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Video Premiere: Taking it to the Streets with Moxiebeat’s “People’s Protection Program”

I can’t be the only person out there to be totally down with the chaotic blizzard of hardcore punk, dusty basement grind, disabled catalytic convertor thrash, construction site noise and quirky death spazzocity as created by the three-headed clobbering machine known as Moxiebeat while not being totally down with their moniker of choice. That they’ve gone ahead and christened their debut full-length Pop Sounds spills out more disconnect between sound and words, on the surface at least. But please be aware that, names and titles aside, this band is as serious and deadly as a heart attack with a COVID-19 chaser.

Moxiebeat, the band, started in 2013, but its members – drummer Tomas Acosta (Tomasacre), bassist/vocalist Brent Aragon (B-Train) and guitarist/vocalist Fritz Aragon (Zufos) – have been heroic stalwarts on the Riverside DIY scene for almost 20 years via the Ethospine Noise label and the sorely missed community space Blood Orange Infoshop which, when they weren’t engaged in “running Nazis out of town, harm reduction, homeless advocacy and general activism,” hosted shows featuring the likes of Alice Bag, Cloud Rat, ACxDC, Hot Nerds, Despise You, Loma Prieta, Thou, The Body, Shit Coffins, Graf Orlock and beyond.

Pop Sounds follows on the heels of the band’s 2013 self-titled EP and is an album which the band reports as steeped in “such topics as death, despair, isolation, vulnerability, justice, activism and destroying shit.” It was released back on October 30th via Ethospine Noise and today we’re offering up the first glimpse of the video for 99-second rager “People’s Protection Program.” The video itself weaves real-life images of police brutality protests with a more light-hearted storyline based on the topic. Aragon gives us more insight into the video:

“We shot this video mostly at work, with our friends, in half a day. Most of the protest footage was also within a block of the set. We understand that all the murders at the hands of the state were a symptom of greater affliction [and] of deeper systemic infirmity, a condition rooted in the DNA of a well-oiled engine. A much-needed response to a culture of passivity is always lurking, trying to make sense at the crossroads of brazen tiki-torch bravado, economic plunder and a blanketed plague. 2020 was pure absurdity and this two-minute video is just a snapshot, a reaffirmation, while having a few sickening laughs doing it.”

Lyrics:

PEOPLE’S PROTECTION PROGRAM

Here comes that crashing empire

Here comes that same old hate

For every fascist there’s a thousand scapegoats

For every tyrant a there’s a corporate saint

This is our oath to the people

This is our oath to self

We fight for all brothers and sisters

We fight for all vulnerable

We fight for all marginalized

We fight together until no end

As mentioned above, Pop Sounds has already been out for a couple of months via Ethospine. Collectors will be tickled to know that vinyl copies are available in two designs: “Birthday Cake Yellow” and “Transparent Sea Green.” More info at any one of the links listed below.

Moxiebeat

Bandcamp

Facebook

Instagram

Ethospine Noise

Website

Instagram

Bandcamp

The post Video Premiere: Taking it to the Streets with Moxiebeat’s “People’s Protection Program” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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HEAVY Digi-Mag Issue #132 – 2020 Yearbook

 

VIEW HEAVY DIGIMAG #132 HERE

 

Welcome to the final Digi-mag of the year which also serves as our writers pick for their favourite interviews and reviews of 2020.

 

This year has been challenging for many reasons but music – and heavy metal in particular – has been a saviour for those without hope and a form of entertainment and distraction in our darkest moments.

Continue reading HEAVY Digi-Mag Issue #132 – 2020 Yearbook at HEAVY Magazine – Rock, Punk, Metal Music & Beyond.

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TORIZON To Unleash New Single “Burning Away”

 

Alternative rock outfit Torizon are planning to usher in the new year with a new single slated for release on January 22.

 

“Burning Away” will be premiered exclusively through HEAVY and promises to be the bands heaviest and most angst-ridden track yet.

 

Vocalist Mish Sharma explains: “2020 has been a challenging year on a global scale. Starting with the Australian Bushfire Crisis which took a toll on the whole nation, destroying land, homes, animals and everything else in the way.

Continue reading TORIZON To Unleash New Single “Burning Away” at HEAVY Magazine – Rock, Punk, Metal Music & Beyond.

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KATANA CARTEL Release Stirring Tribute To DIMEBAG

 

Melbourne melodic/thrash heavyweights Katana Cartel have unleashed their newest track “Dime A Dozen”, in honour of the late great “DimebagDarrell Abbott of Pantera and Damageplan fame.

 

Jam-packed with soaring vocals, crushing riffs and powerful rhythms, “Dime A Dozen” is the perfect soundtrack to wrap up 2020 in pure heavy style.

