The Gathering went on a wild, exploratory journey after they, along with former label Foundation 2000, unfurled their atmospheric doom-death masterpiece Always… in the summer of 1992. Whether it was Mandylion (1995) and How to Measure a Planet? (1999) or The West Pole (2009) or their most recent album, Beautiful Distortion (2022), the Dutch masters never shied away from going their own way. Actually, this is true of debut album, Always…, too! Although similarities (tenuous at best, I think) to Tiamat, The Third and the Mortal, and others were posited (yes, by me in a much younger form), The Ga ..read more

For once, the song and video we’re premiering today are incredibly simple to describe. Suicide Season are Bruno Silva and Nuno Lima, a U.K.-based duo with roots in the Portuguese underground (including personal history with the some of country’s best doom and death metal bands, namely Heavenwood and Dementia 13 among others), and they play the kind of crushing doom metal that will take your heart and stomp on it slowly, mercilessly and methodically while also tragically weeping about it. And that’s pretty much it. In terms of imagery, we get a sort of a lyric video, with some evocative images ..read more

Formed in Helsinki in 2010, Finnish death/doom trio Altar of Betelgeuze released their first EP At the Shrine of Light in 2012. That three-song EP clocked in at 34 minutes in length, blending funeral doom’s menace with stoned Sabbath riffs. Over time their compositions became leaner and meaner, culminating in their second LP Among the Ruins, released by Transcending Obscurity in 2017. Seven years have passed since new music from Altar, but today that drought ends. Decibel Magazine is thrilled to share the first single from their upcoming record Echoes, scheduled for release on March 22nd. “Con ..read more

Counting Hours are back! Not that the Finns were ever missing, but the glacial pace at which the Vantaa-based quintet — featuring members of Shape of Despair/ex-Rapture, Impaled Nazarene, and ex-Colosseum — move, they might as well be always gone. Debut album, The Will, appeared out of nowhere in 2020 on Spanish indie The Vinyl Division. OK, not out of thin air, but the dormant periods between releases is torturous. The heavy heart of The Will naturally leads into the weighted mind of The Wishing Tomb, a title which sheds light into the ever-looming dark in which Counting Hours reside. Fans of ..read more

Back in 2022, I premiered a track from NYC doom project Witnesses. In that premiere, I commented that multi-instrumentalist Greg Schwan’s approach to doom “shapeshifts from unsettling ambient to a sound that’s equal parts Peaceville doom and post-metal.” Two years later, we learned that Witnesses have planned a new album Joy, scheduled for release sometime in 2024. Today Decibel Magazine exclusively shares their powerful new single “Joy (Beyond the Sound of My Voice)” ahead of that eventual release. Beginning with the aggressive propulsion of Angel Hernandez’s drums, the track ignites with the ..read more

Two minutes is all Pestilength need to make their point—a surprising metric for a black/doom metal band. For a style of music which usually takes a longer path to achieve fruition, this Basque duo opts for efficiency over classical form, resulting in something as crushing as it is fleeting. In “Baleful Profusion,” the brief song in question, Pestilength expectedly fuses the ideas of “plod” and “crush”—the song is slow, but driving and meaty, and drummer N. chooses a giant’s pace when performing. Lots of slow double bass, plenty of cymbal work, all fitting when placed with vocalist and guitaris ..read more

Denver doom depth-dwellers Spectral Voice return after a six-year absence with their immersive second full-length, Sparagmos, and Decibel has been bestowed with our own exclusive edition on transparent swamp green & opaque bone vinyl limited to just 110 copies via Dark Descent Records! This momentous LP, featuring artwork by the inimitable Manifester with original photography by Brendan Macleod, arrives in a case-wrapped, tip-on jacket with A2 poster and insert (all copies are shrink-wrapped due to the jacket). Recorded, mixed and mastered by dark engine ..read more

The longest-running metal tour in North America is back! The Decibel Magazine Tour celebrates the magazine’s 20th anniversary with its return in February 2024 as Northwest black metal executioners Hulder headline Decibel‘s 11th nationwide expedition. Tour support comes from supreme Philly vampunk warriors Devil Master, Floridian blackened doom swamp things Worm and Houston black metal earth-scorchers Necrofier. “It is an honor to be given the opportunity to headline the 2024 Decibel Tour,” says guitarist/vocalist/founder Hulder. “The band will be playing a strong setlist with a numbe ..read more

Germany’s Praise the Plague plays an entrancing blend of doom metal and black metal. This allows them to cover a lot of territory — from the haunted and desolate shores of doom, to the raging torrents and blazing fires of black metal. And this sprawling sonic heritage is all well-represented on the band’s latest video for “Devourer,” from the band’s upcoming album, Suffocating In The Current Of Time. According to the band, “Devourer” is “one of the darker and relentless songs” on the album, focused on “the atrocities of human kind and its reckoning.” And this fits into the broader dark and gri ..read more

Formed in 2017, Australian doom cult Demons of Noon first shared their hallucinogenic approach to slow ‘n’ low heaviness on April 20th, 2020. Despite the 420 release date, their three-track EP The Summoning wasn’t a spliff-smokin’ stoner rehash. Demons of Noon paired trippy sludge with poignant themes and curiosity about the darkest shadows of human history. 3 years later, they explore human folly and fragility further on their debut LP, Death Machine. Along with a full album premiere ahead of the December 1st release date, Demons of Noon discussed the album at length with Decibel Magazine. In ..read more