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Carcass make the ultimate comeback with Surgical Steel.
The post Carcass – Surgical Steel appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Hear Euro doom crushers Anchorite lay the lumber on new single, “Devil on the Throne,” featuring a guest solo from Michael Denner (ex-Mercyful Fate).
The post Track Premiere: Anchorite – “Devil on the Throne” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

“Before, it was me just trying to beg the world: ‘Please listen to me. Please look in my direction, I make music and I promise it’s good enough for you listen to,’ and now we truly have an audience.”
The post Interview: Kaonashi Talk Touring, Songwriting and New Album, I Want to Go Home appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

“There are other worlds (they have not told you of). They wish to speak to you.” —Sun RaMiddle Eastern or Mediterranean guitar music is an entire musical world with its very own guitar heroes, legendary solos, coveted gear, mysterious deaths, and (of course) some wigs as well. As the ’60s arrived with a fresh wave of guitar madness, musicians worldwide chose the electric guitar as their voice, working it into their region’s musical vocabulary, which was often based on the local folk instruments. Guitarists like Omar Khorshid and Aris San created guitar history as they infused their regional influences with their new love of the electric guitar and brought a new style of playing to life. To me, these two legends are the Middle Eastern equivalents of the Western guitar world’s beloved Jimi and Jimmy.A little bit about our stars: Omar Khorshid of Cairo, Egypt, took part in monumental recordings, often with Strat in hand. He played with Oum (also known as Umm) Kolthum, one of the most renowned vocalists in Arabic music. His collaborations with Hany Mehanna are pure Middle Eastern psychedelia. He has an extended list of covers of western tunes (including “Popcorn” and The Godfather theme), and his music goes everywhere from soloing along with huge orchestras to trippy tunes with just synths and drum machines. Khorshid’s playing is always spot on, tasteful, and with the melody as the top priority. Full lesson playlist on YouTubeAris San is from Greece, and his life story makes those of Elvis, Hendrix, or Cobain seem mundane by comparison. With an incredible voice and an ability to bring bouzouki chops to the electric guitar, San’s style is second to none. Shifting from various random European guitars, Aris eventually championed the Gibson ES-335 and turned himself into a musical powerhouse with a massive recording catalogue. At one point he even had his own music club in New York (donning the aforementioned wig). After a few encounters with the New York underworld, he returned to Europe and rumors abound. Let’s dive into some of the techniques and tools that make this music so special. The more you practice and study them, the more you can add to your own music and enrich your style.Scales of Choice Here’s one interesting scale out of a vast melodic world of Middle Eastern music. It’s a great place to start as you’ll quickly realize this scale is used everywhere, which is why it has so many names. This scale appears in many a Kirk Hammett solo, as well as in Eastern European klezmer music. It’s the fifth mode of the harmonic minor scale and is also called Maqam Hijaz, Ahava Raba, and Phrygian Dominant. Check out Ex. 1 and then listen to Aris San’s “Mish Mash.”Ex. 1Ex. 2 is reminiscent of Khorshid’s take on the tune “Habbina Habbina,” written by Farid El Atrash. Ex. 2GlissandoThe Middle Eastern guitar style features guitarists who can play melodies with a deep vocal quality and a round, lyrical feel to their phrasing. A glissando, or slide, is an expressive tool that is often used in that way. Ex. 3 is similar to what Khorshid played with Oum Kulthum, keeping it classy as he takes his solo with the orchestra.Ex. 3Here’s another example (Ex. 4) by Yehudah Keisar, an incredible guitarist from the generation of musicians who followed the rise of Aris San. Keisar made a big contribution to the repertoire.This is from the hit song “Basbusa” by Shariff, which was produced and played by Keisar.Ex. 4The 1980s era of recordings incorporated more drum machines and had a guitar tone consistent with 335’s plugged right into the PA with a short digital delay on them. That gave the player a quick, tight sound that worked perfectly for these melodies.Right Hand Rhythmic Picking Percussion and rhythmic elements play a central role in Middle Eastern music. That’s why you would sometimes see Khorshid playing with three percussionists on the bandstand. Here’s one example of that amazing line up:Check out the rhythmic opening guitar part and how it sits perfectly together along with the percussion, and then try Ex. 5.Another example of tight rhythmic playing is on the opening bars of Aris San’s “Dam Dam,” which you can find in Ex. 6.Ex. 5Ex. 6Harmonizing Harmonized guitar parts were always a great device to strengthen melodies, long before the days of arena rock or the Eagles. Here’s the traditional Greek song “Afilotimi” in Ex. 7 to showcase that technique. You can play this with another guitarist, multitrack it, or even dare to play both intervals at once.Ex. 7Trills and EmbellishmentsTrills give the music its nuanced accent and dialect. Some are easy to pick up while others are a little trickier. This last piece is by Moshe Ben-Mosh, another pivotal guitarist who recorded and produced many hits with an emphasis on his Yemenite-Jewish roots. Here’s the title track from the Haim Moshe album Ahavat Chayai which was released in 1982. Our final example, Ex. 8, covers the points we went over about trills. Notice how many of our examples are played across a single string, which echoes the regional folk instruments, such as bouzouki, oud, and baglama. It’s a doozy, but taking the time to learn it slowly and gradually will help to internalize all the techniques listed here. Practice slowly and make sure you dance to the music!Ex. 8

