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: Witchcraft – A Sinner’s Child [EP]

After the few (and welcome) acoustic flourishes of last year’s Idag, I wasn’t sure what A Sinner’s Child would be for WITCHCRAFT or hold for my ears. As much as 2020’s Black Metal was mostly enjoyable, there were hints at a sonic claustrophobia that was also troubling, in the lack of dynamics from a band that – up to that point – had been known for infusing its music with both climactic highs and cathartic lows. Was Idag an attempt to cleanse the palate while still leaving the good memories of Black Metal lingering in our memory, and if so, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Teratoma – Longing Voracity

To say Purulent Manifestations of 2021 caused the death metal world to sit up and take notice is an understatement, TERATOMA’s initial independent crusher being released by no less than five labels in all imaginable formats within two years of its arrival. Now, just over four years later, we find the Berliners on Me Saco Un Ojo Records out of London, and ready to (hopefully) cause damage with Longing Voracity. I’m not a fan of needless, unrelated intros as a rule, but ‘Exordium’ transudes smoothly into the title track opener, neither out of place nor overstaying its welcome. There’s immediately […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Sylosis – The New Flesh

This band has been kicking around for at least 20 years and has yet to leave much of a mark. One of the problems is that they don’t know exactly what they are themselves. The New Flesh hops from radio friendly dad rock to LAMB OF GOD style thrashing groove to almost industrial metal sounds. If they focused on one of these, they might have a more coherent album in their hands. Press describes SYLOSIS mainman Josh Middleton as if he’s the baddest motherfucker on the planet. Please! I listen to metal on a daily basis that chews this up […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Kallohonka – Lazer Blood

The older and more (if possible) curmudgeonly I get the less interest I have in PR one-sheets. To those who’ve never been on the receiving end of one of these, it’s therein that we’re told our lives up to hearing Band/Album In Question have been slightly to grossly unsatisfying if we’d just own up to the fact and begin to sing Band/Album In Questions praises far and wide. Rent skywriters. Get buck nekkid and call down fiyah from the tippy-top of the highest point in your area, be it the local Dollar Tree or the Statue Of Liberty herself upon […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Phendrana – Cathexis

If you need a break from relentless aggression and the angst of the disintegrating world we live in, I highly recommend listening to Cathexis. This is really beautiful music that doesn’t totally eschew heaviness. Most of this type of material usually only interests me briefly, but PHENDRANA have found the secret of truly thoughtful and haunting songcraft. It’s the work of one Anuar Salum, a resident of Mexico City who is well versed in classical composition as well as jazz and rock techniques. With the help of some friends, he’s created Cathexis, a four song journey into melancholy that will […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Jack Harlon & The Dead Crows – Inexorable Opposites

JACK HARLON & THE DEAD CROWS’ fourth begins with the aptly titled ‘Moss’ the fuzzed (dare I say it, “mossy”) guitar phrasings slow but unceasing, creeping as its namesake. These are the open lands, dark and wide, and Tim Coutts-Smith’s passionate baritone harks to fellow countryman NICK CAVE but fronting a more rough-and-tumble WAYFARER. ‘Venomous’ strikes, quick and deadly before coiling to attack again, serpent-brained and hooded, while ‘Mt Macedon’ drags classic CRAZY HORSE into the spotlight, loose, loud as thunder, and more concerned about emotion than perfection of technique. There’s good bit of grunge ala PAW or Screaming Life […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Exhumed – Red Asphalt

Aside from the unbelievable chasm of time lapsed between Anatomy Is Destiny (2023) and 2011’s All Guts, No Glory, this is the longest we’ve had to wait for a new EXHUMED full-length of original material since its formation. Mind you, the band was far from on hiatus from To The Dead until now, but let’s take a ride down the Red Asphalt, and see if it’s worth the four-year wait. ‘Unsafe At Any Speed’ strips gears on its way to Mach 666, the perfect opening track for an album dealing with the seedy underbelly of America’s dark highways and bloody […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: GAVIAL – Thanks, I Hate It

‘Control’ eases us into GAVIAL’s second, Thanks, I Hate It, a loping, syncopated groove helmed by bassist Paul Kollascheck and Conrad Brod [drums] underpinning hazed out/phased out guitars and vocalist Benjamin Butter’s higher register timbre. Though it works more as an introduction to what’s coming, ‘Control’ does exactly what an opening track should by building anticipation, in this case for ‘Koru Mindset’. Unexpectedly energetic given the foursome’s comfort zone of mid-tempo explorations, ‘Koru Mindset’ brushes elbows with SHUDDER TO THINK, or possibly TAME IMPALA in a live setting, a bit of abrasion ala THE MARS VOLTA slashing through at times. […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Tenebro – Una Lama D’Argento

If you like plenty of red sauce in your movies as well as your pasta, TENEBRO from Italy is the band for you. This is death metal smothered in the tasty gore of the Italian giallo films…specifically, the movies of one Dario Argento. The connection between Italian horror and death metal is well known and TENEBRO might be better at it than any one except classic NECROPHAGIA. Above all, they get the creepy, suffocating atmosphere of Argento films like Inferno and Deep Red and transfer that dread to gruesome, gory death metal. The guitar tone here is unreal, coated in […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Ligation – After Gods

LIGATION, formed by DARK BUDDHA RISING alumnus MN and MS of enthralling funeral doom entity PROFETUS, and now joined by TI of brutal death crew PUS, arrives with its full-length debut, After Gods. A shagged-out doom groove strides in in the form of the title track, ghosts of DESULTORY (when they mattered) and GOREFEST’s Mindloss flitting around the corners. There’s already something unhinged at work here, be forewarned, slobbering death metal and chaos-reigning noise elements making an appearance, and we’re less than three minutes in. ‘Turmoil In Everest’ TI’s bass is robust in the same way as the slathering creature […]

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