French band Verdun, who create a beautiful, compelling blend of black metal and sludge, unleash a new song from their album which is even filthier and nastier than the other two that are out. No Clean Singing premiered it over HERE. Excerpt from it – “Verdun’s new music is humongously heavy and powerfully channels an array of damaged and dangerous […]
C. Auguste Dupin: The Eccentric Genius Behind Modern Detective Fiction
Before the world looked to London for answers, a reclusive mind in Paris redefined the art of the mystery.
To understand the modern detective, one must first deconstruct the Eccentric Genius of C. Auguste Dupin. While later sleuths became household names, Edgar Allan Poe first introduced the world to the brilliant but socially detached investigator. Because Poe prioritized psychological depth over simple plot points, he created a character who feels as alive today as he did in the 1840s. Furthermore, you can explore more of these early masterpieces in our Edgar Allan Poe Archive.
First appearing in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, C. Auguste Dupin is widely considered the first modern detective in literature. His methods of ratiocination later inspired countless fictional investigators, including Sherlock Holmes.
The Anatomy of a Reclusive Mind
Dupin was not a professional; rather, he was a man of “double personality” who solved crimes for the sheer intellectual challenge. First, Poe gave him a disdain for the mundane, choosing to live in total darkness during the day. Second, he possessed a “creatural” intuition that allowed him to inhabit the mind of a criminal. Specifically, this blend of logic and madness is a recurring theme in Poe’s influence on modern culture.
The Original Noir Hero
By highlighting the Eccentric Genius of C. Auguste Dupin, Poe essentially birthed the noir hero. This character exists as the outsider who navigates a corrupt world using only his wits. Furthermore, his internal struggles often mirror the author’s own life. Consequently, when we analyze Poe’s genius or madness, we see that Dupin was the perfect vessel for Poe’s analytical obsessions.
Conclusion: The Parisian Architect
In conclusion, the detective genre owes its soul to the shadows of Paris. Dupin remains the ultimate architect of ratiocination, providing a rhythmic, dark logic that we still celebrate in our music today. Just as the narrator was captivated by Dupin in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue“, we remain haunted by his brilliance.
Progressive metal heroes Voivod have always been at the forefront of creative, challenging metal music and their new live album, Symphonique, further cements that legacy. Recorded live at the Grand Théâtre in Quebec City, Canada, Symphonique is a live record in collaboration with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra.
The performance revisits tracks from across Voivod’s career, putting a particular focus on selections that, along with the musicians in the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, have a particularly cinematic or soundtrack feeling. The end result is what the best live albums are: releases that frame the familiar music in a new light.
Decibel spoke with Voivod drummer Michel “Away” Langevin prior to the release of Symphonique (out June 5 on Century Media) to discuss song selection, rehearsals, movie soundtracks and how the experience affected Voivod’s songwriting.
You guys have done a few live albums as a band before. Obviously this one is a little different but what made you interested in another live record?
It’s actually the Montreal Symphony Orchestra that approached us. It must’ve been three or four years ago for this project and it took a couple of years to put it together. We had tracked some stuff in the past, like on the Wake album in 2018 a string quartet and for the Montreal Jazz Fest in 2019, we had a brass quintet. It’s always been a dream of ours to play with an orchestra. Even back int he day, we were including bits of modern composers into our music.
We actually got busted by the orchestra in Montreal, they recognized all the bits. We did the two shows in Montreal early last year and then in the summer, we got a chance to do it again in Quebec City. This time, we wanted to record the audio. Since all the instruments are miced up, it was a big mess at first when we got all the tracks because there were maybe 65 musicians. Thankfully, Francis [Perron], who does the albums with us these days, was able to clean everything up to where you can actually hear every member of the orchestra and every member of Voivod as well. I’m really impressed with the sound of it.
It’s very cinematic sounding. It has a movie soundtrack vibe, in a really positive way.
We’ve always wanted to do a soundtrack to a dystopian movie and that’s the cloest we got to doing that with an orchestra. We picked the songs accordingly, songs with many movements and some more proggy, though we did pick “Nuclear War” from the first album. We thought it could turn into a very scary military march with the orchestra.
You touched on it just now—you have so many albums and songs at this point. How did you go about choosing the songs you would include? Were you trying to give a full sample of your discography?
We definitely wanted to do an overview of our career but we also made sure that we picked songs that would match with the orchestra. We only had one restriction: if you go over 90 minutes, you have to pay extra money to the union, so we picked twelve songs and made sure that we were OK. Once the songs were chosen, the ones that we thought made a lot of sense with an orchestra, we started to do the setlist so it would sound like a long trip.
