittalker and was talking shit about Buzz Osborne right as Buzz was walking into the backstage area. I wanted to fix it and explain that his dumbass opinion was his alone, but being the kid of divorce like I am, I rebelled against the notion of fixing any weird emotional thing. I just had to hope Buzz would understand.

But at the Hustler 25th anniversary party, I ran into him. I’d written for Hustler for years and, while hanging there with Tommy Lee and Gene Simmons was something I could have expected, I was shocked and geeked beyond belief to see Buzz. Our bands had just split a TV show on Germany’s VivaTV and, well, like I said, I was always a massive fan.

So, I was gushing, and in a totally hilarious fashion, Buzz kept taking shots at me. Referencing Whipping Boy, my hardcore band, versus the still very active OXBOW. My response then was like it was when I was a kid, and even now I was amused, beyond measure, at the comedy at my expense. I

appreciated it. But I could still never figure out whether its intent was to wound and not amuse. Hence my question to Kelly.

Explaining this all to him, I had somehow tied it into their propensity for taking publicity photos that were broadly comedic, as though this would answer my unasked questions.

But their place in my life started looming large. Like weird large. Joe Sams, who had this project where he would animate your dreams, interviewed me the day after a night when I had had a dream with Dale Crover in it. I was not going to tell Sams, but then I did. Then I got a call to write the promotional material for Crover’s side project Shrinebuilder.

Then, finally, a long drive through Nebraska with Kelly and, again, the Melvins were on my mind.

“I mean, are they funny or are they funny?” And here I was hoping he could hear the distinction I was making between senses of humor and an appreciation of the absurd and the Red Hot Chili Peppers-esque goofball-itis. I was, and have always

been, a bear for authenticity, and if people are funny, I sometimes suspect that they’re taking the piss out of me.

“That’s the way they are,” said Kelly. “And that’s the way that they have always been.” That is, funny, which I love. Not funny, which I hate.

To which I breathed a sigh of relief. I haven’t seen Buzz since the Hustler party, but while later talking to Hustler’s executive editor, Allan MacDonell, I started to wax nostalgic about my love affair with the Melvins and said that I hadn’t seen Buzz since that party.

“Well, I’ll tell him you said hi,” MacDonell said.

“You see him much?”

“I see him right now,” MacDonell said. “He’s in my backyard, doing my gardening.”

That Buzz’s wife had worked for Hustler was not shocking, but that Buzz loved gardening as much as I do? A wild collision of circumstance and chance. All of which singlehandedly have guaranteed that the next conversation I have with him will be the weirdest ever. To which I honestly say: I can’t wait.

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