Clocking in at 13 minutes or so, Retox’s debut rager Ugly Animals only just falls into the LP category. But, shit, it packs enough aggression, energy and compositional cordite to compensate anybody who is bummed out from holding out for a longer running time. The San Diego quartet don’t fuck around—at least not with the message, nor their hyper-kinetic sound, a sound that spins at the outer limits of control on a well-oiled axis of punk/hardcore and is pocked by screams and freak-outs. Ugly Animals is exactly as fierce as you could expect of a band assembled from a quartet of individuals whose previous convictions include the Locust, Head Wound City, Holy Molar, All Leather, Some Girls, Swing Kids,...

By now, Alcest’s “Autre Temps” isn’t necessarily a Deciblog premiere, but instead of streaming it on YouTube in-between clips of ninja squirrels and keyboard baby Amur tigers you can listen here where you belong. “Autre Temps” is the lead-off track to Alcest’s upcoming, much-anticipated full-length Les Voyages De L’Âme, and true to form it features jangly chords, pensive chorals, pretty movements, and no black metal vocals from front-mage Neige. For those that fear Alcest have gone off the shoegaze deep end on Les Voyages De L’Âme, we can confirm Neige’s spectral black voice returns and there are blast-ish beats. In fact, Les Voyages De L’Âme is very much like the Alcest of old — particularly Écailles de Lune —...

We’ve got another great Mastodon prize pack for you! Just visit the the URL below to enter the contest. Prizes are as follows… http://www.atlmetal.com/mastodon Guest list entry to the Atlanta Mastodon show on 12/02/2011, winner +1 1 FREE copy of the limited edition deluxe version of The Hunter (CD/DVD)

Oakland, CA’s MACHINE HEAD are pleased to unveil their brand new music video for the single ‘Locust’ today exclusively with Pitchfork.com. The track ‘Locust’ is cut from the band’s latest Billboard-charting album, Unto The Locust. The video is directed by veteran MACHINE HEAD video director Mike Sloat and features motion picture-quality computer-generated imagery that includes a sinister swarm of locusts enveloping the band in a cloud of darkness and chaos, much like the ominous track itself. The incredible effects were all created by a team of veteran Hollywood CGI artists and monster makers including album art designer Paul Gerrard who all helped bring Paul’s amazing album artwork to life. MACHINE HEAD bludgeoned into the charts this month with a...

Devin Townsend is on the phone and he’s freaking out because he’s booked four shows in London, over consecutive nights he’ll be playing Ki, Addicted, Deconstruction and Ghost in their entirety, and it’s a big fucking deal. It’s stressful. He’s also headlining Leeds, UK metal-fest Damnation, which he promises to go heavy on with the riffs and stuff (when in Rome…), and the success of this year’s Deconstruction and its more subtle sibling Ghost means that his face is fucking everywhere. Like, this sort of John Malkovich nightmare is what happens when you get a John Malkovich haircut, Devy, and give your name to a project that’s just totally snowballed both in popularity and artistic bravado since retiring the...

Washington D.C. metallers DARKEST HOUR filmed a video for an as-yet-undisclosed song on Monday, October 17. Photos from the video shoot can be seen below. DARKEST HOUR‘s sixth album, “The Human Romance”, sold around 3,600 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 185 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD landed at position No. 3 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200. DARKEST HOUR‘s previous album, “The Eternal Return”, opened with 4,700 units back in July 2009 to enter the chart at No. 104. “The Human Romance” was...

Behind-the-scenes footage from DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT‘s recent months on the road can be seen below. Director David Brodsky of MyGoodEye — who has previously collaborated with AS I LAY DYING, SUICIDE SILENCE, KATAKLYSM,ARSIS, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER and STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, among others — helmed the video for the song “Juular” from the DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT. Townsend stated about the clip, “ is a true artist and really went the extra mile!” Former EMPEROR frontman Ihsahn (real name: Vegard Sverre Tveitan) joined DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT on stage on August 6 at the Vagos Open Air festival in Lagoa de Calvão (GDC), Portugal to perform the song “Juular”. The studio version of “Juular”, featuring Ihsahn on guest vocals, can be found on “Deconstruction”, the third in a series of albums to be made available under DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT moniker, which came out on June 21 (one day earlier internationally) via InsideOut Music. Ihsahn previously...

On September 30, Goldie Tom, the only local full-time female DJ in Gallup, New Mexico, conducted an interview with vocalist Dez Fafara of California metallers DEVILDRIVER when the band played at the Sunshine Theater in Albuquerque, New Mexico during the “North American Khaos 2011″ tour with ARCH ENEMY, SKELETONWITCH and CHTHONIC. The chat can now be viewed below. DEVILDRIVER guitarist Mike Spreitzer was forced to sit out the band’s recent South American tour after suffering a seizure. DEVILDRIVER bassist Aaron “Bubble” Patrick (ex-BURY YOUR DEAD) suffered a back injury in July but was able to recover in time to perform with the rest of the band at the Heavy T.O. and Heavy MTL festivals in Toronto, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec, Canada, respectively. Bubble joined DEVILDRIVER as the replacement for Jonathan Miller, who quit DEVILDRIVER in March, calling it “the most difficult decision of my life” but...

  ‘Round about this time next week, gore metal legends, Exhumed will be embarking on their first eastern North American tour since the last time there was no more room in hell and the dead previously walked the Earth. The festering quartet already draped the western half of the continent in their gooey claret this past summer in support of their killer new album All Guts, No Glory and when they get back from Europe in three days, the east will feel the cold dead hand of cold death fucking metal. Not to mention the band’s rip-roaring stage show which regularly includes shit that never gets old like fake blood drinking from fake severed heads, chainsaws, “death fucking metal”...

One way to make sure your festival doesn’t suck, isn’t polluted by buy-on bands and weird compromises that all but beseech the audience to head to the bar for every third act is to have Darkthrone’s Fenriz choose the line-up. Using our favorite hiking metal punk’s Band of the Week blog to draw upon, the UK’s Live Evil festival does exactly that. The brainchild of Marek Steven and Mark Lewis, Live Evil is avowedly underground, a weekender hosted in—with all respect to the Camden Underworld—a dive, upon which bands of varying stripes of metal sub-genres, of various nationalities and pedigrees, all converge. Last year’s inaugural event saw Decibel cover stars Ghost sharing a stage with the likes of Angel...