Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

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Album Review: Bask – The Turning

I can draw a line of sorts from Denver, Colorado’s (now maybe Nashville, TN’s) ACROSS TUNDRAS and their work in the early 2000s to BASK’s newest and fourth album, The Turning, released now in 2025. I could go back further than that, to (also Colorado’s) 16 HORSEPOWER and THE DENVER GENTLEMEN, as well as SLIM CESSNA’S AUTO CLUB, and their use of gothic Americana – usually Western or Southern – to take us back to a time of crop failures, religious camp meetings, exorcisms, Native American “mythology”, what have you. It’s there, I believe… ‘Chasm’ drones us in, pedal steel […]

WINO: new solo album and single announced on Ripple Music

US doom and heavy metal icon Scott “WINO” Weinrich — the voice of The Obsessed, Saint Vitus, and Spirit Caravan — rises again with his fiercely anticipated fourth solo album, Create Or Die, this October 24th via Ripple Music, and unleashes the first single, ‘New Terms’. “When a friend ended a letter to me with the phrase ‘Create Or Die’, I realized that simple slogan summed up my philosophy completely. Whether it’s making music or art, that’s what I do. It’s what I live for.” Embrace the haunting Celtic vibe of new single ‘New Terms’ Legendary doom metal icon Scott […]

Album Review: Degrave – Metalithic

Not a heck of a lot of metal coming out of Missouri these days, but DEGRAVE is a very potent exception. I like these guys a lot! There’s a real grittiness and rawness to what they dish up on Metalithic that sounds pretty refreshing. When the final feedback of ‘Death Is…’ came to an end, I immediately wanted to start over with ‘Usurper Of Flame’ once more. That doesn’t happen too often in Mality’s world these days! What’s really cool about DEGRAVE is that they don’t really resemble any other band…also a rare thing. Sure, the press compares them to […]

STONEBIRDS: new album and single announced on Ripple Music

Brittany-based post-metal architects STONEBIRDS announce the release of their fourth and final album, Perpetual Wasteland, on October 10th through Ripple Music, and present the haunting debut single, ‘Croak’. Listen to new STONEBIRDS single ‘Croak’ For over a decade, STONEBIRDS have thrived on duality: the eternal tension between opposing forces, with melancholy as their guiding equilibrium. Now, with their fourth and final album, Perpetual Wasteland, the Breton trio distills their essence one last time: light against darkness, crushing weight against fragile levity, and a newfound undercurrent of renewal amidst the void. Recorded at Studio La Briche with producer Cyrille Gachet (Fange, […]

Album Review: Victim Of Fire – The Old Lie

Returning with its third full-length in nearly a decade of its existence, death-fueled crustmongers (or is it crust-fueled deathmongers?) VICTIM OF FIRE flame forth from the fertile soil of Colorado with The Old Lie. Mind you, one of the key elements of crust with any sort of socio-political overtones is its timeliness, so we’ve also been assaulted with a trio of EPs and a few demos during this time, confirming that not only shouldn’t a band in this style, but that a band in this style is physically incapable of sitting on its collective ass for too long. The title […]

KRIGSGRAV Bring Blackened Doom on New Song, ‘Ghosts’

Dallas (TX) – Atmospheric Blackened Doom quartet, KRIGSGRAV, have premiered ‘Ghosts’, the second single from upcoming album, Stormcaller. Stream ‘Ghosts’ courtesy of No Clean Singing: A storm is brewing. Having just signed to Willowtip Records last year, KRIGSGRAV is now ready to release Stormcaller, their first album for the label and eighth full-length overall. KRIGSGRAV released the following statement about Stormcaller: “When we started writing the songs that would make up Stormcaller, our intention was to create the most complete KRIGSGRAV album that took something from every era of the band, while still pushing our sound forward. A culmination of […]

Album Review: Barbarous – Initium Mors

The world needs another death metal band like I need an extra asshole. Remember that saying “Opinions are like assholes. Everybody’s got one.”? Well, every city seems to have a death metal band – some more than their share, some more than any of us need – and straight outta the Bay Area comes yet another steaming pile of either excrement or entrails by the name of BARBAROUS. We shall see… Initium Mors (“The beginning of death”) blasts forward with the intro-less ‘Injection Of The Exhumed’, already something in that grisly, sharpened tone recalling the band’s heritage, ala Bonded By […]

WARNING: Sign To Relapse Records

Relapse Records has today announced the signing of legendary British doom band, WARNING. The label will reissue albums from the band’s back catalogue and will release the first new WARNING material for twenty years. Shortly after the release of their now-iconic album, Watching From A Distance, in 2006, WARNING disbanded and was dormant until reuniting in 2017 for a series of performances playing the album in full. This return resulted in a Live At Roadburn album which will be reissued in addition to the original studio album, and their 1999 album, The Strength to Dream. The existing WARNING catalogue is […]

Album Review: Cancer Void – First Metastasis

Well, at least CANCER VOID had the balls to call its dreaded intro track ‘Introduction’, so there’s that going for the quintet already. Synths surround and oscillate, and I’m sure this dungeon synth gone Windham Hill sampler is going to sound nothing whatsoever like the actual tunes on here, so let’s just get through this and move on, shall we? You’re already spending nearly 2 minutes of a record that’s less than 20 farting around like the bastard chillun’ of Vangelis and Mortiis. Echoes of INCANTATION permeate ‘Breeding Pyramids’, and the sound is surprisingly organic given the precursor. There’s some […]

Finnr’s Cane – new single

From northern Ontario comes ‘Awaken the Sleeping Forest’ – the second single from FINNR’S CANE’s forthcoming self-titled album, arriving August 29 via Nordvis. A surge of raw energy and reverent power, the piece channels the spirit of the vast Canadian wilderness through blast-driven black metal riffing, symphonic flourishes, and the band’s hallmark chordal richness. Piano arpeggios weave throughout, evoking both grandeur and introspection. Like much of the album, the song was born of spontaneous creation – shaped during an improvisational jam and recorded in the solitude of a Sudbury winter. Its title speaks to a deeper intent: a stirring of […]