It’s a week of towering legends with the latest in metal releases from Sodom, Lord Belial, Deadguy and more!
The post Five For Friday: June 27, 2025 appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

One of the two electric guitars I play most is my beloved and battered 1952 Les Paul. Seventy-three years ago, it was cutting-edge. First, it’s a solidbody guitar. Although the solidbody concept debuted with the Rickenbacker A-22 “Frying Pan” in 1931, and notched up with the Fender Broadcaster in 1950, the Les Paul started with Les’ the Log, built in 1939. As Les accurately predicted, the tone was purer than hollowbodies, sustain improved, and feedback was no longer an issue.My ’52 was later upgraded with innovations like the then-new Bigsby vibrato (introduced in 1951), a Tune-o-matic bridge (1953 technology), and a humbucker in the bridge position (circa 1957). Numerous other guitar innovations have emerged over the past seven decades. And some stuck, including:The compound radius fretboard, pioneered by luthier Denny Rauen in 1978.Locking tremolo systems, invented by Floyd Rose in the 1970s and widespread by the 1980s.Hybrid acoustic/electric designs that blend electric pickups with undersaddle piezo pickups. (With a toggle flip, my PRS can shift from angry distorted humbucker to a convincing, warm acoustic sound—or blend both.)Other innovations fared less well, like Gibson’s ill-fated Firebird X, of 2011. This ambitious, controversial solidbody electric guitar aimed to modernize the iconic Firebird with digital technology. Originally priced at $5,570, its standout features included three FBX mini-humbuckers, a piezo pickup, and onboard effects (reverb, delay, distortion) via a pure analog DSP engine, controlled by complex toggle pots, sliders, and a gear shift knob. It also had robot tuners with 11 preset tunings, Bluetooth footswitches, and a G-Node USB interface, with software (Guitar Rig 4, Ableton Live Lite) for recording and patch creation. While some praised its innovation, many players saw it as a betrayal of Gibson’s heritage. The model performed so poorly that Gibson reportedly destroyed over half the Firebird Xs with an excavator.Legacy companies like Gibson face a dilemma in evolution. Gibson’s bold innovation made it iconic, giving us the Les Paul, ES-335 (and 330, 345, 355), Flying V, Explorer, Firebird, and SG. Today, most players crave those classic guitars designed 60 to 70 years ago. This raises the question: What will the 2052 Gibson Les Paul, marking its 100th anniversary, be like?“Nano-humbuckers might blend PAF warmth, single-coil snap, and synth-like capabilities, with AI tweaking tones in real-time to nail vintage or futuristic textures.”I’m an original-recipe guy and have no clue what the future holds, so I asked AI for its prediction. Here’s what it envisioned: The 2052 Les Paul will likely retain its single-cutaway swagger, solid body, and maple cap, but sustainability will dominate—think lab-grown timber or carbon-neutral composites to address 21st century mahogany scarcity. Nano-coatings could offer self-healing sunbursts or holographic finishes that shift for stage flair, though, given the popularity of Murphy Lab relics, I suspect players will prefer keeping their dings and scratches but enjoy the ultra-thin finishes. AI-optimized chambering could trim weight to a svelte 6 to 7 pounds, paired with a slim-taper neck with a 10″–16″ compound radius for easy playability. Hardware will be feather light. (I’ve been loving the TonePros Tune-o-matic, which is light and sounds great, but I suspect it will get lighter).Electronics are where the 2052 Les Paul goes sci-fi. Nano-humbuckers might blend PAF warmth, single-coil snap, and synth-like capabilities, with AI tweaking tones in real-time to nail vintage or futuristic textures. The 1/4″ cable will eventually be obsolete, replaced by quantum wireless systems or direct neural interfaces. Solar-powered circuits could keep the guitar eco-friendly.Even crazier are ideas like haptic feedback, which uses touch sensation, like vibrations or pulses, to guide beginners or sync tempos. Augmented reality could overlay patterns on your fretboard to steer your fingers, turning your instrument into a Guitar Hero game where you are actually playing music.Other potential innovations include features like biometric integration sensors that could monitor hand fatigue or heart rate, adjusting playability for long sessions—ideal for touring musicians. There could also be holographic pickguards with interchangeable designs, offering visual flair without physical changes. Also on the table are climate-adaptation sensors that will adjust string tension and electronics for humidity or temperature changes, ensuring reliability in diverse venues.
Here’s where it gets a bit Black Mirror for me. AI predicts that within 40 years guitars may use neural interfaces that would allow players to control effects, tone, loops, amp settings, recordings, and more via thoughts. Or you can ditch the guitar entirely and just use brain-computer interfaces (like Neuralink, already in trials) that would enable musicians and nonmusicians to compose music directly from thoughts. Electrodes might translate neural patterns into melodies, bypassing physical instruments so you can imagine “playing” a Les Paul riff in your mind and sounding just like Jeff Beck, Joe Bonanamassa, Paul Kossoff, or anybody else, with AI rendering it as a perfect studio track.
In 28 years, my goldtop will be 100 years old and I’ll be my father’s age. When I get to this imagined future, I can’t imagine the thrill of composing in my head can come close to the sensation of that old ’52 goldtop vibrating against my body when I hit the low E.

