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: 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 […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Profane Elegy – Herezjarcha

When All Is Nothing blended the treble-heavy rush of black metal’s second wave with understandable yet snarling exhortations, a flirtation with the unpredictable, and a sense of economy that suited the duo that made up PROFANE ELEGY well. Now, 2 ½ years later, Mikael L. [vocals] and instrumentalist J. Gulick have taken a bassist and drummer into the fold and delivered unto us Herezjarcha. A word first, then on to the music. Yes, you honkbrayers, I’m fully aware that it’s 2026, and that bands are oft’ inclined to release singles from upcoming projects via streaming platforms. I question, though, the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Hyperion – Cybergenesis

Sometimes you run into a band so pure that METAL must be written in all caps to describe them. Say hello to Italy’s HYPERION! These cats came out of nowhere to hit me upside the head with one of the year’s best METAL albums! This is 100% pure steel, forged in the fires of PRIEST, MAIDEN and ‘RYCHE but with a bracing jolt of speed and a kick of modern power metal. There are eight compact songs on Cybergenesis and I can’t find much of a flaw in any of them. There’s no pointless intro or corny narration, this thing […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Omnium Gatherum – May The Bridges We Burn Light The Way

Finland’s OMNIUM GATHERUM has never had it easy. Formed in 1996, during the time when the Gothenburg-born style of melodic death was really starting to stretch its legs and take confident steps original/current guitarist, Markus Vanhala, and co. were and have been fighting an uphill battle for recognition since the demo days. Sometimes great, sometimes good, but always deserving of a listen, the band enters the fray again in 2025 – just shy of the band’s 30th anniversary – with May The Bridges We Burn Light The Way. If you’re looking for the difference between “Intro” and “Instrumental” look no […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Architectural Genocide – Malignant Cognition

When you’ve got a sophomore album nearly six years in the making, and it’s shorter than Reign In Blood, one of two things has happened; either you’ve decided to shit something out super-quick just to keep the band name out there, or you’ve (hopefully) spent that time honing these songs to the point that they’re less “songs” than blades and boulders, both concertina wire-sharp and heavy as granite. Creepy-crawly “intro-not intro” ‘Precursor To Bloodshed’ sets the mood for Malignant Cognition, ARCHITECTURAL GENOCIDE ready to rumble like a bulldozer in the graveyard that is ‘Coercion Into Carnality’. Immensely guttural vocal spews […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: 1914 – Viribus Unitis

There were times when I wondered if 1914 would ever release a new album. There were times when I wondered if they were even still alive or able to record. These doubts arise when your country is at war and fighting for its life. Thankfully, the Ukrainians are still in action and have found time to bless us with another outstanding album, Viribus Unitis. This band are metal’s premier chroniclers of the horrors of war. On the most obvious level, they write about the wrenching events of World War 1. But now that their own country is in a life […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Olde Outlier – From Shallow Lives To Shallow Graves

From the shadowed back-alleys, fog-enfolded streets, and ramshackle buildings glaring down in geometric absurdity that is Innsmouth and was INNSMOUTH cometh death and slouching blackness. Less a continuation than a convoluted spawn of ancestral anti-cosmology held tenuously within the same universe, the Australian foursome that is OLDE OUTLIER, here to bring us From Shallow Lives To Shallow Graves… Exploding in orgiastic glee, ‘The Revellers’ wastes no time, ascending/descending riffs being battered by war drums, a surprisingly clear and loping bass heard throughout, vocalist Appleton’s unbridled howl from 2:41-2:53 letting us know it’s about the emotion here. That gut-born and gut-wrenching […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Coroner – Dissonance Theory

The last CORONER album, Grin, came out in 1993. The world has changed so much since then (and not for the better, which only an idiot would dispute) that there are hardly words fit to describe the gulf. Yet in 2025, CORONER has returned. Have they also changed beyond recognition? Dissonance Theory will go down as one of the best “comeback” albums ever released. This is everything CORONER was in 1993 but better, more refined. Grin was hardly a great album in my book. In every way, Dissonance Theory is superior. This is progressive thrash metal at its highest level. […]

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