Beer: Framinghammer Brewery: Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers (Framingham, MA) Style: Porter – Imperial / Double Baltic 10% ABV / 55 IBU Hats off for a very clever name: This Jack’s Abby Baltic porter references both the blunt but effective tool in a handyman’s belt and the family-operated brewery’s location outside of Boston. Considering that Jack’s Abby also has “Craft Lagers” in its name, is Framinghamer really a lager or more like an ale? Turns out that porters can be either, based on the type of fermentation (cool for lagers). So if Jack’s Abby says this is a lager, we’re down with that, because ..read more

Greetings, Decibel readers! Black metal devotees, rejoice! Mork and Lamp of Murmuur have new albums out! Death metal demons, rejoice! There’s a new Angerot album out! New-old-school metal vest-wearers, rejoice! There’s a new Firmament album out! Experimental metal fans who actually have taste … rejoice! Ne Oblivscaris has a new album out! REJOICE, DAMMIT!!! — Angerot – The Profound Recreant From our full-album stream of The Profound Recreant: “With this album, we wanted to take everything that was Divine Apostate and push it further,” Angerot tell Decibel. “It is absolutely a continuation ..read more

Surprise! The set that was so good Decibel Records had to release it twice, Deadguy’s Buyer’s Remorse: Live from the Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest is now available on limited edition “Metal” & “Beer” colored cassette tapes! Limited to just 50 copies of each color, this special release also comes with a bonus patch courtesy of Pull the Plug Patches! These tapes also boast a full-color four-panel fold-out booklet featuring artwork from Deadguy frontman Tim Singer and event photography from Nathaniel Shannon and Tom Bejgrowicz. In celebration of Metal & Beer Fest ..read more

One of the rare gifts the pandemic gave us is remotely made music by collections of musicians who had a lot of time on their hands and a similar amount of pent-up creativity.  Count Bagorah as one of those gifts. With members in Vancouver, BC, Seattle and Nashville, they collaborated the new-fashioned way—parts were recorded individually and combined to make the 10 tracks on their debut, The Art of Deviant Behavior. Unsurprisingly, none of the members of Bagorah—Lenny Burnett (guitars), Richard Sims (bass), Tom Moller (drums), James Phillips (vocals)—actually appear in their latest ..read more

As part of their exclusive 30th anniversary performance of their landmark Take as Needed for Pain record, former Eyehategod guitarist Brian Patton will rejoin the group at Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest Philly on April 15 to perform with the band for the first time in over five years. “He left the band to take care of his family, but he played guitar on the album and is going to be back,” enthuses Eyehategod frontman Mike IX Williams, unveiling the NOLA sludge legends’ planned surprise. “So, we’re going to be playing as a five-piece.” In addition to Eyehategod’s full performance of Tak ..read more

According to this collective of crusty punk (with bits of death metal and grind mixed in) loving Norwegians, the etymology of Monoceros is based in Greek and derived from the word μονόκερως (monokerōs), which itself is a compound of μόνος (monos), meaning “only one”/“single,” and κέρας (keras) which means “horn.” And the first appearance of the monoceros was in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History where it was described with uncanny accuracy as a hybrid monstrosity with a horse’s body, the head of an antler-less deer, elephant’s feet and the tail of a wild boar with one black horn in the middle o ..read more

Are you into members of Goatwhore, Necrofier and Night Cobra teaming up to perform total Celtic Frost worship on their three-song demo tape? Well, And Darkness And Decay have that in spades on Orgasm of Golgotha, the band’s opening salvo that rips and rolls like a band possessed by the spirit of Tom G. Warrior. As bassist and vocalist Trevi Biles explains, things came together pretty easily over the pandemic when his main project wasn’t able to tour and was stuck in a holding pattern. “Covid shut everything down so Night Cobra was basically put on hiatus for a bit so I had a lot of time a ..read more

The voiceover at the beginning of Smoulder’s “Victims of Fate” might sound familiar to fans of the revolving paperback racks in used bookstores. It’s delivered by none other than Michael Moorcock, the fantasy fiction godhead and creator of Elric of Melniboné, Tanelorn, and the beloved Eternal Champion multiverse. Like so many other true metal bands, Smoulder have turned to Moorcock’s work for inspiration before. The title of their debut album, Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring, is taken from a Moorcock short story called “The Greater Conqueror,” and their song “Ilian of Garathorm” is about ..read more

Suicidal Tendencies’ barn-burning self-titled debut is one of the essential extreme albums. Released four decades ago this year, Suicidal Tendencies is a stew of teen anger, squealing guitars, hilarious and confessional lyrics and replay-worthy songs. It helped birth crossover and yet is in no way tethered to the genre. It made waves underground and then became part of pop culture. When I first heard the album, it was with a few other angst-ridden teens in a basement. Popular kids blasted “I Saw Your Mommy” in their cars by senior year. Who could blame them?: All the songs rule. ST (and Metall ..read more

“What the hell am I doing here in such august company?” Underplaying himself from the outset is the prolific vocalist Rob Fusco. For nearly 30 years, Fusco has been an active part of the hardcore scene known for his high-energy performances and commanding bellow, most notably during his time in Most Precious Blood and the recently reactivated One King Down. Even while the world shuttered in 2020, Fusco kept his head down and abilities sharp by collaborating with Insvrgence guitarist Rafe Holmes which lead to the release of 2022’s You Are Nowhere—a down-tuned and decidedly more metallic approac ..read more