Fear, Emptiness, Decibel: Are Lucifer Worthy of the Hype? YES!

To borrow a The More You Know moment from this month’s ed notes, Baroness, Isis, Pelican, Skeletonwitch, Pig Destroyer and Watain’s first cover stories all appeared via Decibel. And, given our druthers, we’d only take back five of those six if we could! Pretty good ratio, huh? Lucifer join those esteemed ranks in the July issue. While we always enjoy bringing you the latest on cover perennials like Slayer, Mastodon and Cannibal Corpse, it’s sometimes even more fulfilling to give an emerging artist their first taste of mass exposure. The brainchild of Oath expat Johanna Sadonis and Cathedral shredder Gaz Jennings, Lucifer have delivered an extremely promising, utterly infectious occult rock debut in the form of Lucifer I. Not much is publicly known about Sadonis’ backstory, so we chose to largely let her tell it—from surviving communist Germany as a child to traveling the world to perfect her craft as one of the most evocative vocalists in the genre.

And because sometimes we actually give thought to the notion of complementing the cover story and flexi, Pentagram make their Flexi Series debut with a 1971 rehearsal of “Bang It Out.” And because sometimes we respect those of you who want a little more (dripping) red meat in their Decibel, there’s also Fear Factory’s long overdue Hall of Fame bow for Demanufacture, an early look at Refused’s much-anticipated comeback album Freedom, a breakdown of Gruesome’s favorite homage bands, and the latest on masters of the morose, Paradise Lost.