Fear, Emptiness, Decibel: We Have Heard the New Carcass
Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…
Yeah, that’s Erik Danielsson being all gross on the cover of the September issue, but if you can pull your eyes off of that arresting image, the top left corner says it all: We’ve heard the new Carcass. And if there’s a classic band in our fucked-up little universe that inspires equal parts glee and dread upon releasing new music in 2013, it’s Carcass. (It’s safe to say Morbid Angel are occupying a bit more than 50 percent “dread” territory now.)
Good news: They didn’t fuck up. In fact, as Chris Dick writes in the review—not only our longest ever, but the über-exclusive first you’ll see in print—“Surgical Steel isn’t just an unfeigned return to form; it’s a verifiably vicious one. Even if mainstays Jeff Walker and Bill Steer were only out to prove a purulent point—to themselves, naturally—Carcass, almost 30 years on, sound like 1996 never happened.” Indeed, once you breathe a sigh of post-Swansong relief, you can get nice and chuffed. We at Decibel certainly are—let’s just say if you’re not a subscriber, you might wanna look into that next month. The Flexi Series will be forging some pretty carnal new territory.
Which is not to just gloss over this whole Watain deal. We double down on the bloodshed this month with a J. Bennett-penned cover story and the Swedish psychos’ ripping flexi cover of G.G. Allin’s “Fuck Off, We Murder.” If you’re an aficionado of Guns N’ Roses’ Illusions-era video trilogy (“Don’t Cry,” “November Rain,” “Estranged”), you’ll enjoy the cover story’s inclusion of Del James, author, artist and current “GN’R” road manager, who has plenty of cool shit to say about Watain’s place in unhinged rock lore. Read up here, check that killer cover here.
The September 2013 issue of Decibel also features Phil Anselmo, Gwar, and Autopsy. You can purchase it here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?
