Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

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Short Sharp Shocks

Cartilage – Tales From The Entrails: A Necrology [EP]

The San Francisco slaughtercrew of CARTILAGE has been quiet for a few years, so Tales From The Entrails: A Necrology sizzles when it hits the pan like flesh sliced straight off the bone. The ‘Official Trailer’ is how an intro should be done, and ‘Frothed Vomit Slosh’ roils ‘n’ boils with DESULTORY-styled glee, maniacally messy. The guitar tone alone sells ‘Globs Of Glimmering Gore’, vocal violator Mark Wallace carrying a bit of Mille Petrozza sneer in his spewage, reminding us how much death/grind truly owes to thrash. ‘Ape-u-tator’ – aside from being brilliantly titled – is catchier than an STD […]

Music News

KAL-EL: new single ‘B.T.D.S.C.’ streaming now

Norway’s heavy rock explorers KAL-EL announce the release of their new album Astral Voyager Vol. 1 this May 16th on Majestic Mountain Records (Europe) and Blues Funeral Recordings (North America), and unleash the fuzz-fueled power of their new single ‘B.T.D.S.C.’ on all streaming platforms. Rising from Stavanger’s frozen wastelands, KAL-EL returns with Astral Voyager Vol. 1, their most mind-expanding expedition yet and the first chapter of an ambitious double-album assault to tear through space and time. Stream new single ‘B.T.D.S.C.’ Summer and fall 2024 saw the crew locked in at Bridge Burner Studios, building on 2021’s Dark Majesty momentum and […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Fumes – Skeletal Wings Threshold

When a band releases an EP, video and live album before its debut, you already know the entities therein are not about to be bound by expectations, genre “constraints” of false authorities or even what the listener expects. Thus was born FUMES, spewing forth Skeletal Wings Threshold from the squalor and beauty of the streets of Mexico City. Grating tremelo scathe and scree bleeds us from the opening moments of ‘Stellar Ascension Infernal’, the worship of the riff key, and a tight, vibrant mix giving each instrument its rightful place, and when the last 0:11 combusts, there’s no amount of […]

Music News

MR.BISON: spring UK shows announced

Italy’s heavy psych and prog pillars MR.BISON announce a batch of UK shows around their anticipated Desertfest London performance this May. Their new album Echoes From The Universe is out now on Heavy Psych Sounds. Says the band: “After a year since the release of our new album Echoes From The Universe via Heavy Psych Sounds two great European tours and an incredible experience of the US West Coast tour just finished we are really happy and proud to announce the mini UK tour!” MR.BISON UK shows 2025:15th May – Swansea – Elysium Gallery & Venue16th May – Nottingham The […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Hirax – Faster Than Death

Mr. Katon W. De Pena is one of the true warriors of thrash metal. He’s been whipping up circle pits for about 40 years now, so his dedication can’t be questioned. Plus, he’s a hell of a good guy…I can personally attest to this. Despite that, HIRAX albums have been few and far between. Faster Than Death is only the sixth full length in all that time. Well, this one may very well be their rawest and most in your face outing since their classic debut, Raging Violence. They’ve been trying to live up to that brutal dose of mayhem […]

Music News

SONS OF RA: Chicago Progressive/Jazz Fusion Trio To Release Debut LP, Standard Deviation, On Free Electric Sound April 11th; ‘Disintegration (Alabama Revisited)’ Video And Preorders Posted

Two decades have passed since SONS OF RA emerged onto Chicago’s scene with their fusion of heavy prog, jazz, math rock, and elements of avant garde music. Initially a line-blurring experiment, the trio’s most recent work has proven the band’s sound to jazz fusion aficionados, math and progressive rock purists alike while holding their own on bills on the Midwestern heavy music scenes. Formed by guitarist Erik Oldman Vecchione (Mare Crisium, Afrofuturistics), drummer Mike Rataj (Arbogast, Mine Collapse), and saxophonist/bassist Keith Wakefield (Jan King And Medicine Ball, Afrofuturistics), SONS OF RA independently released four EPs since 2016, culminating with the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Act Of Impalement – Profane Altar

In this, its unholy 13th year, doth Nashville’s ACT OF IMPALEMENT lie us upon its third and aptly titled Profane Altar. Let the sacrifice begin… When founding guitarist/vocalist Ethan Rock revealed a new lineup before the release of 2023’s Infernal Ordinance, some wondered if this new incarnation would retain the spirit of the band some of us had followed since its early days. In a word, no. And it wasn’t intended to. Hence, when ‘Apparition’ appears, it’s with a somehow even older, more ancient tone than we’ve heard previously. Imagine BOLT THROWER as interpreted by a Cro-Magnon rhythm section and […]

Music News

GLORIOR BELLI: French Black Metal Insurgents Release First Single, ‘Weltschmerz Wield Power’, From Upcoming Self-Titled Album

Dark Empire Records is proud to announce the long-awaited eighth album from Gallic black metal insurgents GLORIOR BELLI, an eponymous assault due out next month via the recently-reformed label. No Clean Singing has graciously premiered the video for the band’s first single ‘Weltschmerz Wield Power’, describing the single and video as such: “True to the roots of black metal, the video has no more use for the trappings of The Cross and its carriers than GLORIOR BELLI has ever had, but instead confronts them with levitating horned lords of Hell and their hooded emissaries (among whom are the band members […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Balefire – Balefire [MLP]

The keys of ‘Black Sun’ dissolve into the caustic eruption that is ‘Sands Of Gemini’, bassist Chuck Sherwood and his interplanetary cohort managing to somehow be knuckle-dragging and technically mind-bending simultaneously. ‘Star-Born Revolt’ is convoluted, chaotic and cerebral, pre-Obscura GORGUTS on bath salts, when you could sense the obliteration of senses that was that album on the horizon. ‘Barbaric Rebirth’ is especially concise, yet covering so much in so short a space, so that the nearly 4 minutes of ‘Lord Of The Red Lands’ seems almost epic in scope. This is death metal birthed from some alternate dimension where entire […]

Music News

FLESHSPOIL (feat. Arsis, The Final Sleep, Illucinus alumni) Releasing Debut Album in March

Troy (NY) – A new force in Blackened Death Metal has emerged to lay waste to 2025! FLESHSPOIL, featuring veteran players from Arsis, The Final Sleep, and Illucinus, will release full-length debut album, The Beginning Of The End, March 28 on digital format. Fans of classic death, black, and doom metal take note! FLESHSPOIL delivers a haunting and aggressive soundscape, and features a lineup of seasoned musicians: Jeff Andrews (guitar/vocals), a veteran of New York’s metal scene, known for his work with The Final Sleep, Armor Column, Hush, Ironweed, Scavengers, and Held Under. Mike Van Dyne (drums), known for his […]

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