Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

Album Reviews

ALBUM REVIEW RATING SCALE:
**Please note that this rating scale serves as a reference for albums reviewed prior to 2023.
Numbered ratings will not be added going forward, in hopes that the writer’s impression of the work will suffice.
It will have to.** 

6 – Rarely bestowed. An honor reserved for undeniable classics (or those that should be). The Apex Predator.
5 – Impressive.
4 – Worthy of special recognition.
3 – A solid effort.
2 – The participation trophy.
1 – These are the albums that the 2s beat up on the way home from school.
0 – A waste of both our time and yours.

Album Reviews

Album Review: Speedslut – Cimbrian Rites

From the earliest occultic bursts of MERCYFUL FATE to the speed-fueled attacks of ARTILLERY, INVOCATOR, and the underrated FURIOUS TRAUMA, the country of Denmark – with a population less than New York City alone – has clearly made its presence known in the realm of heavy music. Thus, it’s safe to say any Danish speed/thrash band has a high bar already set. Enter SPEEDSLUT, last year’s Ferocity Of Steel EP waving the denim ‘n’ leather flag proudly, its 12 minutes less a thoughtfully planned military operation than a wild shot into enemy territory to make clear its malicious intent. Sharp-tongued […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Du Cane – Veil Of The Abyss

Progressive rock (and now metal) has a somewhat distinct problem, much like fusion, in that so much of it claims to be and so little of it is truly progressive. This has been an issue since the early days of the style, in which any band with a keyboardist fancied itself the new YES, the new ELP, the new NEKTAR, despite doing little or nothing to actually move the music forward; to progress. The same plagued jazz, experiencing its own renaissance almost in parallel to progressive rock, resulting in what would be called “fusion”. DU CANE is a new band […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Lungburner – Dogma

Meditative metal is an actual thing. There’s not enough of it around to be an actual functioning subgenre (yet) but it’s out there and that is the space where Atlanta’s LUNGBURNER functions. I must say Dogma caught me by surprise. With the band name and cover art, I was expecting some angry groove metal or even straight nu-metal, but this is much more intellectual and interesting than that. Doom plays a sizable part of the LUNGBURNER equation. Slow, undulating tempos predominate and the guitar tone is thick and heavy. But I wouldn’t call it sludge, as the music doesn’t seem […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Dead Void – Cranial Devastation

Danish death/doom duo A & K return from 2022’s Volatile Forms, having trimmed the lineup to themselves, each taking up portions of the bass, adding to their respective drums and guitars, and now unleashing Cranial Devastation upon us. Well, let’s hope so. You can’t just drop a title like that and not deliver. Actually, you can, and we’ve seen it far too frequently before. ‘Regurgitation Of Ancient Manifest’, thankfully, drips with bass-drenched plod, oozing slow yet vile malignance from every festering pore. RUNEMAGICK comes to mind, a less off-the-rails KHANATE due to the focus employed. Around the 2:20 mark, the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Witch Ripper – Through The Hourglass

When a band’s PR one-sheet compares any band to MASTODON, DAVID BOWIE and COHEED AND CAMBRIA not only in the same paragraph, but the same damn sentence, ya just gotta wonder what kind of fever dream or ayahuasca trip was being recovered from here. You know the bands themselves don’t write these, and – while you trust this particular source – you kinda hope for the best. WITCH RIPPER’s been at it awhile now, and Through The Hourglass is it’s third. Riding on the back of two solid releases, the chances of the ball being completely dropped are few, but […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: The Ghoulstars – The Dark Overlords Of The Universe

I used to have quite a liking for horror punk…indeed, for any music connected to the horror genre…but in recent years, the flood of cosplay “monster bands” has soured me on a lot of it. Everybody today loves to play dress up…we have Vikings, Ninjas, Pirates, aliens. And of course, monsters. Monsters up the wazoo. So forgive me if I’m not impressed by THE GHOULSTARS all that much. Oddly, these guys have roots in Finnish underground death-doom, with members of KUOLEMANLAAKSO and HOODED MENACE amongst their ranks. Expect none of that here, as THE GHOULSTARS are a way for them […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Goetia – Mortuary Cult

After three years and as many EPs, Washington, D.C.’s GOETIA welcomes us into the Mortuary Cult on its first full length release. I’m blindfolded, mind, having never heard the band before, but given their previous choice of covers [KREATOR’s ‘Ripping Corpse’ and ‘Don’t Burn The Witch’ from VENOM], one hopes for at least a spark from these mighty torches has found its way into what we’re about to hear. Ahh, the intro. The seemingly ever-present and often pointless intro which seems to plague death metal bands specifically. Thankfully, ‘Lanterns Of The Dead’ rips the scab off, taking its share of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: THE FRĒQS – No God On The Gold Coast

There’s been quite the resurgence of noise and noise-adjacent rawk in the past few years, with longtime bands like THE ANTIKAROSHI releasing the finest work of its career [2024’s L’inertie Polaire], the recent MELVINS / NAPALM DEATH’s Savage Imperial Death March collaboration, not to mention relative newcomers EYES and BRIGHT SUNSHINE adding their own angular, jagged shards to the scene with Spinner and Executive Power Supreme respectively. ‘John Travolta’ pops his collar to the sound of that prehistoric dial-up internet connection we love so well, and THE FRĒQS follow shortly. Messrs. Crowell, Mandly and Fierman have come darker this time, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Sacriversum – Before The Birth Of Light

Have you ever wondered what DEEP PURPLE would sound like as a death metal band? SACRIVERSUM from Poland definitely provides an answer! These guys have a long history going back to the early ’90s but this is my first encounter with them…and it’s a very delightful one! This is a great combination of death metal and prog rock. A lot of credit goes to the inventive keyboard work of “Baran”, who adds some awesome Jon Lord quality Hammond organ sound to SACRIVERSUM’s diverse attack. This is heard nowhere better than the first two proper tracks ‘We’re Storming Through The Night’ […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Immolation – Descent

I’ve intentionally shied away from reviewing certain bands over time, either due to a blatant dislike or an appreciation that bordered on the slavish, knowing that both would result in a bias leaning heavily on one side or the other. DRAGONFORCE lies on one end of that seesaw, IMMOLATION the opposite. As I suffered through the latest album of the former, I felt the Noo Yawk-based death metal stalwarts were deserving of the same, so let us begin the descent into…Descent… Imagine, for a moment, a pastoral scene; maybe something of John Bradley or Frederic Edwin Church. But only for […]

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