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: Krigsgrav – Stormcaller

On its eighth album, and fourth with the same lineup, by now KRIGSGRAV of Keller, Texas had better have a good handle on what it is and what it isn’t. Not every band is meant to venture off on experimental pathways, not every band should try to shade or – more often than not – forcefully inject its music with other genres. It works for the rare few but, let’s be honest here, doesn’t for most. If it doesn’t occur naturally, the listening public who actually care about what they’re hearing will smell the stench. Stormcaller’s opener, ‘Huntress Of The […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Syrinx – Time Out Of Place

I wonder if the hallowed halls of SYRINX’s practice space are lined with Great Computers… Yes, we got ourselves some 24 karat 70’s RUSH fans here…and how! One look at their promo picture, complete with frilly white shirts, will convince you they stepped out of a wormhole connected to 1978. That’s cool with me, I’m a huge fan of ’70s RUSH, but you are setting yourself a VERY high bar when you call your band SYRINX. This is a true artifact. Time Out Of Place is a true prog rock album…there’s plenty of loud guitar, but almost no actual metal. […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Intercourse – How I Fell In Love With The Void

Over the past handful of years, there’s been a resurgence in death metal, for better or worse. As with any popularity or proliferation, the majority of it has sucked. Stunk to high Heaven, it has. But amid the rubble, strong flowers grow, and there are a good many (BEDSORE, DIPYGUS, DAWN OF OROBOUROS, etc) that are thriving. Well, the same thing’s been happening in noise rock for about as long, but the genre (which, like true doom,) doesn’t lend itself to popularity either due to subject matter or sonics and thus has remained underground. Connecticut’s INTERCOURSE, now four albums and […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Feuerschwanz – Knightclub

I don’t know when Napalm Records became the cut-out bin when it comes to quality metal, but that’s what the Austrian Toilet has certainly proven itself to be over the past 10-15 years. 99% of the acts stink of Japanese “idol culture”. From WIND ROSE to DRAGONFORCE to fuckin’ COAL CHAMBER and the former “vocalist” of CREED, whose name I will not mention because I just had lunch and don’t feel like puking it up quite yet, if you’re looking for a laxative, Napalm is where to shop. A friend of mine mentioned the “Napalming” of bands, and I think […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Feral State – II

Pardon me, PR folks, but if you’re gonna compare a band to BROKEN BONES, that band better drink engine oil through scalded throats, belch up steam like a train in the 1800s, and pack a punch harder than a hit to the cranium with a nail-spiked bat. It’s gotta be memorable as fuck, but it’s also gotta be interesting too, especially since we’re usually talking an album length of under a half-hour. Straight outta Leicester comes FERAL STATE, returning after 2022’s self-titled wrecker with the aptly named II. Straight to the point, as a band of this sort must be. […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Arkhaaik – Uihtis

The human race right now is the weakest it has ever been. Internet, A.I., television, billions of types of legal drugs and all the other “comforts” of modern life have made us into something completely different than our ancestors of just a few hundred years would recognize. Is there any room at all any more for the primal and raw instincts we once possessed in abundance? ARKHAAIK from Switzerland says yes. They have found a way to tap into the dawn times of humanity with the power of heavy metal. Uihtis has done it. When I listened to this album, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Sinsaenum – In Devastation

Journeyman Frédéric Leclerq is at it again, a “new direction” being proclaimed with In Devastation, which is a good move, based on how lifeless at worst, mediocre at best SINSAENUM’s output has been thus far. Born from the double-loss of a longtime band member and a parent Leclerq is, apparently reinventing what the group can be – and honestly, it’s far past time. First, the artwork looks straight off the cutting room floor of early/mid-‘00s Roadrunner. Could it be TRIVIUM? Could it be KILLSWITCH ENGAGE? Shit, it could be any of those and doesn’t make me want to hit Play […]

Album Reviews

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 […]

Album Reviews

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 […]

Album Reviews

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 […]

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