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: Rum Runners – Wreck And Revere [EP]

Well, ALESTORM’s gone to shite long ago, SWASHBUCKLE’s last yawnfest was a song about the movie Starship Troopers, and YE BANISHED PRIVATEERS – while fantastic – aren’t what I’d call metal, so it’s about time for another pirate-themed crew, aye? RUM RUNNERS think so, returning after 2015’s The Quest For Mead with Wreck And Revere, new crewmates aboard, and ready to (hopefully) hoist my not so Jolly but quite formidable Roger. ‘In Sirens’ Wake’ eschews the trappings of for a feisty, thrash-injected thrust of the prow into the open seas, a bit of EDGUY (sans comedic tomfoolery) in their delivery, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Overdrivers – Glory Or Nothing

Ah, this is just what the doctor ordered…and what this doctor needed! Hard crunchy rock that’s easy on the brain and tough on the neck muscles. Not sure where these guys are from, but they’ve come up with an album full of high adrenaline metallic rock in the vein of AC/DC, SKID ROW, BULLET and more! ‘Kings Of The Road’ sets the stage beautifully with a cracking AC/DC style rocker with touches of old ACCEPT tossed in. Adrien Desquirez has a snotty, nasal sounding vocal that would be a problem for any style of music but this kind. For this […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Hate Forest – Against All Odds

After a 15-year pause in full-length releases, Ukrainian iconoclast by the very act of drawing breath HATE FOREST returned with 2020’s Hour Of The Centaur. Reconfigured as a solitary entity, this HATE FOREST showed no lowering of quality, still – and perhaps even more – steadfast and commanding in its commitment to be true to none but itself. Concluding what began with EPs Sowing With Salt and Justice, Against All Odds arrives. The presence of live drums for the first time on a HATE FOREST album is announced with a turret-mounted machine gun in ‘Werewolves’. Inhuman in its sheer speed, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Meatwound – Macho

Florida sludgecore/noise purveyors, MEATWOUND return after six years to unceremoniously thrust us into the fetid season of swamp ass and eternally pit-stained T-shirts with the aptly titled Macho. Reconvening with a new drummer in the human guise of Dimitri Stoyanov, Messrs. Wallace, Iglesias (not Julio), and Barros have something brewing behind the somehow grisly hot pink and lime green façade of the cover. The garishness arrives on the back of ‘Compressed Hell’, programmed throb and drums kicking these grumpy old men back into action in rare form, scattered like buckshot from a lupara, leaving wounds jagged and unable to clot. […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Spiritworld – Helldorado

For me, hell is standing eternally in the middle of a plain. On one side, every mumble-rapper with “Lil” in his name is belting out garbage on Autotune. On the other side, we have phony cowboy hat guys calling themselves “Clay” and “Tucker” playing the horror that passes for modern country music on a loop. I cannot imagine a fate worse than this! Which makes it a surprise that I actually like SPIRITWORLD, a band that started out playing “outlaw country” and then switched over to raging SLAYERized thrash metal with a spaghetti Western aura. I suspect that Stu Folsom, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Coffin Feeder – Big Trouble

What do you get when you cross ABORTED, LENG T’CHE, WHEN PLAGUES COLLIDE and a lesser known but equally deserving of praise band named FLEDDY MELCULY? Well, we’re about to find out, as Belgium’s COFFIN FEEDER has taken members of these bands, heaved them into a woodchipper, and now – three years after the aural abuse of Stereo Homicide and Over The Top EPs – cranked out its debut long-player. After a foreboding ‘There Will Be Trouble’, Big Trouble kicks in with the whirling, rusted circular saw blade that is ‘Porkchop Express’, the triple vocal attack of Sven and guitarists […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Thus Spoke Zarathustra – I’m Done With Self Care, It’s Time For Others’ Harm

The early-mid ‘00s were a weird-ass time for metal. OG metalcore bands (look ‘em up, this ain’t Wikipedia or The Metal Archives) suddenly found themselves being name-dropped by a new pack of hyenas in guyliner that would make Gerard Way wince in discomfort and jeans tighter than Luke Bryan’s. Of course, now, the reason for the tightness of their jeans is that they belonged to their girlfriend. A word on the girlfriends of that era; lonely. Lonely, because these dandy fops were too busy making fag jokes and bro-ing down to pay any attention to them, in search of the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Chamber Mage – By Light Of Emerald Gods

Ah, the galloping riff! Steve Harris’ pride and joy, it’s become one of the staples of traditional heavy metal, particularly bands dealing with fantasy and medieval themes. That leads us directly to Colorado’s CHAMBER MAGE, who love swords, sorcery and those galloping riffs. This record oozes both classic metal and high fantasy. Not 100% sure, but I think By Light Of Emerald Gods is a concept album telling one mighty tale. If you love OMEN, MANILLA ROAD and the horribly overlooked MEDIEVAL STEEL, you’re going to be over the moon with CHAMBER MAGE. Once ‘In Battle’ locks into its patented […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Pyromancer – Absolute Dominion By Fire

So, Kentucky’s PYROMANCER knocked out a demo almost exactly 10 years ago, then apparently went dormant, members Conqueror Horus and Master Of Graveyard Torment becoming more involved in their other musical exploits, only to return last year via a split with Detroit wastebearers PERVERSION. Now beneath the flag of Adirondack Black Mass, the twosome arrive with Absolute Dominion By Fire. Mind, you, of the dozen tracks found here, four are revisitations from the past two releases. Will we be dominated? Absolutely, even? And if so, by fire? ‘Igniting The Sacrificial Pyre’ drags somewhat monotonously at first, synths and a voice […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Messa – The Spin

Italian doomweavers MESSA have always been reliable, but with the move to Svart Records and release of Close in 2022, they became memorable. A Live At Roadburn followed, and now arrives The Spin, marked by yet another label switch, this time under the Metal Blade imprint. I’ll confess to a bit of trepidation when I see three releases from a band in a row, all on different labels, but MESSA has been around for just over a decade, and this is its fourth LP, so the members have clearly put in the work, and may be simply seeking to be […]

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