 

Watch “Dime A Dozen” below:

 

Continue reading KATANA CARTEL Release Stirring Tribute To DIMEBAG at HEAVY Magazine – Rock, Punk, Metal Music & Beyond.

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Venomous Concept Members Announce New Project, Visceral Collapse, Debut ‘Knowle Rd’ Release

Grindpunk heroes Venomous Concept have had a busy 2020. Back in August, they released their rockling fourth LP, Politics Verses the Erection, before commemorating the 10th anniversary of our Decibel Flexi Series with the timely “Vote Clown Party” flexi single earlier this month. Somewhere in between, prolific bassist/guitarist Shane Embury, guitarist John Cooke and vocalist Kevin Sharp managed to record a fifth Venomous Concept LP (which you won’t lay ears on that until next year). What you will hear now is the debut of an extension of Venomous called Visceral Collapse, which functions as the group’s vehicle for material outside the Venomous Concept “comfort zone,” if such a thing were to actually exists. We’ll let Sharp break down the genesis of their sprawling 25-minute Knowle Rd release from here.

“Shane and I got to talking about records we wanted to do — I guess the older you get, the more curious you become. Records we only talked of doing but never got around to, but then COVID came and gave us two things: crisis and time on our hands. I sort of feel I have created deconstructed music in multitudes of methodology and melody might be an unexplored extreme.

So Shane wrote some songs for the next Venomous Concept album; more uptempo high-paced rock ‘n’ roll punk mixed in with a Hüsker Dü melodic ’80s hardcore punk feel. It goes this way then that way and an album forms. Anyway, you will hear more about that album next year once we roll into 2021!

The idea was for me to fly to Birmingham/Cambridge and record for my birthday back in September. I arrived three days early to work on last-minute ideas for the record we had written. Not being capable of following a plan, we went in and immediately recorded an emotional avalanche titled Knowle Rd.  This may not be for everyone. That said, this record was Johnny, Shane and myself, so in an effort to direct the ear, we are using a different acronym for this VC record: This part of our hard drive will be called Visceral Collapse, which, if you think about it, defines 2020. If in the future “Venomous Concepts” exceed perceived content, we will probably come up with another acronym… but Ook will always be VC!

So if you enjoy placing your head in an oven, I encourage you to get in your special place. and set your head to broil. Knowle Rd is the 2020 lease-breaker everyone felt this year.”

Knowle Road by Visceral Collapse

The post Venomous Concept Members Announce New Project, Visceral Collapse, Debut ‘Knowle Rd’ Release appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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Tales From the Metalnomicon: Horror Author V Castro on Metal Invocations, “Latinx Screams,” and Her Season in the Abyss

I was young. Just about tall enough to see the full screen. As my mother unloaded and folded laundry, I hung around the video juke box in the laundromat smelling like Tide as I waited for it to play the free videos. I didn’t have money, every coin in my mother’s pocket mattered. I waited. I don’t remember much about the day when Ozzy Osbourne’s “Bark at the Moon” played for the first time, but it was transformative. Half horror story and half Masterpiece Theatre, my overactive imagination was instantly captured through sound, visuals and story. Even at that age I already wrote simple horror. Still have them as well — thanks, Mom. As I continued to watch, my entire body shook with relief.

A sound to match my inner life. A new world opened to me.

For those who revel in the wilder depths and most infernal regions of dark fiction, the exploits and triumphs of V Castro over the last couple years are already the stuff of underground legend: The Mexican American ex-pat writer has sought to give voice (and, sometimes, very sharp teeth) to the marginalized other on the page — see, for example, Maria the Wanted, the tale of a “would-be immigrant turned vampire in Juarez, Mexico” who becomes a hero to the vulnerable and scourge to monsters, human and otherwise; or Hairspray and Switchblades, in which an immigrant family descended from an ancient shapeshifter bloodline square off against modern depravity and the San Antonio Stripper Ripper — and off via both her tireless championing of diversity in horror and the Fright Girl web portal designed to raise up and celebrate “those in the margins.”

As the passage above clearly demonstrates, heavy metal is a major source of inspiration and fire for Castro as well. Ask her about it, as Decibel recently did, and she’ll go some rapturous — and, as you will momentarily see, profound — places. The end of this cursed year seemed as apropos a moment for the Metalnomicon to feature Castro as any: The anthology she edited with Cynthia Pelayo, Latinx Screams, has an extremely metal cover and a spirit to match, arrived last week. And her story for the Inferno anthology, “At the Bottom of My Lake of Blood,” was explicitly inspired by Slayer’s “Seasons in the Abyss.”

