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: Cadaver Shrine – Benighted Desecration

When it comes to metal musicians who are insanely busy, two names come to mind. One is Swedish master death metal guitarist Rogga Johansson, aka “Rogga Of The Thousand Bands”. The other is Dutchman Maurice De Jong. the sole mind behind CADAVER SHRINE, who also is in a bewildering number of musical projects, some of them only faintly metal. The gruesome noise project GNAW THEIR TONGUES is likely his most well-known effort. CADAVER SHRINE is another one, the latest (I think?). This one is dedicated to brutish old school death metal in the fashion of old BOLT THROWER, ASPHYX, AUTOPSY […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Bodyfarm – Ultimate Abomination

Returning with its fifth full-length in just over a decade, Netherlands death machine BODYFARM brings hopes to bring us Ultimate Abomination. ‘Torment’ begins the assault, the scattershot sound of European death (early WOMBBATH a reference point), but mixed with the grime of OBITUARY’s pre-The End Complete years making no secret of the band’s influences. There’s a freshness to it, though, ‘Symbolical Warfare’ a head-down, forward-charging rager ala SLAYER before they lost their balls, new drummer David Schermann keeping the tank rolling forward and furiously. You don’t just walk into a band like BODYFARM with no preparation, and – as a […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Dreams Of Gray – The World After [EP]

Black metal has, even since the days of BATHORY and BURZUM, been the enclave of the solitary, and there’s a better than likely chance that, in 2023, the solo practitioners of the art far outnumber more traditional bands. Not so, the realm of doom. Or, in the case of Illinois’ DREAMS OF GRAY, a death/doom hybrid. Austria’s SELENITE comes to mind, the funereal liturgy of Italy’s NOCTU, but the genre as a whole lends itself to collaboration, strangely; a camaraderie of the sorrowful, if you will. Misery does love company, after all. More active in ABOLISHER of the mid-‘90s to […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: SANGUISUGABOGG – Homicidal Ecstasy

After the four song Pornographic Stench demo of 2019, SANGUISUGABOGG got snapped up double-quick by Century Media, parlaying the “weirdness” of their name and logo (self-described as “the Nike swoosh of death metal” by gurgler Devin Swank) into what seems to be the next “it” band in metal. ‘Black Market Vasectomy’ kicks things off, or tries to, at least. I shouldn’t enjoy Cody Davidson’s coffee can drums, but for some reason I am, but that could be because they’re mixed so far to the front that the guitars sound like they’re in a room down the hall somewhere, likely jerking […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Hate Forest – Innermost

It cannot be a coincidence that this promo comes across my desk on a day with lethal -40 degree temperatures and blowing snow. I can’t imagine a better accompaniment to such death-dealing cold than the latest output from Roman Saenko, also of DRUDKH, BLOOD OF KINGU and WINDSWEPT fame. This is black metal cold and bleak enough to cause frostbite. It has the sort of straightforward purity that all of Saenko’s projects have. Saenko also hails from Ukraine. Innermost was written and recorded in December of 2021, as clouds of war were hovering over his homeland. A war that was […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Eyes – Congratulations

‘Generation L’ swings like anvils suspended on chains one moment, drops them onto your facebone the next. No easy ride up the incline on this rollercoaster, just a yank up and plummet down over and over again of which SWARM OF THE LOTUS and FISTULA would be proud. EYES has always had a pocketful of noise rock influence, and it jiggers and jerks in ‘IT’S HAPPENING’, while ‘Congratulations!’ is a speedster anthem ala ZEKE, but with grooves like XYSMA’s post-grind output or KRUGER. Sure, second paragraph and already we’ve mentioned five bands EYES brings to mind, but this should speak […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Bizarrekult – Den Tapte Krigen

It’s good to be right once in a while. Wasting no time, ‘Du Lovet Meg’ (‘You Promised Me’) moves forward confidently, blast beats and treble-based riffing engaged, yet just as assured drops into a near-BLACKFIELD / GREEN CARNATION dream of ether, combining both aspects throughout, and it’s clear the nearly two years between this album and Vi Overlevde have served BIZARREKULT extremely well. ‘Den Tapte Krigen’ (‘The Lost War’) canters at a mid-pace for the most part, not as obviously spacious as what’s come before, elements of German avant-gardists PORTA NIGRA being conjured, ‘Hvis Jeg Bare Kunne…’ (‘If I Could […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Deiquisitor – Apotheosis

Danish death vendors DEIQUISITOR have been at it for a decade now, generating reliable, convoluted albums and EPs, Apotheosis being the fourth of the former. With the self-titled debut of 2016 (drool and gnash your teeth at ‘Elongated Crystal Skull’ for reference), it seemed there was something just strange enough about the trio’s take on death metal to bear keeping an eye on, and thus far no disappointments. Jointly released by Extremely Rotten Productions and Night Shroud Records, Apotheosis takes aim with ‘Humanoid’, a distended, twisting riff straight out of Stockholm circa 1989 hits its mark, drummer Henrik B.C. seemingly […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Ahab – The Coral Tombs

After an 8 year layoff, AHAB rises again from the briny deep, this time to celebrate Jules Verne’s undersea classic 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. AHAB has always been a unique band, practicing what they call “nautik doom”. Their slow motion mix of crushing heaviness and melancholy melody really does seem oceanic. It seems calm and languorous even in the heavy moments and reminds you of one of the ocean’s leviathans gliding majestically through black and gloomy waters. Alas, The Coral Tombs seems to me to be a little bit too relaxing this time around. There’s a lot more emphasis […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Satanic Warmaster – Aamongandr

Since 2005 (and a few albums deep into its recorded history already), Finland’s SATANIC WARMASTER has been bathed in the blood of the sole and ridiculously prolific Werwolf, for better or worse. Guest musicians involved or not, SW’s failures and triumphs rest and resound in one man. With a discography as varied and plentiful as this, it’s unwise to assume everything measures up to the quality of the best or should be down to the level of the triteness of the worst. Aamongandr is SATANIC WARMASTER’s first full-length in 8 years, though, so one hopes Werwolf and the chosen session […]

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