For years, an old upright piano soundboard had sat in the hallway of the tattoo studio where Robin Wattie worked. Wattie, the vocalist and guitarist of Montreal experimental post-rock trio Big Brave, knew it was destined for the garbage dump, but neither she nor any of her coworkers wanted to actually carry it to the curb. Wattie’s bandmate, guitarist Mathieu Ball, had walked by it plenty of times, but one day, he got a notion: It’d be fun to make use of the piano strings still tensed inside the soundboard.Wattie worked down the hall, listening as Ball spent an afternoon using vice grips to snap the wooden pegs holding the lowest strings, each one cracking loose with a thunderous PLUNK. Ball estimates that he extracted 50 strings that day; 50 violent PLUNKS cutting the air of Wattie’s studio. “It was really, really funny to listen to,” says Wattie. “Also, like, the swearing.”Ball, a woodworker, disappeared for a day. He returned with “the Instrument:” a stringed instrument made of a maple plank, measuring 9″ wide and 5′ long, strung with the salvaged piano strings. With the Instrument assembled, Big Brave had a new task: figuring out how to play it. “It’s not something that comes with a manual,” says Ball. He used a double bass bow to generate sounds; Wattie used mallets, and drummer Tasy Hudson took a turn, muffling it with a pillow before striking with the mallets.Robin Wattie’s GearGuitarsFender JaguarAmpsOrange OR50H Orange 2x12Darkglass Microtubes 500v2 Ampeg 4x10EffectsBoss FV-500H volume pedalFairfield Circuitry BarbershopDirge Electronics gain pedalTC Electronic SparkLine 6 VerbzillaLehle Little Dual SwitcherStrymon Zuma power supplyStrings & PicksErnie Ball stringsDunlop Nylon .73 mm or .88 mmThis learning process was happening at Seth Manchester’s Machines with Magnets studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where the band was slated to create a collaborative record with experimental metal duo and Rhode Island natives the Body. When that band couldn’t make the sessions, Big Brave decided to record their experimentations with the Instrument; learning to play it, writing the songs, and recording them all happened at the same time. The result is OST, a collection of eight compositions centered on the Instrument. Wattie thinks that for followers of the band, it will be the most “challenging” music they’ve ever released.That’s probably true, even though Big Brave’s music has never been particularly accessible. The songs on OST are sparse, shapeless, and heavy, taut with tension and discomfort. The Instrument is accompanied only sporadically by moments of percussion, electric guitar, or voice, and its essential sound is not melody-driven. “Is it an eerie-sounding record?” wonders Ball. “What’s really interesting is that you can’t really play chords on the Instrument. If you pluck a single string, it sounds kind of dark on its own. To me, that’s the fundamental sound.” That’s okay for Big Brave: “I don’t think we’ll ever be making happy music,” continues Ball, “because it’s not the world we live in.”Mathieu Ball’s GearGuitars and BassesGibson SG SpecialAmpsMusicman RD FiftyHiwatt Custom 50Orange 2×12 cabsEffectsDirge Electronics gain pedalEQD HoofEQD Tone JobEQD Swiss ThingsLine 6 VerbzillaStrymon Big SkyMXR Carbon Copy“We’re big-feeling people,” adds Wattie. “We do have a lot of joy, and we try our best to find joy. It’s really hard to, but this is kind of what comes out. It’s not in us to make happy music, because if it was, then we would make happy music.”The record’s most unnerving and intense moments are on “innominate no. vii.” Ball’s vocals on the track are frightening and tortured, beginning as deep, uncomfortable groans before crescendoing into throat-cleaving screams. “I guess I’m only comfortable doing that in the studio,” says Ball, “but that’s how I want to just be walking down the street all the time. Luckily, we get to do it in the studio where people don’t cross the sidewalk.”