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: Sylosis – The New Flesh

This band has been kicking around for at least 20 years and has yet to leave much of a mark. One of the problems is that they don’t know exactly what they are themselves. The New Flesh hops from radio friendly dad rock to LAMB OF GOD style thrashing groove to almost industrial metal sounds. If they focused on one of these, they might have a more coherent album in their hands. Press describes SYLOSIS mainman Josh Middleton as if he’s the baddest motherfucker on the planet. Please! I listen to metal on a daily basis that chews this up […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Kallohonka – Lazer Blood

The older and more (if possible) curmudgeonly I get the less interest I have in PR one-sheets. To those who’ve never been on the receiving end of one of these, it’s therein that we’re told our lives up to hearing Band/Album In Question have been slightly to grossly unsatisfying if we’d just own up to the fact and begin to sing Band/Album In Questions praises far and wide. Rent skywriters. Get buck nekkid and call down fiyah from the tippy-top of the highest point in your area, be it the local Dollar Tree or the Statue Of Liberty herself upon […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Phendrana – Cathexis

If you need a break from relentless aggression and the angst of the disintegrating world we live in, I highly recommend listening to Cathexis. This is really beautiful music that doesn’t totally eschew heaviness. Most of this type of material usually only interests me briefly, but PHENDRANA have found the secret of truly thoughtful and haunting songcraft. It’s the work of one Anuar Salum, a resident of Mexico City who is well versed in classical composition as well as jazz and rock techniques. With the help of some friends, he’s created Cathexis, a four song journey into melancholy that will […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Jack Harlon & The Dead Crows – Inexorable Opposites

JACK HARLON & THE DEAD CROWS’ fourth begins with the aptly titled ‘Moss’ the fuzzed (dare I say it, “mossy”) guitar phrasings slow but unceasing, creeping as its namesake. These are the open lands, dark and wide, and Tim Coutts-Smith’s passionate baritone harks to fellow countryman NICK CAVE but fronting a more rough-and-tumble WAYFARER. ‘Venomous’ strikes, quick and deadly before coiling to attack again, serpent-brained and hooded, while ‘Mt Macedon’ drags classic CRAZY HORSE into the spotlight, loose, loud as thunder, and more concerned about emotion than perfection of technique. There’s good bit of grunge ala PAW or Screaming Life […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Exhumed – Red Asphalt

Aside from the unbelievable chasm of time lapsed between Anatomy Is Destiny (2023) and 2011’s All Guts, No Glory, this is the longest we’ve had to wait for a new EXHUMED full-length of original material since its formation. Mind you, the band was far from on hiatus from To The Dead until now, but let’s take a ride down the Red Asphalt, and see if it’s worth the four-year wait. ‘Unsafe At Any Speed’ strips gears on its way to Mach 666, the perfect opening track for an album dealing with the seedy underbelly of America’s dark highways and bloody […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: GAVIAL – Thanks, I Hate It

‘Control’ eases us into GAVIAL’s second, Thanks, I Hate It, a loping, syncopated groove helmed by bassist Paul Kollascheck and Conrad Brod [drums] underpinning hazed out/phased out guitars and vocalist Benjamin Butter’s higher register timbre. Though it works more as an introduction to what’s coming, ‘Control’ does exactly what an opening track should by building anticipation, in this case for ‘Koru Mindset’. Unexpectedly energetic given the foursome’s comfort zone of mid-tempo explorations, ‘Koru Mindset’ brushes elbows with SHUDDER TO THINK, or possibly TAME IMPALA in a live setting, a bit of abrasion ala THE MARS VOLTA slashing through at times. […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Tenebro – Una Lama D’Argento

If you like plenty of red sauce in your movies as well as your pasta, TENEBRO from Italy is the band for you. This is death metal smothered in the tasty gore of the Italian giallo films…specifically, the movies of one Dario Argento. The connection between Italian horror and death metal is well known and TENEBRO might be better at it than any one except classic NECROPHAGIA. Above all, they get the creepy, suffocating atmosphere of Argento films like Inferno and Deep Red and transfer that dread to gruesome, gory death metal. The guitar tone here is unreal, coated in […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Ligation – After Gods

LIGATION, formed by DARK BUDDHA RISING alumnus MN and MS of enthralling funeral doom entity PROFETUS, and now joined by TI of brutal death crew PUS, arrives with its full-length debut, After Gods. A shagged-out doom groove strides in in the form of the title track, ghosts of DESULTORY (when they mattered) and GOREFEST’s Mindloss flitting around the corners. There’s already something unhinged at work here, be forewarned, slobbering death metal and chaos-reigning noise elements making an appearance, and we’re less than three minutes in. ‘Turmoil In Everest’ TI’s bass is robust in the same way as the slathering creature […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Gluecifer – Same Drug New High

GLUECIFER stood loud ‘n’ proud from its formation in mid-‘90s Oslo, its not-quite-sleaze but definitely unclean take on unadorned “don’t call it garage” rock putting it on equal footing with BACKYARD BABIES and THE HELLACOPTERS, and far above the likes of BAD WIZARD and THE WITCHES when it came to laying down the law of rock. Disbanding roughly ten years in, vocalist Biff Malibu, guitarists Captain Poon and Raldo Useless grabbed Danny Young, threw him behind the kit again, and kidnapped “new” bassist Peter Larsson to tour over the past nine years. And now, just under a decade after that, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Defaced – Icon

It seems crazy that anything that seems as angry as Icon is could be so dull, but here we are. This Swiss band…hailing from a country with a proud tradition of forward-thinking acts…winds up being a very boilerplate example of modern death metal. The cover art for Icon is absolutely spectacular. And that’s the best thing about it. If DEFACED reminds me of anyone, it’s the current version of KATAKLYSM. That’s not a great endorsement these days. The production is so shiny you can see your reflection in it. Death metal needs grit and filth. Only the best bands can […]

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