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: Pharmakon – Maggot Mass

After four albums on Sacred Bones Records (also home to releases by artists as disparate as the world-splitting KHANATE, the goth-proto-punk of LATHE OF HEAVEN and ZOLA JESUS’ electro-pop) cometh the Maggot Mass… Worry not, longtime fans of PHARMAKON, when we tell you that she’s experimenting with songs structured in a more “traditional” way. First, you must consider what one who has her past output would consider traditional, then you must put even that aside for this journey. ‘Wither And Warp’ ushers in the consecration, ceremonial in rhythm and intonation, a calling forth? Or to? Skitter-scritchings of insects, chattering, a […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Hammerfall – Avenge The Fallen

Never let it be said that I’m not nostalgic. HAMMERFALL had the good (or bad) fortune to come along at a time when metal of all sorts was deep in the throes of an identity crisis, from which it took years to emerge. Still, MANOWAR was on a major label, and BLIND GUARDIAN, STRATOVARIUS and ICED EARTH were holding the banner high, our great and shining hopes for the future. By 1999, however, HAMMERFALL – at least to my ears – sang their creative swan song with the original material on the I Want Out EP. Renegade would follow with […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Yosemite In Black – In Pursuit Of

Based on the scant amount of actual info on Georgia’s YOSEMITE IN BLACK available without either logging into Facebook or following them on Bandcamp, neither of which I’m prepared to do not having heard a note until this moment. It seems like the band probably got its start around the turn of the decade and – again, from what I’ve found – In Pursuit Of is its first album. So, let’s go… The first thing that jumps out in opener ‘Cerberus’ is the mix and production – and when I say “jumps out”, I mean leaps the fuck forward as […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Orange Goblin – Science, Not Fiction

On its tenth album, ORANGE GOBLIN remains the same as they’ve always been; fun and entertaining to listen to in the short run, but lacking the extra ingredient necessary to get them over the hump into the next level. Bands and albums like this are always the hardest to review, as they are not bad by any stretch, but just not really memorable. The GOBLIN sound remains true to itself here, a greasy kind of riff rock like MOTÖRHEAD meets MONSTER MAGNET. I will say this – they really make the attempt to give every song its own personality here. […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: The Stabbing Jabs – The Stabbing Jabs

Ah, Cincinnati…Porkopolis herself, home of Skyline Chili, the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers. And now home to, for better or worse, THE STABBING JABS. ‘Broken Brain’ hits with the fury of BLACK FLAG’s ‘My War’ but done up in a grime-fueled rock and roll incarnation, and I’m not sure how many seconds the guitarist spent getting that tone, but it’s just drenched in motor oil, and continues through the even more punch-drunk ‘Bad Slime’. Memories of my time in Detroit at Corktown Taven come to mind, five local kickass bands for $10 in a 2nd floor shoebox just […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Carnophage – Matters Of A Darker Nature

After 2 albums on respected Californian death metal imprint Unique Leader, CARNOPHAGE returns (yep, you guessed it, eight years later), this time on India’s multi-genre Transcending Obscurity, and with Matter Of A Darker Nature. Now, here’s the thing; I don’t really give a right rolling crap how “brutal” you are. If the songs aren’t there, I’m never going to give your shit more than one spin, unless you count the one down the toilet. Keeping the same lineup intact over the past two albums has served the Turkish entity well, as opener ‘In My Bones’ holds onto the face-forward energy […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Endless Floods – Rites Futurs

There’s something I’ve always appreciated about music with vocals/lyrics in other languages than English. For the native speakers or those who’ve learned the language, it gives a sense of “ownership”, of kinship, if you would. For those of us who have anything from no idea to a passing grasp of what’s being sung about, it forces the music to stand on its own. The vocals, for non-speakers, then take on an incorporeal quality – a glossolalia, if you would. And that’s what I’m experiencing with ENDLESS FLOODS’ return trip, Rites Futurs. ‘L’Éclair’ cascades over the cliffs and into a hidden […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Skelethal – Within Corrosive Continuums

Here’s the third album from one of France’s best death metal bands, SKELETHAL. Starting out as pretty much a tribute to classic Swedish death, they shifted their sound somewhat with their second go around, Unveiling The Threshold, adding more technicality and a bit of the Floridian DM vibe. Within Corrosive Continuums emerges in a time of an overstuffed death metal scene, so it needs to be a definitive statement. And it just might be. This time around, SKELETHAL remain resolutely morbid and brutal yet they show more different influences than ever before. This is an album that benefits from a […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Manic Abraxas – Skinformation

Alright, MANIC ABRAXAS, here you are again, in my face and earholes, right around two years from the time I sang your praises for Foreign Winds. What, you think I’ve got all the time in the world here? And who’s this bastard child of Eddie, Vic Rattlehead and Korgull from Dimension Hatröss lookin’ like we ‘bout to have a problem staring out at me from the cover of Skinformation? I see you finally got around to calling a song ‘Manic Abraxas’. About time, but we’ll argue about how it should’ve gone on the self-titled debut to complete the Band/Album/Song trifecta […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Absorb – Smog [EP]

Hamilton, Ontario’s ABSORB bashed out two respectable full-lengths between 2015 and 2018, then poof (or puff?)! Like ‘The Smokeman’ himself, the band were in the mists until last year’s stench-ridden return by way of the EP. And now, just over a year later, the Smog be upon us… What shouldn’t also escape notice here is the sense of Confessionalism found in the lyrics of the band, especially prevalent in “I still think it’s 2020 / I never really dream / Circling the drain / I’m moulting – alone / On a dog day afternoon in the middle of summer / […]

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