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: 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 […]

Album Reviews

Album Review – Mycelium – Mycoticism: Disseminating The Propagules

Scotland’s NECRONOCLAST cranked out some pretty interesting black metal in the mid-late ‘00s and it seemed as if with its final album, Ashes, and a split with the mighty DODSFERD, sole member Greg Edwards might be ready to take the next step forward. There was always something a little quirky and uncommon about the lyrical content of NECRONOCLAST, but no one saw MYCELIUM coming ten years later, I’d wager. Elements of let’s call it “fungal horror” are found in death metal’s beginnings, but have recently taken hold as roots, strangling and choking. That’s a little of what’s happening within Mycoticism: […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Rudra – Eight Mahavidyas

Why is this Singapore band not signed to a major metal label? It’s not only a mystery, it’s tantamount to a crime, because these masters of Vedic Metal, who have been active since 1992, have got to be one of the best extreme metal bands from Asia. Their new album, Eight Mahavidyas, sees them continuing to evolve even as they remain true to the basics of their craft. RUDRA has always been deeply entwined with Hindu myths and philosophy. On this album, they examine eight female characters from the past who have fought against evil and ignorance. A lyrical subject […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Kampfar – Til Klovers Takt

Nearly three decades (man, I’m feeling my age at typing this) and 9 albums into life as KAMPFAR, the Norwegian black metal lifers have spent their career eschewing the satanic, the demonic, the “low hanging fruit” of a good many of their contemporaries, opting instead of tales of myth, folklore, true history, and how such can relate to society today. What were “myths” anyway, but a way for olden man to wrap his head around something in Nature – human included – that he couldn’t comprehend. From the first mythmaker, the first storyteller on, man has been seeking that wisdom, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Malleus – The Fires Of Heaven

Here’s a record to stoke the flames of a traditional metalhead’s furnace! Pretty sure there’s more than one band called MALLEUS out there, but these guys hail from Boston, an old school town that seems fitting for old-school metal such as this. It is fairly easy to conjure up the names of old titans like HELLHAMMER, VENOM and BATHORY…much harder to sound like you actually come from the era when those giants were in their heyday. That is what MALLEUS has done here…first wave black metal worship of the highest order! After the classical intro ‘The Tempest’, they rip right […]

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