About Decibel

Decibel

Decibel is an American monthly magazine devoted to heavy metal and extreme music, published from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Red Flag Media. Conceived in late 2003 by journalist Albert Mudrian and officially launched in July 2004, it is described as the only national monthly metal magazine in the United States — "the last man standing" among metal publications on the newsstand. The tag-line is currently "Extremely Extreme" (previously "The New Noise"), and the editor-in-chief is founder Albert Mudrian. Its official website is decibelmagazine.com.

The magazine is built around long-form features, a legendary "Hall of Fame" series documenting landmark metal albums through interviews with every participating band member, the highly collectible Flexi Series of exclusive flexi-disc releases, annual critics' polls crowning Albums of the Year, and a broader brand that includes Decibel Books publishing, a record label, an annual month-long metal tour, and the Decibel Metal & Beer festivals held annually in Philadelphia and Denver.

Publication at a Glance

Decibel is a monthly English-language magazine published by the Philadelphia-based Red Flag Media. The first issue, featuring The Dillinger Escape Plan on the cover, was published on September 4, 2004, with an initial circulation of 30,000 copies. The magazine's original staff of journalists included Nick Terry, Aaron Burgess, Iann Robinson, and Kevin Stewart-Panko. Contributing writers have included J. Bennett, Joe Gross, former Carcass frontman Jeffrey Walker, and Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle.

Conception and Naming

Albert Mudrian conceived Decibel in late 2003, around the time he was finishing his book Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal & Grindcore (2004). Mudrian had previously written for a number of magazines published by Philadelphia-based Red Flag Media, which he joined in 1997, and felt there was "a market in the United States for a metal magazine that covered extreme music the way that magazines like Spin used to cover pop music and culture."

Mudrian brainstormed ideas for the magazine with former Terrorizer editor Nick Terry, whom he had first contacted in 2002 to write the foreword for Choosing Death. The magazine's original working title was Powertrip (after the Monster Magnet song and album); Terry pushed for naming it Sabotage (after the Beastie Boys song), though the idea was scrapped in light of the September 11 attacks. Influences cited on Decibel's content and editorial style include the British magazine Terrorizer and, as a possible deep-background influence, Alternative Press.

Launch and Early Years

Decibel was officially launched in July 2004. The first issue featured The Dillinger Escape Plan on the cover and shipped on September 4, 2004, with an initial circulation of 30,000 copies. In December 2004, Dillinger Escape Plan's second album Miss Machine was crowned "Album of the Year" in the magazine's first-ever critics' poll — establishing a tradition of annual critics' polls that continues to this day.

Early copies were handed out free at festivals, and Mudrian later recalled that the goal was always "to make the best metal magazine the world had ever seen." At launch, there were perhaps six to ten additional metal and rock publications on American newsstands; Decibel outlasted them all, becoming, in Mudrian's words, "the last man standing in that sense."

The Hall of Fame

The magazine's recurring "Hall of Fame" feature documents landmark metal albums via interviews with every participating band member — an exhaustive, oral-history-style treatment that has become one of the signature features of metal journalism. Early Hall of Fame entries included Slayer's Reign in Blood (November 2004), At the Gates' Slaughter of the Soul (March 2005), Sepultura's Roots (April 2005), Paradise Lost's Gothic (June 2005), Anthrax's Among the Living (July 2005), Entombed's Left Hand Path (August 2005), Emperor's In the Nightside Eclipse (December 2005), Sleep's Jerusalem (March 2006), Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness (April 2006), Eyehategod's Take as Needed for Pain (June 2006), and The Dillinger Escape Plan's Calculating Infinity (December 2006).

The Flexi Series

The Decibel Flexi Series — exclusive flexi-disc releases bound into issues of the magazine — became one of the most collectible features of the publication, delivering rare and exclusive tracks from extreme-metal bands directly to subscribers and newsstand buyers. The series exemplifies the magazine's hands-on relationship with the underground: physical artifacts of new music, distributed through print.

Albert Mudrian

Founder and editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian (born 1975) is the author of Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal & Grindcore, widely recognized as an authoritative text on the history of extreme metal, documenting the evolution of death metal and grindcore from a small tape-trading subculture to a genre whose artists reach million-dollar sales. A limited updated and expanded edition was published in hardcover in 2015 by Decibel Books, with a further expanded "death-luxe" edition published in 2016 by Bazillion Points, featuring forewords by BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel and Repulsion founder Scott Carlson.

Mudrian lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and their daughter and son. Under the Decibel banner he also runs a publishing arm and record label, books an annual month-long metal tour, and curates and organizes the annual Decibel Metal & Beer festivals in Philadelphia and Denver.

The Decibel Brand Beyond Print

The magazine has grown into a multi-platform metal institution. Decibel Books publishes expanded editions of extreme-metal literature, including the Choosing Death hardcover. The annual Decibel Metal & Beer festivals in Philadelphia and Denver pair extreme music with craft beer, and the annual month-long metal tour takes the magazine's curatorial vision on the road. The first Choosing Death Fest was held in Philadelphia on April 16, 2016, in two parts: a "Grimposium" of panel discussions with death metal experts and an advance screening of the documentary Death by Metal, followed by a concert at Union Transfer headlined by Nails with Misery Index, Deceased, Noisem, Horrendous, Derketa, and Taphos Nomos.

20th Anniversary

In 2024, the magazine celebrated its 20th anniversary. On August 31, 2024, Decibel held a 20th Anniversary Show at the Brooklyn Bowl in Philadelphia, featuring Autopsy, Horrendous, Immolation, Krieg, Rid of Me, Deathevokation, Ecdysis, and Crypt Sermon — a lineup spanning death metal, grindcore, and black metal that reflected the magazine's editorial range.

The Critics' Polls

The annual Decibel critics' poll, crowning an Album of the Year each December, is one of the most closely watched year-end lists in heavy music. The first-ever poll, in December 2004, crowned The Dillinger Escape Plan's Miss Machine — the band that had graced the magazine's first cover. The polls, along with the Hall of Fame series, give the magazine an institutional role in canon-building for extreme metal, documenting which records the genre's journalists and musicians consider definitive.

The magazine's tag-line — currently "Extremely Extreme" (previously "The New Noise") — captures its editorial personality: serious about extreme music, playful in presentation, and unapologetic in its devotion to heavy music's heaviest forms.

On August 31, 2024, Decibel held a 20th Anniversary Show at the Brooklyn Bowl in Philadelphia, featuring Autopsy, Horrendous, Immolation, Krieg, Rid of Me, Deathevokation, Ecdysis, and Crypt Sermon — a lineup spanning death metal, grindcore, and black metal that reflected the magazine's editorial range. Under the Decibel banner, Mudrian also runs a publishing arm and record label, books an annual month-long metal tour, and curates and organizes annual Decibel Metal & Beer festivals in Philadelphia and Denver, making the magazine the center of a year-round heavy-music ecosystem.

Official Website

The magazine's official website is https://www.decibelmagazine.com, carrying news, features, Hall of Fame entries, Flexi Series details, festival and tour information, and subscriptions. The magazine remains the only national monthly metal magazine in the United States, published continuously since September 2004.