“I don’t think we’ll ever be making happy music, because it’s not the world we live in.” – Mathieu BallBall and Wattie met while studying visual arts in Montreal, and Ball introduced his new friend to minimalist composers like John Cage, Tony Conrad, and Steve Reich. Ball became Wattie’s “unofficial guitar coach,” and imparted a critical lesson: If it sounds good to you, then that’s all you need to know.Big Brave was initiated around the values of minimalism, tension, and space in sound, and OST is certainly the most extreme exploration of those values. Ball describes it as a “process-based project,” where the act of creating came first, and the conceptualizing and thinking came later. “I felt so free,” Wattie smiles, recalling the sessions in Rhode Island. “Playing the guitar, for me, is a bit of a weighted thing. I’m kind of bogged down by having to prove myself all the time on the guitar, even though now I don’t necessarily have to because of where we are. I love not knowing how to play an instrument, because the shit that you can come up with from not knowing, because you’re not bogged down by the technicalities and theory and all of this stuff. I’m not classically trained at all, clearly. It’s really freeing, especially when no one else knows how to play it, because there’s not a proper way to play this instrument.”“We’re gonna burn it so no one will ever get to learn how to play it,” quips Ball.As they’ve grown together as a band, Big Brave have turned more and more to the unexpected and incidental elements of their music. They never say no to an idea one of them brings to the table. Saying no without trying something is “a bad idea for so many reasons,” says Wattie. The approach is also partly a rejection of the ultra-professionalization of music work. “It’s what we’ve been doing more and more, just fully deconstructing and rejecting technicality, and making simpler and simpler music,” says Ball. “Like utilizing feedback that’s seen as a bad thing. There’s more and more mistakes in our music that I just see as character, like a buzzy string. It’s adding character to music that gets lost when something is too perfect.”“There’s some beauty about not knowing what you’re doing.” – Robin WattieThe approach reminds Wattie of Nan Goldin, the untrained photographer whose work influenced the fashion world. Wattie appreciates the same untrained character in visual art. “I really love seeing people’s drawings who aren’t technically trained,” explains Wattie. “They’re like, ‘I love to draw, but just for myself.’ I want to see it because it’s some of the loveliest drawings I’ve ever seen. It shows how they think about lines and color and how they make up a composition. It’s also why I’m okay with not knowing how to play the guitar, to a point.”On a few occasions, Wattie has heard from thoroughly trained musicians who, in some ways, regret their training, and envy her lack of it. “It was engrained in them that this is correct,” she says. “It’s impossible to unlearn for them. There’s some beauty about not knowing what you’re doing.”YouTube ItBall, Wattie, and Hudson float through waves of feedback and distortion for a live performance of their 2024 song “Theft” in Montreal’s Studio Concrete.

Get your deluxe Decibel subscription by Monday, June 30 to secure a copy of this extremely extreme and extremely exclusive flexi disc single from Northeastern death merchants Kontusion!
The post Kontusion to Release New Song, “Insatiable Lust for Death,” via the Decibel Flexi Series! appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

When melodic death metal, metalcore, and groove collide, you get the sharpened steel of Recurrence—and their new single, “Remember Who The Enemy Is,” drives that point straight into your chest. Premiering today exclusively via Decibel, the Independence, Kentucky-based wrecking crew unveils the first taste of their upcoming sophomore full-length, Art of Survival, due out November 5 via YYMBR…
The post Track Premiere: Recurrence – “Remember Who The Enemy Is” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.