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Hey Gear Nerds!

Big week. Fenriz gave Decibel one of the best interviews they’ve run all year—proper deep-dive stuff about the new Darkthrone record, what “prehistoric metal” actually means to him, and why he still doesn’t care what you think. Required reading.

Meanwhile Mastodon dropped their first single with a new guitarist as a tribute to Brent Hinds, Graveyard announced album number seven, and JHS accidentally bottled a Dumble circuit for $89. Accidentally. Let’s unpack all of it.

Let’s go…

Decibel sat down with Fenriz for a proper Q&A about the new Darkthrone album, Prehistoric Metal, and it’s one of those pieces you want to read slowly. Not because it’s dense—Fenriz doesn’t write dense, he writes exactly what he means. It’s worth sitting with because it’s rare to hear someone 35 years into a career who still sounds like they haven’t been compromised by a single outside opinion.

He talks about where the title came from, which is exactly what you’d expect: an honest attempt to name what Darkthrone actually does. “Prehistoric” isn’t retro nostalgia. It’s more like—this is before genre divisions mattered, before the marketing came in, before anyone cared about streaming metadata. They just make the sounds that exist in their heads. Fenriz and Nocturno Culto have been doing this together since the late ’80s, and nothing about their process has been touched by commercialism.

As a guitarist and someone who’s spent a long time watching bands either stay true to themselves or slowly drift toward whatever’s palatable—Darkthrone is almost an anomaly. They’ve put out albums I don’t always love, but I’ve never once questioned whether they meant it. That’s not a small thing.

The Q&A also touches on where the band might go from here, which is classic Fenriz: completely unresolved, and somehow totally fine with that. No five-year plan. No stadium ambitions. Just the next riff.

Worth your time on a Thursday morning before the rest of the noise starts.

Read “Digging Up Metal Fossils” on Decibel →

→ Mastodon — Poisonous Weapons — “Your Ghost Again” is the lead single from album nine and it hits hard—written as a tribute to Brent Hinds, the track is heavy, melodic, and carries real emotional weight. They’ve also announced a massive fall North American tour with Deafheaven and Alcest. Insane lineup. First listen is required. Listen →

→ Steak — untitled LP (Fall 2026) — London’s finest stoner heavies premiered “Luxury Junk” this week and are heading out on UK dates supporting All Them Witches. First album on Stickman Records. Dense, fuzz-forward, and built for road volume. Premiere →

→ Castle — Carrie Chains — Out September 4 via Hammerheart Records, with the title-track premiere already streaming. Liz Blackwell sounds like she’s about to bring a building down. Old-school heavy metal with enough grit to keep it honest. Preorder →

→ Monolord — Neverending — Bandcamp made it their Album of the Day and noted Monolord are “still finding ways to change up their doomy formula” thirteen years in. They are. Slow, heavy, Swedish, excellent. Stream →

→ Graveyard — Fever — Out October 9 via Nuclear Blast. Album seven. Sweden’s Graveyard have not made a bad record—I’ll stand by that claim until proven wrong. October feels far away. Details →

Here’s a story I genuinely love. You know the ultra-rare Dumble BBC-1 boost circuit? The one that lives in John Mayer’s rig and is otherwise basically a myth for the rest of us? JHS once accidentally dropped that exact circuit into one of their DIY pedals—the Notadümblë—and when the internet found out, people completely lost their minds. Josh Scott called it “the biggest mistake of my career.”

Well. He just launched it as a standalone stompbox called the Fumble. Clean boost. Eighty-nine dollars. One of the most talked-about circuits in guitar history, available for under a hundred bucks because of an accident. I genuinely love this hobby sometimes.

It’s not going to make you sound like John Mayer. But if you’re looking for a transparent, harmonically rich clean boost that adds touch-sensitivity and harmonic complexity without coloring your core tone—this is worth a hard look. Especially at that price point.

Read the full JHS Fumble story →

Also on the radar: Korn dropped a second pedal called the Indigo Sludge Head, capturing the mids-scooped, tube-blown distortion tone of their debut-era recordings—if you’ve ever wanted to sound like you tracked in a basement in 1994, there’s now a direct line. More here → And EHX launched a new Pico called the Atomic Cluster, which the Guitar World review describes as deconstructing your tone “to an atomic level.” Weird, probably great. Review →

→ Philip Anselmo/DOWN dedicated “Lifer” to Dimebag, Vinnie Paul, and Ozzy Osbourne at Sweden Rock this week. Three icons in one dedication. If that doesn’t hit you somewhere, I don’t know what to tell you. Watch the video. Watch →

→ Revocation announced the “20 Years of Torment” September/October tour to celebrate two decades of technical death metal punishment. Support from Defeated Sanity, Fuming Mouth, and Weeping. All-killer lineup, no filler. Tour dates →

→ Kim Thayil’s memoir dropped an excerpt this week about the making of Superunknown. The headline is that he “snapped, flipped off” a producer, and told him to “get Steve Vai” before storming out of the studio. Context: Thayil on the tensions behind “Black Hole Sun.” Classic studio drama, brilliantly told. Read excerpt →

→ Blood Incantation apparently made a film soundtrack called All Gates Open and Blabbermouth’s review calls it “utterly f***ing mind-blowing.” A death metal band possessed by prog rock doing a movie score is peak 2026. Review →

→ Bask announced U.S. tour dates supporting Elder. If Heavy Americana + post-rock riffs is your thing—and if you’re reading this, it should be—this is a no-brainer. Dates →

→ CRO-MAGS released their first new song in six years: “Wired for Chaos.” Harley Flanagan named a documentary about his life the same thing. New album coming. NYHC doesn’t die—it just waits. Watch the video →

That’s the week. The Fenriz piece is genuinely worth a slow read—even if black metal isn’t usually your thing, hearing someone who’s been doing it on his own terms for 35 years is a reminder of what this whole thing is supposed to be about.

Got thoughts? Hit reply — I read everything.

Richard.