It took a couple of years putting that together. Chewy was very involved with Hugo, the arranger, and so he was giving him ideas like the band could stop and Snake could sing along with the orchestra, stuff like that. We had to make sure for these shows to remember the arrangements. It’s a lot of pressure on my end, because if I make a mistake, the whole orchestra is lost. I was very focused.
I remember we had a couple meetings with the arranger and I was mentioning the influence we had from early cyberpunk movies like Mad Max and Terminator, and I was also mentioning soundtracks for the old movies Planet of the Apes, where it’s more avant-garde material, so I think he really understood what we were looking for.
Chewy was asking him for a part in “Forgotten in Space,” he wanted the violin section to do something very shrieky like in the shower scene in Psycho. It went really well. It was a couple years of exchanging ideas. As soon as we got the first demos from the arranger, I immediately felt like I was in a sci-fi movie. I think we achieved our goal.
Do any of you guys have backgrounds in classical music?
Not necessarily, but Chewy teaches jazz in a college, so he has a lot of notions and he gave the arranger charts for every song, so he had a good head start.
How often were you working on rehearsals or performances for this?
We had a few sessions where we’ve been recording for the past eleven years or so. We had the arranger’s demos and Chewy matched the original recordings of the songs from the albums with the arranger’s demo, so we went into our studio to rehearse that. For the first two shows we did in Montreal, before the first show, we rehearsed the set twice. The day of the first show we did it once, the day of the second show, we did it once. Combined with the performance, the shows, it’s twice a day. By the end, I was pretty exhausted.
In Quebec City, we did the same, where we had two rehearsals before the show and the morning of the show, we had one. It’s not necessarily a physical exhaustion. It’s more like the brain has a hard time focusing after a while, but I made it.
Do you think it felt different than your typical Voivod show, like people were getting a different experience in that regard?
Yes, there was a lot to absorb with all these musicians on stage and animation as a background. These venues are just amazing. It sounds amazing. There were people that had a membership to the orchestra that didn’t know about metal, there were metal people not really used to classical concerts. Everybody really enjoyed it—it was a great experience for the orchestra as well, because they did not expect such a reaction from the crowd.
Usually it’s clapping—for us, between songs, it was a big roar, had a couple of standing ovations. At one point, the crowd started chanting the conductor’s [Dina Gilbert] name, “Dina! Dina!” It was a first for her and at one point, people were going, “Hey! Hey! Hey!” during a song and she said, “Thank god your public is on the beat.”
Do you think doing this string of shows will influence the way you think about writing or performing in the future?
Interestingly, we are, between tours, writing and recording a new album. We decided to record it three songs at a time; that’s all we can afford right now between tours. We noticed that the symphony shows rubbed on the writing and we can feel the influence. It’s a concept album too, so it might actually sound like a soundtrack. It won’t be ready this year, that’s for sure.
We have a lot of shows coming up. Early next year, we’re going to do the symphony show again, in Northern Quebec were Snake and I grew up with the local orchestra. That’s going to be really amazing. If we can, we’d love to take that show across the globe with the local orchestras.
I like the Asia Symfonia album with the local orchestra in Bulgaria and I think that’s the way to do it.
Crowbar frontman and guitarist Kirk Windstein has announced via social media that the New Orleans sludge metal band will play a free hometown show on July 17 at Southport Music Hall in New Orleans. The concert will be filmed for a future live album release.
The announcement comes at a moment of renewed and expanded visibility for Crowbar, a band nearly four decades into its career. Viral interest — particularly within the bodybuilding community, where Crowbar‘s music has become widely associated with training and powerlifting culture — propelled the band past one million monthly listeners on Spotify in February 2026.
Crowbar was formed in New Orleans in the early 1990s and has remained one of the defining acts in sludge and doom metal, known for a catalog that balances crushing heaviness with raw emotional directness. Windstein has led the band continuously across more than a dozen studio albums.
Violet Breed has released “Sing,” the project’s fifth single. The band is a collaboration between Brian Wheat, founder and bassist of the multi-platinum rock band Tesla, and Alex Gonzato, an emerging U.K. singer-songwriter. Wheat handled production and engineering on the track, which he and Gonzato co-wrote. The prior four singles — “Awake,” “10 Years Sober,” “Endless Days” and “Stay Away” — have accumulated more than 960,000 combined music video views.
