It’s no secret that hardcore punk has always been at the forefront of pointing out social ills, political hypocrisy and the complete shit hammering the 99% suffers at the hand of the powerful 1%. While the rich, powerful and militarily connected continue to run rampant over the rest of us, you can always count on a bunch of folks decked out in Tragedy patches, Anti-Cimex hoodies and Disfear longsleeves to point out how fucked up things actually are.  On the surface, Sweden is a beacon of worryingly tall and blindingly blonde people revelling in placid neutrality. Scrape a few layers away ..read more

“I don’t know if you’re pressed for time, but I can do this all night.” Across the digital table is Smittens, the D.I.Y. lifer and bassist for international D-beat black metal bruisers Calligram. The pleasant and quick-witted Englishman comes paired with a glass of red wine and an infectious sense of humor as the band’s blistering sophomore full-length, Position | Momentum, is set to be released next week via Prosthetic Records. Written entirely in vocalist Matteo Rizzardo’s native Italian, the album’s lyrics unpack a history of personal darkness and re-evaluate them with a sense of, as their ..read more

Despite the, ahem, distinct lack of “dis” in their name, Industrial Puke are just as crusty and D-beat lovin’ as any of their fellow Discharge-worshipping Swedes. The new quintet—Linus Jägerskog (vocals), Mattias Rasmusson (drums), Marko Partanen (guitar), Erik Harald (bass), Jens Ekelin (guitar/vocals)—was formed by members of Burst, Obstruktion, Blessings, Gust and Rentokiller, and are here to slay with their savagely primal 10-track debut, Born Into the Twisting Rope.  The new burner is a master class in overdriven guitar/bass distortion, relentless battery and manic throat-scrape voc ..read more

Not a lot of light gets into the self-titled debut 7-inch by Negative Prayer. Across three songs of punishing, death metal-infused D-beat, the duo of Kyle House (ex-Poison Idea, ex-Vastum) and Charles Koryn (Funebrarum, VoidCeremony) build a monument to total negativity. The song titles – “Morbid,” “Hell,” and “Noose” – will go a long way in helping you crack what’s going on here. These dudes aren’t fucking around. That’s not to say Negative Prayer is an especially tough sit; the songs are memorable enough to keep you pressing play again after each 10-minute burst of nihilistic dyspepsia subsi ..read more

Crusty black metal punishers DRYAD are gearing up to release their new album, The Abyssal Plain, on January 20 via Prosthetic Records. Check out their video for “Black Smoke” from the forthcoming record. After lurking in the underground for years, releasing some really fantastic demos, EPs, and splits, the band are excited to be working with Prosthetic for their debut full-length. “We’re thrilled to present our debut full-length album, The Abyssal Plain, on Prosthetic Records,” the band say. “Written in an abandoned Iowa prairie schoolhouse and recorded in a rural converted barn, the ..read more

The last time the hordes at Decibel hoisted a Cruz track was 2016 (HERE). Now many many lifetimes later, Cruz lay all destroyed, beaten, beaten down, only the corpses of rebels in their wake with new song “Eones de Sangre” from their upcoming full-length Confines de la Cordura via Nuclear Winter Records. What separates Cruz now from Cruz of the last decade is the Barcelona-based outfit’s blend of crusty tempi, course melodicism, and no-holds-barred barbarism. Think if Celtic Frost, Discharge, and Unanimated fucked in a Ciutat Vella back alley, then Cruz might be the iniquitous offspring. With ..read more

If the rest of Kontusion’s four-song debut EP is as good as the track we’re premiering here today, “Rotting With Sickness,” we’ve gotta think that this new duo’s self-released debut won’t remain self-released for long. And why wouldn’t it slay from track one to four, with the combined talents of guitarist/vocalist Mark Bronzino (Mammoth Grinder, ANS, Iron Reagan) and drummer Chris Moore (Repulsion, Coke Bust)? The pair have brought together their varied extreme metal experience into a raw, hateful assault of primitive death metal fortified with punishing d-beats and seasoned with manic solos ..read more

Last April, the thrashy L.A. hardcore crew Destroyed in Seconds (D.I.S.) unleashed their furious third album, Divide and Devour, on digital and cassette formats. Now, with an entire goddamn global pandemic having transpired since that initial street date, the band is preparing to release the long-awaited vinyl edition. It drops May 21 on Deep Six Records. Divide and Devour is a stridently political record, taking aim at authoritarianism, fringe far-right groups, and the fascist police state. The year that’s just passed has only made the songs on the album hit harder. One of the most powerful t ..read more

New Zealand’s Bridge Burner are pissed off and mad about it on their forthcoming album Disempath. A fiery mix of D-beat, crust, death metal and hardcore, the quintet ooze rage and crossover appeal with songs like the title track, streaming below. Seething with anger, Bridge Burner rip through “Disempath” in less than two-and-a-half minutes, blending the styles into a mix of metallic angst that wastes no time on pleasantries. Vocalist Ben Read (ex-Ulcerate) spends most of the album delving into his hatred of people and conditions surrounding coronavirus, as well as themes of self-loathing ..read more

“Loud Night started as an outlet for us to write blistering punk songs with shitloads of guitar harmonies that were dumb enough we could play them blind drunk,” drummer Jonah Livingston tells Decibel — and the Richmond, Virginia quartet certainly lives up to that Rachtman-esque one-foot-in-the-gutter-one-fist-in-the-gold moniker/goal (and then some!) on its rousing, swaggering, thrash-tastic debut full-length Mindnumbing Pleasure. “Kallen, Ben and I had all been in a band together for years” — that would be underground crossover heroes Ramming Speed — “but we wanted to try playing music more i ..read more