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Terfex.com - Decibel
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List Price: N/A
Our Price: $19.95
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 3 months
Manufacturer: Red Flag Media Inc
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Magazine
First Issue Lead Time: 6-10
Format: Magazine Subscription
Issues Per Year: 11
Label: Red Flag Media Inc
Magazine Type: Trade magazine
Manufacturer: Red Flag Media Inc
Number Of Issues: 11
Publisher: Red Flag Media Inc
Studio: Red Flag Media Inc
Subscription Length: 365
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Editorial Reviews:
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America's first real extreme music magazine, Decibel, is founded upon a steadfast commitment to quality, cutting-edge coverage of every subgenre under the expanding umbrella of extreme music. Provides American metal, hardcore and estreme rock fans with interviews, reviews, news and more.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Pretty much perfect
Comment: This is my favorite magazine right now. This is the magazine that I always get excited about when it comes in the mail. Decibel is obviously written by people who are big music fans in general, but love extreme metal music. These are the people who can see a lot of music journalists for the wankers they are and that bands like Slayer, Carcass, Jesu, and Converge deserve as much, if not more respect than popular bands like Talking Heads, Nirvana, and Radiohead.
One of the best things about this magazine is how it covers all genres and eras. They'll do a profile of some obscure grindcore or doom metal band or a band that is just doing something entirely new. And they do cover stories on popular older bands like Iron Maiden, but then they'll do a cover story on bands that might not be that popular, but are still some of the best out there, like Pig Destroyer and Pelican. So they try to have something for everyone here. There's some good articles for people who aren't huge metalheads and plenty of stuff here for people that want to dig a little deeper. But what they don't do, at least not for a while now, is do cover stories on popular bands that just kinda suck. Their cover story on Trivium has become a joke among the magazine's readers and writers and doesn't look to be something that will be repeated.
Reviews are usually well written. They're not afraid to give out a couple of 9's to the albums that deserve them each month. These, as well as pretty much everything else in the magazine, are usually written with a lot of humor, but you can still tell these are people who genuinely love this music. Also they review a lot of different stuff. You might see Cannibal Corpse, Jesu, Queens of the Stone Age, and even really inventive heavy hip hop like Dalek in the same issue.
The magazine's most popular feature is probably the Hall of Fame. This is an article in each issue where they induct a classic album into their Hall of Fame by interviewing every band member involved in the making of it. The interviews are usually really informative and often include some funny anecdotes.
Another good article is Call and Response where they send seven mp3s labeled only by song title to a different musician and ask for their opinion on them. This usually leads to musicians just totally trashing other bands, sometimes bands they're friends with. Other times, it shows you just how insanely knowledgeable some of these guys are about these bands.
Anyway, this review is already going on pretty long, but there are so many things I like about this magazine. There's always some interesting articles and it's always turning me onto good music. And it's pretty funny too. Check it out.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Its competition is hardly daunting...
Comment: Credit Decibel for handling the mostly-ignored world of "extreme" music with some semblance of professionalism. Credit Decibel for copious and honest CD and live reviews. Credit Decibel for its coverage of new/emerging bands.
Decibel has great potential. It is one of the few music magazines that I read regularly, and one of the few that doesn't make me want to see fiery death rain down upon music journalists as a whole. However, what I thought, in my early experiences with the mag, to be minor growing-pain type quirks seem to have developed into a style that is distracting and ultimately betrays a sort of scenesterism that one does not expect from a magazine proffering itself as the chronicler of "the new noise."
I understand the need to pay the bills, so while bile rises in my throat when I see the Victory adds or the little fluffy pieces on the new CD from My Mascara Hides the Tracks of My Tears, I say to myself "capitalism...it is an ugly thing." And I understand the desirability of addressing music being made outside the scene, though when this happens, I am less and less able to shrug it off with each issue as the name-dropping of sub-par indie-pap, coupled with a lack of acknowledgment of more interesting (though not as fashionable) current non-metal/hardcore music, I sometimes think that maybe Decibel is the project of cheeky hipsters, an experiment in ultra-meta-post-ironic-irony. The fanboy fawning that's been cropping up in interviews with increasing frequency does nothing to diminish this impression, either.
But this is where I become truly baffled: ha, ha, the jokes about Mom's Basement are funny BECAUSE they play into ignorant stereotypes, but then, in the "sub culture" section, Decibel jumps feet first INTO the stereotype: Horror/Sci-Fi Movies, Video Games, and Graphic Novels. Not that any of these things, per se, are "bad," but come on...if you're going to go beyond music(which maybe you shouldn't do quite yet), do you think you could at least get REALLY pretentious (and not just Nerd Pretentious) and at least do some cultural critique essay on ethos and aestethics? Seriously. You're dealing with music that has rich and textured roots artistically, politically, and socially, and yet you're telling us about how bad the XBox 360 sucks or---whaddaya know?---that Michael Bay's a hack?
Still...three stars. The world of music journalism is safe from fiery death. For now.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Best Heavy Metal Magazine Out There
Comment: I've been recieving Decibel Magazine for almost a year now, and it is the only music oriented magazine that has actually appealed to me. It goes in depth with some of the best artists of all time, while still keeping me up-to-date with the new rising artists. I would recommend this magazine to any metal fan out there. SUBSCRIBE NOW!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great new magazine!
Comment: I've been looking for a good music magazine for a long time and i've finally found it! Decibel features awesome bands on a monthly basis. Just been warned you won't find any Velvet revolver or slipknot in its contents, and that's a good thing! Decibel writes about bands worth finding more about and who aren't just the flavour of the week. It has good articles and it's also very well put together and visually pleasing. I eagerly await getting the new issues every month. If you're a music lover you need to buy a copy of decibel, because you won't be dissapointed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Decibel Magazine is the sizzle...(Chris Freeman, BoozePig)
Comment: Ever since we got the first issue of decibel at my work, i've found it to be an informative and entertaining mag that somehow manages to cover a lot of my favorite bands and musical preferences. While I agree with many of their reviews, sometimes i feel as if i've been mislead when i hear what the album actually sounds like (which was the case with the red chord) but it beats revolver, and i see it as the american counterpart to the UK mag terrorizer...so thumbs up.
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