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: High Desert Queen – Secrets Of The Black Moon

From the get-go with ‘Heads Will Roll’, we are treated to some fine riffing, and a voice so smooth you wonder if the spicy lettuce has kicked in already. Feel that rolling and nodding your head? Yes, let it overtake you. That bass so crisp tickling your taste buds like a fine steak stone-cooked in the desert. This was just what I needed to hear tonight. What a pick me up! HIGH DESERT QUEEN is what you would get if THE SWORD and GOATWHORE had a baby, and I love this baby. I would adopt it and care for it […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: ROTHADÁS – Kopár hant… az alvilág felé

Hungarians ROTHADÁS arrive with their first long player, after 2019’s two-song self-titled release. Taking a page from the DARKTHRONE playbook, one might easily assume the duo to follow their ancestors’ now well-trodden paths to the past, but not so. Whereas the former relies these days on breaking down metal/punk/doom to its most stark, Messrs. Ledeczy and Hanyi don’t seem blind to taking ROTHADÁS death/doom down unexpected trails. In truth, what first drew me to Kopár hant…az alvilág felé was the cover art of four Victorian-era pallbearers transporting a coffin towards an inner-lit crypt amid a grey (I envision), rain-drizzled night. […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Vaelmyst – Secrypts Of The Egochasm

First of all, I was promised angel breasts and skulls. I received neither of these. What a let down. That being said, though I did not receive either, what I did get were some fine riffs. So, what happens when we delve into these secret cry…sorry, secrypts? Well, it could be said you would be treated to some fine finger work, the kind that would have your usual alley stalker in fishnets panting like a dog. Could I imagine myself sitting down with Howard Lovecraft and his delightful cat, banging this out over some sweet Merlot? Absolutely. Might even get […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Venefixion – A Sigh From Below

Simmering since 2013, with a demo, EP, and split release with Belgium’s POSSESSION to its name, the black magic Bretons VENEFIXION now prepare to turn up the heat with debut full-length, A Sigh From Below. After the Obligatory Intro Track ™, ‘Veneficial Upheaval’ gets things rolling, and roll they do. Heads, tanks, freaking boulders chasing Indiana Jones. If it can be rolled, it’s in motion. The one-sheet for ASFB mentioned “swagger”, and it wasn’t wrong, as the riff/rhythm at 2:01-2:24 is the stuff of which blood orgies are made. Bits of early DEATH pepper ‘Of Wolves And Ghosts’, albeit filtered […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Moon Oracle – Muse Of The Nightside

Well, what have we here? Something original and different, instead of another retread of ’80s or ’90s black metal? Yes indeed, and it’s about time. MOON ORACLE is from the “freaked out” branch of the black metal tree. In the end, my interest in Muse Of The Nightside kind of fades away, but I sure give the band credit for trying to rock the boat here. You know the typical complaint where bass guitar seems to get short-changed in black metal? Well, MOON ORACLE comes pretty close to overcompensating for this. The bass is the overwhelming be-all and end-all of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Thy Catafalque – Vadak

Reliability is a rare commodity these days, be it in personal relationships, professional commitments, or certainly in the arts. To find one of those bands – you know, the ones that worm under your skin and into your soul, to the point that you view each new release with hope instead of trepidation – is a true gift, indeed. Recorded in no less than 12 countries – aided by guest musicians and, indirectly, by the current isolation we all feel to some degree – ‘Szarvas’ ushers into Vadak with ULTRAVOX-worthy synthscapes, bolstered by bristling guitars that could as easily be […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Enforced – Kill Grid

Here it is…100% thrash metal PERFECTION! I was hoping that ENFORCED would rise to the challenge…and they have! These Virginia hellhounds have made a strong argument with Kill Grid that they are the rightful heirs of SLAYER. This album is full of the same balls-out intensity that made Hell Awaits and Reign In Blood classics. You doubt me? Slip this sucker in, hit play, and prepare to be battered and bruised by a whirlwind of steel! ‘The Doctrine’ starts with a medium crunchy build before exploding into pure holocaust of speed and intensity. Did ENFORCED blow their wad early? Along […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: TRNA – Istok

I’ll give advance notice, I am wary of labels like “core” and “shoegaze”. I see those words in a bands description and suddenly I get the image of pathetic fringe-cringe wimps crying in their My Chemical Romance shirts trying to pump their emotions into the pedals like it will somehow override the fact that they suck. But I was giving TRNA a chance, and sweet feck, I am glad I did! With that out of the way, where do I begin. Well…the first track sucked me in harder than the mosquitos have this year. I was torn into another realm, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Hooded Menace – The Tritonus Bell

Well, Lasse Pyykko and his band of merry noose-knotters are at it again. Wisely removing themselves from the utter dreck that was 2020, HOODED MENACE return to ring The Tritonus Bell, and, in turn, our ears…we hope. For the first time since 2008 debut, Fulfill The Curse, the time between full-lengths hasn’t been stop-gapped by at least one EP or split, leading one to believe that ol’ HM really did pour everything it had into the cauldron, churned it up with a femur, added one eye of defrocked priest, one hymen of promiscuous nun, the blood of a somewhat perturbed […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Lower 13 – Embrace The Unknown

LOWER 13 is a trio hailing from Cleveland, OH, an area I’ve always much more associated with the hardcore of RINGWORM, SIX FEET DEEP, or the doom of FRAYLE, the dirty-dirty sludge of FISTULA, RUE and their incestuous spawn. Which means I’m intrigued at what sort of traditional metal comes from the land of the burning river, so here goes. The band’s fourth, Embrace The Unknown, stumbles from the start, the title track a jumbled mish-mash of “alright, I guess, if you like that sort of thing” to outright bad ideas firing off in all directions, as if, lacking anything […]

Older Posts