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: 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 […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Embalm – Prelude To Obscurity

The mid-‘90s were a strange time for death metal. From its arrival in the late ‘80s, the genre quickly expanded, various tentacles reaching and sucking the marrow from the bones of (it seemed) every other form of metal to come before – and more. OBITUARY, IMMOLATION, NIHILIST; they all had their own definable sound, but were resolutely Death Metal. It is into this world we return with Prelude To Obscurity, a compendium of the entire available output of EMBALM. Hailing from the unlikely lands of the upper Midwest, the foursome already had something going for them that they probably didn’t […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Strigoi – Viscera

Arising from the ashes of VALLENFYRE, STRIGOI are trying to establish more of their own sound on Viscera, their second album. The best word for that sound would be “gloomy”. The album still retains brutality, but things are more claustrophobic here, with a bigger emphasis on doom and Gothic atmosphere. That does give STRIGOI more of its own sound for sure, but they are not as immediate as the ferocious VALLENFYRE. The album’s tracks break down into longer, more atmospheric songs and shorter bursts of brute force where the scent of early British grindcore predominates. First cut ‘United In Viscera’ […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Bloodclot – Souls

NYHC (New York Hard Core for those new to the game) has always built its reputation on the short sharp shock. Get in, get down, get out. Lyrically it’s the same. Not a lot of pontificating or fancy $25 words when a simple “Fuck you!” would do, and this is BLOODCLOT’s home turf on Souls, no doubt about it. Bolstered by a lineup featuring current and former members of CRO-MAGS, QUICKSAND, AGNOSTIC FRONT and MADBALL, these four horsemen couldn’t be more NY if they tried, ancestrally deep in the sewers, squats and boroughs as they are. Throat man John Joseph […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Gaerea – Mirage

GAEREA’s sophomore release, Limbo of ’20, was one of the surprises of that year, both showing a band successfully expanding upon the debut, yet remaining true to themselves – not so much a reinvention as a reworking – and ended up on the Best Of 2020 lists of myself and many others. All-important third album Mirage sees the Portuguese troupe keeping the 8 songs to around average length for the band, yet still under an hour for total playing time. While the extended tracks that bookended Limbo were grand, ‘Memoir’ captivates from the start, shimmering, hazy as a mirage itself, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: He Is Legend – Endless Hallway

‘The Prowler’ leads the charge – or attempts to, the verses licking the dirt-rock, speedster boots of ZEKE and HOOKERS, while the choruses are straight out of the early CLUTCH playbook. The dragging tempo of the final minute or so, instead of being climactic, arrives and pulverizes any built-up interest into dust by the time ‘Lifeless Lemonade’ arrives, and if you’ve ever wondered why some of MAYLENE & THE SONS OF DISASTER works and HE IS LEGEND never seems to, this is your template; rhythms built for skipping, disjointed cut/paste rock interspliced with a weird ‘80s pop vocal nod at […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Black Anvil – Regenesis

This New York black metal crew pop up every few years with a new album, which gets talked about for a month or two and then promptly forgotten until the next cycle begins. With the title of Regenesis, perhaps they see themselves as reinventing the band and their sound. The album is well produced and competently played, but leaves me pretty cold. I know that past BLACK ANVIL works were more aggressive and darker than this. They do try to mix things up here and they succeed in giving each track its own identity, but the songs are generally softer, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Forever Autumn – Crowned In Skulls [EP]

Massachusetts forest-dweller Autumn Ni Dubhghaill emerged from the cocoon years of 2004-’08 by, against expectation, harkening back to an older, more ancient time with her art. Rustic, simpler, almost agrarian in execution, Waiting For Öktober was sparse, that new-formed, black-winged butterfly clawing through and out of an enclosure, unsure but committed. Three albums and an EP have followed – including 2021’s black metal scorcher Hail The Forest Dark – to today, where FOREVER AUTUMN returns to folk-seasoned doom (or is it doom-seasoned folk?) with Crowned In Skulls. Assisted by mainstay cellist/foil Jon McGrath throughout and revisited by Aaron Stainthorpe of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: In The Woods… – Diversum

After a huge shakeup in membership shortly after 1999’s Strange In Stereo, IN THE WOODS… became, for all intents and purposes, sole original member Anders Kobro’s project. Resurfacing with a revamped lineup for 2016’s Pure and Cease The Day of two years after, we now behold Diversum, featuring (surprise, surprise!) a new bassist and vocalist. Lineup shifts aside, IN THE WOODS… has always marched to the beat of its own drum, and its early work – if we’re being honest – to varying degrees was influential in such revered bands as ENSLAVED and OPETH’s transformation into their current sound(s). Subtle […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Stormruler – Sacred Rites & Black Magick

These guys are from ST. LOUIS?! After listening to the utter blackened majesty of STORMRULER, I would have picked Sweden or Finland as their stomping grounds. Or even more likely, the realm of Gondor, or perhaps the frozen North of Tad Williams’ fantasy tales of Osten Ard. At any rate, these two warriors have conjured up a feast of gloriously over the top melodic black metal that embraces the epic. Yes, this is maximalism, not minimalism. And it works. The two major touchstones of STORMRULER’s sound would have to be DISSECTION and IMMORTAL. They draw upon the former’s freezing cold […]

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