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: Vulture Industries – Ghosts From The Past

Norway’s VULTURE INDUSTRIES has been a case of quality over quantity from its inception, so we’ll forgive them if it takes a year, or three, or four between albums. Swimming just beneath the surface, it seems, in the ocean that is prog-infused metal without going full-bore into unabashed wankery, the five-piece has never gotten its due, at least from where this fellow sits. And now, six (count ‘em!) years after the stellar Stranger Times, the band return with Ghosts From The Past. ‘New Lords Of Light’ shines, elements of SENTENCED, GREEN CARNATION and, yes, LACRIMAS PROFUNDERE, a heady blend of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Oxblood Forge – Cult Of Oblivion [EP]

The blend of stoner and doom is hard to get right, even more so when bands task themselves with (or come by it naturally, which is best) tossing some traditional heavy metal into the cauldron to kick the concoction up a few notches. Boston’s OXBLOOD FORGE is one of those, and Cult Of Oblivion follows its first full-length showing, Decimator of 2021. Instantly I’m not fond of Ken MacKay’s vocal approach, but I’m equally unsure if it’s due to my setting expectations prior to listening, or if his shout/bellow/screech delivery would be truly better suited to a more aggressive style. […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Liquid Flesh – Dolores

Talk about a dark horse coming out of nowhere…that’s just what we have with this band from Grenoble, France (hometown of Andre The Giant, by the way). This is thinking man’s death metal of the first order, superbly played and recorded and, most importantly of all, something new that hasn’t been done to death like 90% of the death metal being released these days. This thing is loud! The opening chords of ‘Urbex Macabre’ hit like hammer blows, huge and vast in impact. The whole album comes across with the same force and clarity. It’s hard to nail down exactly […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Dead Heat – Endless Torment [EP]

Ahh, crossover. That glorious, sweat ‘n’ stale beer-drenched alliance unexpectedly created by streetwise hardcore kids who became better musicians and suburbanite headbangers who wanted to add a bit more groove to the rapid-fire riff onslaught of thrash. And when your first album ends with a CRUMBSUCKERS cover, it’s clear you know your history. So let’s see what ya got, DEAD HEAT. ‘Endless Torment’ begins with a keyboard intro that lasts about 40 seconds and is, therefore, 40 seconds too long, but rest assured that once this Oxnard, California four-piece gets going all is forgiven. A more outright thrash attack during […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Blodulv – I, II, III – Burial

The early ‘00s were a time of sonic upheaval in black metal. Tectonic plates were shifting, stars were realigning into some configuration never dreamt of by black metal’s originators, and likely never intended by the 2nd Wave of the early ‘90s. EMPEROR silenced its existence for a time with the uber-progressive – and final – studio album, Prometheus: The Discipline Of Fire & Demise, France’s BLUT AUS NORD would drop The Work Which Transforms God in ’03, and ENSLAVED released the still-divisive Below The Lights. Into this shift strode BLODULV. With albums simply titled I, II and III – Burial, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Cloak – Black Flame Eternal

Having seen the Atlanta quartet open for IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT in what amounts to a shoebox with a bar inside earlier this year, I can vouch that CLOAK’s “is it black/death or death/black” hybridization does carry over well into a live setting. To be honest, I’ve never “gotten” the WATAIN comparisons, as, musically, CLOAK has more clarity while managing to haunt – and thus far thrive in – the shades beyond dark and light, good and evil when it comes to lyrical fare. Striking hard and early the anvil of the search for enlightenment, ‘Ethereal Fire’ ignites, the band sounding full-bodied […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Frozen Soul – Glacial Domination

Texas’ FROZEN SOUL is one of the new generation of death metal bands stepping up to the plate and trying to take the torch from the giants of old. That is a super difficult task, because almost all of these bands just sound like an echo of what has gone before. In FROZEN SOUL’s case, they obviously are BOLT THROWER’s junior division and I imagine vocalist Chad Green spends a lot of time in front of a mirror polishing his best Karl Willets tones. Out of all the new “primitive” death metal bands getting big publicity…the group includes SANGUISUGABOGG, 200 […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Waxen – Die Macht Von Hassen

Toby Knapp, within black/thrash and, for a time power metal, rivals Rogga Johansson and Chris Riefert in sheer output and projects, side and otherwise. We’ve all heard the whole “signed with Shrapnel at 19” story, which is admirable, indeed. It’s 2023, though, so we’re only judging Mr. Knap related to WAXEN, and thus… Robust from the start, ‘Die Macht Von Hassen’ sets the stage, all instruments mixed so as to give a sturdy sonic foundation to the blackened firestorm set to light before us. A semi-martial cadence on the drums soon slows to a near-doom crawl, yet loses none of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Mournful Congregation – The Exuviae Of Gods – Part II [EP]

Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for funeral doom to make the journey from its birthplace (in either England or Scandinavia, a hot point of a debate which has no place in this review) to the primarily sunlit lands of Australia so, for purists – who also likely already know and follow the five-piece – MOURNFUL CONGREGATION were there “back then”. And thus, doth The Exuviae Of Gods – Part II begin with a new recording of ‘Heads Bowed’, from 1995’s An Epic Dream Of Desire demo. Never having been one for re-recordings, feeling them dangerously close to revisionist history, the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Vomitory – All Heads Are Gonna Roll

Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby. And when it comes to classic Stockholm death metal, VOMITORY is as real as it gets. Very glad indeed to see these old school OGs wielding their axes again; they live up to the album title and more! The first two tracks hit with all the subtlety of a pit bull on Fentanyl! This is laser focused destruction that reminds me a lot of fellow Swedes DEFLESHED in terms of economy and ferocity. VOMITORY have come up with a kind of paradoxical sound that is raw in true Swe-death fashion, yet it’s also […]

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