“Sing” is described as a rock anthem built around a chant-like hook, an anthemic chorus layered in melodic vocal harmonies, gritty guitars and thunderous drums. Lyrically, the song is about using your voice as a rallying cry — speaking up for yourself and others as an act of defiance against the restrictions of everyday life. Wheat and Gonzato have spent five years developing material for a debut album that draws from their own life experiences. Shared musical touchstones include The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Queen and My Chemical Romance.
Wheat has spent more than four decades in the music industry as the founder and bassist of Tesla, managing the band alongside his own recording work with side projects including Soul Motor and now Violet Breed. He is also the author of the autobiography Son of a Milkman.
Avatar has announced the “Don’t Go In The Forest ’26” European headline tour — 23 dates running from November 20 through December 19, 2026, with Danish death metal band Neckbreakker in support on all dates. Tickets go on sale Tuesday, May 26 at 10 a.m. local time here. The tour follows a summer that sees the Swedish theatrical metal band supporting Metallica on their global run and playing major European festival stages before heading to Australia.
Vocalist Johannes Eckerström said: “A Europe in November. A Europe in December. Cold, wet and dark. We all know what it’s like, and we know exactly what you’ll need. The first European leg made us feel very lucky to be doing this. This time around, we will do everything within our power to make you feel lucky to participate. We live by but one ethos: Better than ever. I really want to see you, and you really don’t want to miss this.”
Avatar released its tenth studio album, Don’t Go In The Forest, in October 2025 via Black Waltz Records. The follow-up to 2023’s Dance Devil Dance was produced by Jay Ruston, who has previously worked with Anthrax, Steel Panther and Uriah Heep, among others. Ruston first worked with Avatar mixing Hail the Apocalypse and has since produced Avatar Country and Hunter Gatherer. Dance Devil Dance featured a guest appearance by Lzzy Hale of Halestorm on “Violence No Matter What” and included the single “The Dirt I’m Buried In,” which reached No. 1 on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart.
Eckerström founded Avatar in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2001, and the band’s lineup has remained largely unchanged since — save for guitarist Tim Öhrström, who joined roughly a decade later. The current lineup is Eckerström (vocals), Jonas Jarlsby (guitar), Öhrström (guitar), Henrik Sandelin (bass) and John Alfredsson (drums).
“Don’t Go In The Forest ’26” European tour dates with Neckbreakker:
Nov. 20 — Wolverhampton, England — KK’s Steelmill
Nov. 21 — Southampton, England — O2 Guildhall
Nov. 22 — Cardiff, Wales — Depot
Nov. 24 — Dublin, Ireland — National Stadium
Nov. 25 — Belfast, Northern Ireland — Limelight
Nov. 27 — Norwich, England — UEA
Nov. 28 — Newcastle, England — Northumbria University
Nov. 29 — Edinburgh, Scotland — Corn Exchange
Dec. 1 — Amsterdam, Netherlands — Gashouder
Dec. 3 — Oberhausen, Germany — Turbinenhalle
Dec. 5 — Budapest, Hungary — Barba Negra Red
Dec. 6 — Prague, Czechia — Sasazu
Dec. 8 — Innsbruck, Austria — Musichall
Dec. 9 — Linz, Austria — Posthof
Dec. 10 — Ulm, Germany — Roxy
Dec. 11 — Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg — Rockhal
Dec. 12 — Zürich, Switzerland — Komplex
Dec. 13 — Frankfurt, Germany — Zoom
Dec. 15 — Padova, Italy — Hall
Dec. 16 — Ljubljana, Slovenia — Cvetlicarna
Dec. 17 — Zagreb, Croatia — Boogaloo
Dec. 18 — Bratislava, Slovakia — Majestic Music Club
Polish black metal outfit Piołun has returned with their second full-length album, “Exolvuntur”, which is out now via Malignant Voices. Listen to the album: On “Exolvuntur”, Piołun remains deeply inspired by the Scandinavian and Polish black metal scenes of the 90s, while incorporating a refined, contemporary edge. It follows the band’s 2022 debut, “Rzeki Goryczy”. “Stylistically, it is […]
It’s been six years since Rogga Johansson’s Megascavenger released their last album, the acclaimed Songs In The Key Of Madness – but then the relentlessly creative explorer of the realms of death metal has been more than busy in the interim, releasing albums with Ribspreader, Revolting, Putrevore, Paganizer, Grisly, Furnace and Eye Of Purgatory, to name just a fraction of […]
(Andy Synn, who spent the whole weekend at MDF, still found time to handle today’s premiere) In my opinion, the job of an article like this – one that’s simultaneously both a premiere and a review (you might even call it a preview) – is not so much to tell you what to think as […]
