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: Wuldorgast – Cold Light

‘Obscured In Shadows’ throws its head back in a magisterial and mighty howl from the start, ascending and descending riff patterns, a definite early ‘00s DARKTHRONE vibe to both the tempo and Feral Spirit’s (henceforth F.S.) vocal proclamations not unlike Fenriz of the aforementioned, who shan’t be again, because there’s at once something fresh about what WULDORGAST is bringing this early on in Cold Light. Neither blanching at the idea of stretching a song to just under the breaking point as in the opener, nor averse to the “get in, do damage, get out” aesthetic, ‘Natural Life Is Eternal Battle’ […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: The Kearns Family – Together And Alone

Take a husband and wife old-time music duo, give them a sound to paint to, a touch of JOHNNY DOWD, and more than a little style. Now, take those two, put them in the Mojave Desert, and put a few mics in the room. What comes out is Together And Alone. ‘The Dust’ immediately resonates, bell-clear and crystalline despite its title, Susan Kearns’ upright bass already as integral to the sound as the weathered, careworn voice of Pat. Grains of BRETT DETAR are sifted through vocal cords just this side of brittle, a breath away from brimstone and heart-deep in […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: The Brood – For The Dark

Come to think, it’s really not all that rare for a punk/hardcore band to start up, then spend years playing in local dives, squats, basements and VFW halls before deciding to crank out an actual album. I’d even add that, as a genre, the type of punked up hardcore THE BROOD is on about is more geared to a live setting, where the band and the crowd become one heaving, moshing organism than something you’d toss onto a record player. But that’s not keeping the Philadelphia crew from delivering with For The Dark. ‘Sinkhole’ is exactly that from the start, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Barren – The Hanged Man

New Jersey’s BARREN arrives with its debut, The Hanged Man. ‘Unheard’ begins with the all-too-common sound of the church bell, winds blowing in the darkness, and a wail over a plain – but still somehow interesting – chord structure. There’s a feeling of an extended prelude here, though, as a true song never takes shape. Vocalist/guitarist/bassist Andrew Campbell does seem to be desirous of some sort of purging, and his delivery is understandable, while carrying the burden of desperation. There’s something of the Akron – Cleveland, OH sound in ‘Death Interrupted’, bands like ULTRALORD and FISTULA coming to mind in […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Bedsore – Dreaming The Strife For Love

Aside from a split album with Japan’s MORTAL INCANTATION, 2020’s slow grower, Hypnagogic Hallucinations was the last we’d heard from BEDSORE… until now. When I refer to the debut as a “slow grower”, the mistake would be to view that as a bad thing, especially in this case. Neither one to chop the tail off a song unnecessarily to meet some self-enforced track length, nor to draw out a piece to the snapping point for the same reason, there was a lot going on in BEDSORE, even from the start. And thus, it’s no real surprise that, if anything, the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Goatlord Corp. – Temple Of Serpent Whores

GOATLORD CORP. arrives, kicking open the rust-encrusted gate to Temple Of Serpent Whores with ‘Slave Disciplin’, a confidently striding riff soon devolving into the equivalent of a sentient woodchipper on crack, ferocious. Vokillist Saint Vincent dredges up a mighty Mille Petrozza from KREATOR’s early years, all snarl, sneer and raspy execution. The title track only fans the flames here, the chorus of ‘Temple Of Serpent Whores’ demands horns raised, heads banged, blood in the pit in a way that those black metal bands with convoys of tour buses and Nuclear Blast touring budgets rarely succeed. Deceptively, the song shifts and […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Ensiferum – Winter Storm

That ENSIFERUM was on a downward slide between 2009 classic From Afar and ‘20s Thalassic still kind of hurts, given how reliable the band was for its first four albums. I’ve kept up peripherally with them since, always at least given each new release a spin, but have come away feeling disappointed, and never went back to see if there was anything I might’ve missed, because there was so much more to hear and give time to, even within the folk metal sub-subgenre. Intro ‘Aurora’ sounds like the loading screen for the flash game Crush The Castle, and ‘Winter Storm […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Gaerea – Coma

Sticking with the pattern of releasing an album every two years since 2018’s aptly named Unsettling Whispers, Portuguese outfit GAEREA return with Coma. ‘The Poet’s Ballet’ glides into the ears, unhurried, yet with a sense of the near-liturgical, ALICE IN CHAINS vocal harmonies over peaceful keys and synths, the antithesis of what most have come to expect from GAEREA thus far – at least not to this degree. The true mark of quality here, among the many to be found over its catalog, is that, at just over 1/3rd of the way through the track, when treble flurries and the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: The Wring – Nemesis

THE WRING’s last album, Spectra, was a genuine delight and immediately put this Canadian power trio on my radar. A fun and engaging piece of progressive metal that was more than a little reminiscent of a certain other progressive power trio from Canada. In fact, it was a tremendous mixture of Permanent Waves / Moving Pictures era RUSH and the early days of DREAM THEATER. With Nemesis, not much has really changed…including my enjoyment. The RUSH and DREAM THEATER comparisons remain, but THE WRING also have injected their own personality into things. The songs are punchy and to the point, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Deadform – Entrenched In Hell

DEADFORM’s self-titled EP didn’t so much “burst” onto the scene in 2022, unless speaking of a pustule oozing its infection out after the needle has pierced it to drain. Apparently the pus has returned, but instead of the surgical prick of a needle, the trio has decided to apply pressure until it ruptures of its own accord with Entrenched In Hell. What else would one expect from former members of STORMCROW, the mighty DYSTOPIA, and LAUDANUM? ‘Of Plagues’ quickly shifts from cave dweller drone to HELLBASTARD groove-laden crust, the rhythm section/dual vocalists battling to be heard over their own cacophony, […]

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