“[Heavy metal] has many meanings as we all experience different realities,” Castro tells Decibel. “For me, the heavy conveys the heaviness that can accompany life. The heaviness of poverty. Of seeing a close female relative’s face bashed and bloodied from a dispute. The heaviness of uncertainty. And as a woman of color, it conveys the rage I have felt. Profound frustration. And no matter who you are or your background, we all experience a heaviness. When the words cannot be conveyed, or screamed, there is always music to express it for you. Latinx Screams was my desire to bring forth the screams from the Latinx community.

“[Metal] reminds you that no matter what is happening, you are still alive,” she continues. “I’m no musician. I write horror, but, like heavy metal, I don’t shy away from the heaviness of life. Or the sensual.

“Metal can also be unifying, like horror. My father is now an aging hippy who had every damn rock and metal album under the sun. The covers — like the videos on MTV, horror film VHS covers — were an obsession of mine as a child. I held his records before the laundromat. To this day I have only one in my possession. Funny enough it was my favorite cover, Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. For some unknown reason it was the only one he had left. I believe it was to cement the forgiveness and healing between us. No matter what anyone says, I believe music, including heavy metal, is a balm. I have experienced it. I hope storytelling can be unifying and healing for us a species.”

Castro’s metal-philia firmly established, she sent along the following playlist to accompany your Inferno and Latinx Screams journey…

Metallica: “Orion”

Every time I listen to this piece of music, it evokes different emotions and images for me. It tells a thousand stories depending on the listener. The first time, I felt there was something incredibly charged within the slow build up of the guitar and drums. Expectation. Oozing hot magma. Then it comes at you all at once in an explosion of relentless beauty. This song exemplifies everything I wanted to express in the cover of Latinx Screams. Rich color and Death itself captivated by a book that tells the tales of voices often left in the deep.

Emperor: “A Fine Day to Die” by Bathory

I couldn’t think of a better song to accompany Pancho Claus Vs. Krampus in Latinx Screams. Ihsahn’s voice and guitar begin as soft as light snow falling beneath the aurora borealis on a cold winter’s night. Calm turns to terror. Krampus stomps in the snow when the music changes with his chains in hand to confront Pancho Claus. I imagined the change in vocals the hot breath expelled by the creature as it creates wispy eddies of white in the freezing wind. A fight to the death ensues. You will have to read it to find out the rest!

Alice in Chains: “Rooster” and “Man in the Box”

Latinx Screams opens with “Sangre Derramada” by Hector Acosta. It takes place in a chicken slaughterhouse. A place of low pay, reprehensible treatment of the animals and workers. The stink saturates everything. Feathers and viscera strewn across the floor that could be your own. But work is work and food is food. Rooster begins like those early hours without sleep, but knowing you have to wake up for the daily grind that can be a horror for some. The monotony of unrealized dreams. Taking what you can get when you can get it. But beneath it all there is the simmering rage. All things hidden are never left for long. “Man in the Box” conjures the effects of colonialism for me and is a resounding prayer to Santa Muerte. After the Spanish invasion, the indigenous were forced to convert, if they survived the many atrocities of that time. But faith doesn’t die easy when it is real. Many of the indigenous deities were repackaged as Catholic saints. Santa Muerte is the version of the death goddess, Mictecacíhuatl. (Next year I have a novel dropping all about this goddess, The Queen of The Cicadas.)

Slayer: “Seasons in The Abyss”

Inferno is an anthology based on the levels in Dante’s Inferno. It had been years since I read this book. I did a little brush up to figure out where my mind would settle knowing it had to be super dark. It would seem Slayer possessed the answer. The chords painted the images as I wrote. It feels downtrodden in the beginning. A desire to escape with eyes upturned. Marry this with knowing what it is like to be The Other, I had to take on the character of Satan. But not in the traditional sense. I am a Mexican woman, and this would be reflected in the story. It’s about casting off labels and expectations. A self-acceptance that has the power to break through chains straight to the world of the living. When the initial work is complete, you can leave behind the past to create a new future. Everything about this song breathes life into the story. It was love at first sight.

Twisted Sister: “We’re Not Gonna Take It”

The theme for Latinx Screams was to express your truth and experiences through horror. Writing and storytelling are acts of rebellion that have the power to create change. I gave the authors no limits because there is enough of that in life especially when you come from a marginalized community. In short, you don’t have to take shit anyone is shovelling.

Danzig: “Her Black Wings”

Although “Her Black Wings” was the image I saw for the character, all of Danzig’s music encompasses what I like to call the dark feminine. (See also Bather’s excellent cover of this song, premiered on the site in October — .ed) This captures are the things said and done behind closed doors with lights on, beneath a full moon, or by candlelight. It’s dark feminine because it challenges the shyness and shrinking women are supposed to exhibit in life to make others feel more comfortable. The lack of deep connection we deny with ourselves because “Women can’t be like that.” Danzig’s music tears theses notions down.

