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: Jehovah On Death – Lagrimas de Oro

Occult rock…proto-metal…devil pop…call it what you will, the surprising success of GHOST has seen a rise in similar bands. Most are just derivative bandwagon-jumpers, but once in a while, you strike gold and that’s where we find JEHOVAH ON DEATH. Here’s a band that sets their own bar and then tries to jump it. The group hails from Greece, which is surprising, given that Lagrimas De Oro has a very Spanish flavor to it. That’s one of the things that helps it stand out. I would describe their sound as drawing on the first three BLUE ÖYSTER CULT albums, the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: EXP – EXP

When you see the names COP SHOOT COP and LUBRICATED GOAT in a “current/former members of” PR blurb – to say nothing of the legend-making SWANS – there’s a certain level of gritty beauty and off-kilter quality that’s expected, nay, demanded. And that demand goes both ways, as those three bands have built careers on challenging their listeners, both stylistically and lyrically over decades. Now crawls from the gutter EXP with its self-titled debut, and woe be to the unprepared. Opening with the bombed-out groove of ‘Havoc On The Astral’, the sound is more reined in than those familiar with […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Street Tombs – Existence Is Corruption

Santa Fe’s STREET TOMBS approaches its stench-ridden tenth year writhing in life’s rotting embrace, and what better way to celebrate with a hopefully pummeling death metal monster? Let’s find out if Existence Is Corruption… Careening and crusted over, ‘Pestilent Storm’ spot welds the early Combat Core sound of ENGLISH DOGS and BROKEN BONES to MONSTROSITY’s Imperial Doom with devastating consequences. ‘Deceptor’ bristles with a more thrash style, as ‘Septic Values’ returns us to the oft’ missed days and nights of shows at local punk squats/basements with 6-10 bands (“$5 or bring canned food for donation to the local food bank”) […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Torpor – Dungeon Descent

Here is a phantom rising from the mists of history, no less notable than a woolly mammoth or an Egyptian pharaoh appearing in our current age. Emerging from Warsaw, Poland, TORPOR is a three piece metal band that resurrects a forgotten sound from the past to become something new in our maddening patchwork of modern music. It’s very hard to describe what TORPOR does here. It’s not just another ’70s or ’80s nostalgia band because their sound is so unique, and one unheard for decades. They knit together various threads of the past into an album that’s enchanting to listen […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Horrifier – Revelations Of Gore

Returning to revile after last year’s walloping Burial Ground EP, Oslo’s HORRIFIER opens its dread tome of death to reveal Revelations Of Gore. After the obligatory intro of ‘Voices’ (check!), ‘Compelled To Slaughter’ begins not with a bang, but a low-level dungeon doom crawl before ripping the lid off with early CANNIBAL CORPSE riffing. That it eventually returns to the realms of doom for the bridge seems less like a throwaway idea and more the foursome stretching themselves, so that by the time the song careens to its explosive end we’re captivated by the off-kilter rhythms, a musical car crash […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Stormkeep – The Nocturnes Of Iswylm

While there is a Denver sound – make no mistake about it; from the twang ‘n’ travail of early 16 HORSEPOWER to the tent revival atmosphere of SLIM CESSNA’S AUTO CLUB, to the prairie-wide expansiveness of those first several ACROSS TUNDRAS albums to the Western noir of WAYFARER – the “sound” has always been more beholden to an ancient land, olden times, a sense of exploration of the soul and world itself that is truly of its surroundings than to genre convention. In this realm, the symphonic black metal of STORMKEEP may seem out of place, at least on the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Morgal – The Seventh Circle

Though over a decade in existence, The Seventh Circle is only MORGAL’s second album, and first as a quartet. 2020’s Nightmare Lord was a nasty barrage typical of the band’s native Finland, but one got the feeling that more could be done. Founders SS Exiler [drums] and Crusher [guitars] must’ve felt the same; to that end, a new bassist/vocalist [Tomb Nekrofiler] and guitarist by the name of Killhammer were added to the force. ‘Stormchaser’ wafts in on calm, subtle winds, only for a NIFELHEIM-styled lightning ‘n’ thunder orgy to fuck the sky with fire and acid. The band’s tighter than […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Phantom – Not Midnight Yet

Mexico’s PHANTOM are striking while the iron is hot. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I gave their Tyrants Of Wrath album a big thumbs up. Here’s their follow-up Not Midnight Yet, and this one does everything a follow-up album should do and more. This will certainly be in my Top 10 list this year. Boasting 12 robust tracks, I feared Not Midnight Yet might have some filler. Instead, the material is so uniformly good that I’m hard pressed to pick a favorite song. Mastermind J.C. Necrohex knows exactly what sound he is after, and he’s a clever enough […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Sunswarm – Those Who Do Not Build Must Burn

When I was at university starting in ’90, I remember spending as much time scanning/raiding the racks of magazines at the local Tower Records as time in class. There was a rag I picked up a few issues of there called Industrial Metal. Sure, there were the articles on JUDAS PRIEST, FORBIDDEN etc,; but sprinkled throughout were features on bands such as TREPONEM PAL, SWAMP TERRORISTS and FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY, sparking an interest in and appreciation for the combination of metal’s power and electronic music’s pounding pulse and sonic expansiveness that continues to this day. Enter SUNSWARM and its debut […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Taake – En skog av nidstang

On the very first song, we noticed the pulse in our hand trying to keep up with even half the beat. ‘Einstoeingen go eg’ makes it easy to and encourages head-banging and fist shaking. It’s like a wall of distortion that undulates as a thick curtain in the frozen winter wind. Later in the song, a segment serves a startle but quickly snaps back to rescue as the grim riffs enclose. Next we jump to ‘Et dyr tok min hud’, which is a great title leaping directly into infernal black metal with a much more active riff than the previous […]

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