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: 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 […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Powerrage – Beast

It’s no secret EXCITER is one of my all-time go-to bands and that their classic guitarist John Ricci is one of my favorite musicians. The first three EXCITER albums are untouchable. Alas, the members of the band find it extremely difficult to be in the same room without killing each other, which has led to decades of erratic output and finally, another break-up of the original crew. Arising from the ashes is POWERRAGE, featuring Ricci and some time EXCITER vocalist Jacques Belanger, along with bassist Todd Pillon of WITCHKILLER and drummer Lucas Derry. John swears up and down that POWERRAGE […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Restless Spirit – Restless Spirit

RESTLESS SPIRIT came up old school, the way it should be done; dropping three EPs, tweaking and molding its sound so that by the time an album was even conceived, founding members Marc Morello [bass] and Paul Aloisio [vox, guitars] had at least a general idea of what they were going for. Can’t hurt that they’d known one another for practically their entire time on this rotting planet, so their musical language was inspired by decades of hailing favorites and mocking the “shitty” albums in each other’s collections. Enter drummer Jon Gusman, just in time for 2021’s Blood Of The […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Ignobleth – Manor Of Primitive Anticreation

Italy’s IGNOBLETH arrived with 2024’s Voidspawn Sacrifice EP, which was solid, but was also the sound of a band searching for itself. Heavy? Sure! Dark? As midnight. But memorable? Not so much, at least for these ears. And now the time has come to enter the Manor Of Primitive Anticreation. What lurketh beyond its gates, within its chambers? ‘Cults Of The Undead And Profane Necrolatry’ easily moves beyond a paltry “intro” track, an assurance that something is beginning that’s more than filler to the band. ‘Obelisk Of Deformity’ is gargantuan in riff and rhythm, cosmically malformed and unrelenting, collapsing us […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Who On Earth – It Takes The Village

New Jersey’s WHO ON EARTH returns with its sophomore shot, It Takes The Village. So strap in, babies, let’s see if the chicken’s finger-lickin’. Opener ‘Vigilance’ is a slab of fellow Garden Staters BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, complete with pinch harmonics, a biker bar anthem at birth, and I’m starting to see the Neil Fallon comparisons in the delivery of vocalist Coosh, but thus far not blatantly enough to be called a rip-off. ‘Any Other Way’ follows, gang background vocals adding a bit of ‘80s hard rock seasoning to the sauce, tasty dual leads garnishing the main dish, and leading us […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Tulus – Morbid Desires

The histories of many Scandinavian black metal scenes are incestuous; members shared, then each member branching off into a dozen other projects (sometimes simultaneously – I’m looking at you, Shatraug), often including members of yet other bands on different instruments than they’re known for. Yet none may be so convoluted and interwoven as Norway’s KHOLD and TULUS. While the latter was formed nearly a decade prior, when KHOLD was placed on hiatus in the mid-‘00s, what were members Sarke and Blodstrup to do except resurrect their original band? Bolstered since 2008 with the rumbling bass attack of Crowbel (who also […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Winterfylleth – The Unyielding Season

In the past, the covers of WINTERFYLLETH showed magnificent natural vistas, usually snowy mountains or rolling hills. It cannot be without meaning that The Unyielding Season shows a raging forest fire. There is no better metaphor for what is happening to our heritage and our entire planet today. These Englishmen have always taken a prideful stand for honor and history and that hasn’t changed at all here. This album is a call to resist the commercialized mechanization creeping across the land. As always, the music is rooted in majestic black metal. The opening songs here are some of the fastest, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Palmar De Troya – III [EP]

Spain’s PALMAR DE TROYA returns with its third EP, the aptly titled III, and I’ll just bet you’re wondering what their first two EPs were called too, huh? Anyhow, let’s get to it, bruddas and sistas. ‘The Method’ revs its engines early, no-wave and snarling, LYDIA LUNCH’s ‘80s output blended with an almost THE LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH post-punk ethic, guitars slicing ‘n’ dicing. Follows ‘She, The Destroyer’, coarse and uneven, but the band seems to be stepping out of the shadows of their influences here, certainly an outgrowth of time spent on the road in the past year […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Mordeo – Mordeo

Composed of members of sludge / doom AMAROK, groovy deathsters ABERRANCE and LEVEL, California’s MORDEO arrive with what purports to be its own take on sludge / crust in the form of its self-titled debut. ‘Bring Back The Fear’ collides with the eardrums instantly, a brief Cro-Magnon thundering giving way to what sounds like the collective asses of IRON MONKEY, VARUKERS and FISTULA getting an electrified cattle prod enema. There’s not a sense of urgency here; there’s a slathering, spitting, bloody, heaving mess that demands heed taken. Witness ‘Fight Your Friends’, a coiling, striking five-headed hydra on meth in sonic […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Kate’s Acid – Hellbender

After Belgium’s CYCLONE returned to action recently, it’s no surprise that their country(wo)men ACID are also back for the attack. ACID were one of the very first female fronted metal bands, along with WARLOCK, and they played a fast and rough kind of “biker metal” that was pretty heavy for the time. Now Kate de Lombaert, the original voice of ACID, returns with an all new band of guys at least half her age. Horns up for the metal grandma! This is a real trip back to early ’80s metal, courtesy of a band who was there. First things first, […]

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