His vocals can be a tender kiss to the neck or the crack of a breaking headboard. A box spring mattress reduced to rubble. Seduction begins in the mind. It’s difficult to not surrender to the seduction of all your senses when listening to Danzig. Life is a sensual experience at the heart of it. It is by our senses we perceive the world. Dark feminine is also power. Not the power of controlling another, or their destruction. It is the dark power of knowing who you are and what you want without being afraid of it, including deep desire. That is a power anyone can possess. I also write erotic horror (Sed de Sangre) because life is far too short to deny feeling truly alive. Glenn, darling. If you are reading this, I have mega ideas for Verotica!

Metal is sexy, rebellious, raw and real. It can be you. It is me.

The post Tales From the Metalnomicon: Horror Author V Castro on Metal Invocations, “Latinx Screams,” and Her Season in the Abyss appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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Video Premiere: Left to Vanish – “Pity”

The dim, labyrinthine cellar featured in the new Left to Vanish music video probably feels like home to fans of basement shows. Many fans of the resurgent metalcore group have probably windmilled in tighter and shadier quarters. But the setting in the video for their new single “Pity” isn’t about nostalgia—even though we all miss concerts. It’s a metaphorical representation of mental claustrophobia as much as physical. The band has never shied away from emotive themes since their formation in 2001. But nearly two decades later, the band makes their music even more personal while sharpening their throne-smashing sound.

You don’t need a flashlight to find a worthy riff in “Pity.” The song’s restless pulse is a headbanging engine. The single’s scarlet polish includes a swelling chorus that will thrill fans of their Dethroned LP. You can even take your pick between several destructive breakdowns that could rip a room apart. But Left to Vanish continue to balance the muscular momentum of their music with silver-linings of melody. The contagious scream-along chorus illuminates the song’s unlit passages. The band’s bond is loud and clear in the video as the members shout in unison. It’s just a matter of time before fans join in.

“This was an important video for us to make,” shares guitarist Sean Salm. “Coming back from a 8 year hiatus we feel like we have a lot to prove during this new era of Left to Vanish. We’ve all had our speed bumps adjusting to real life after the band split in 2009. Bob Meadows (ex-A Life Once Lost)—who has taken over vox when we reformed in 2017—has had his own personal battles after ALOL split in 2013. Transitioning from an active touring band to the “9 to 5” grind wasn’t easy, and over the years left us all with a void. Bob’s lyrics in “Pity” dives deep into depression, which in the video we wanted to capture seeking light in darkness. Its symbolism cuts deep in the Covid pandemic world we’re all navigating together currently, as we’re all looking for any sign of light.

“We’re excited over the course of the next few months to drop new music,” Salm continues. “When we came back from our hiatus in 2017, we quickly released Dethroned, which was a follow up to our record Versus The Throne via Lifeforce Records in 2008. With our record Dethroned we were getting our legs back under us and was our first record with Bob. These new songs we’re about to release is LTV in our groove.”

Make your way through the darkness and stream Left to Vanish’s “Pity” below.

Follow Left to Vanish on Facebook for news and updates HERE

The post Video Premiere: Left to Vanish – “Pity” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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SCENE & HEARD Rescheduled

 

The following statement has been released by organisers of Scene & Heard Festival:

 

Scene & Heard and its stakeholders are following the consultation advice we have had with the Local, State and National authorities and we’re sorry to announce today that we must sadly confirm the need to reschedule the NSW event planned for February.

 

The new festival date will be Sunday, Nov 7, 2021 – Wickham Park Newcastle (NSW)

 

Due to State Government and current standing Federal Government Public Health Orders regarding COVID-19, multi-stage mass music gathering events are not permissible in ‘true’ festival format just yet.

Continue reading SCENE & HEARD Rescheduled at HEAVY Magazine – Rock, Punk, Metal Music & Beyond.

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INFILTRATION With New Single

 

Russian death metallers Infiltration have released their latest single “Missing In Bodycount”.

 

The song is taken from the band’s debut album Point Blank Termination which is out now via Time To Kill Records.

 

Watch “Missing In Bodycount” below:

 

Continue reading INFILTRATION With New Single at HEAVY Magazine – Rock, Punk, Metal Music & Beyond.

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WOLVES ATTACH!! To Release EP

 

Philadelphia hardcore/thrash outfit Wolves Attack!! Return with their new EP Rest In Piss which comes almost four years since the release of their debut single “Piss On Everything”.

 

Rest In Piss contains six tracks of pure musical mayhem and will be released on January 29 via Horror Pain Gore Death Productions.

 

Watch “Heavy Breathing” from the EP below:

 

Continue reading WOLVES ATTACH!! To Release EP at HEAVY Magazine – Rock, Punk, Metal Music & Beyond.