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: 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 […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Withered – Verloren

Dense, depressing and heavy, WITHERED arise from the Georgia swamps once more with Verloren. This band is an ever-changing enigma, but one thing you can always be certain of no matter what album you pick up: the music will be darker than the bottom of a well. Verloren keeps pace with the nightmarish age we find ourselves in. This is a suffocating kind of album, one that doesn’t allow much light to escape. WITHERED’s sound has always been hard to make a comparison to, but it’s thick, smothering death metal with touches of sludge and the Gothic. ‘By Tooth In […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Pharaoh – The Powers That Be

“Bring me their heads! Set loose the war dogs! Blood will flow by the powers that be. . .”We’re not even two minutes into the title track of The Powers That Be, and already we are beckoned forth with an epic battle cry. If you can’t feel the call, I suggest you crank up your volume. If that weren’t enough to stir you, very well, go live in your mediocrity. Heads will remain on shoulders; the dogs will mope around in their kennels, and the only thing flowing will be your inner barbarian’s tears as you sit back down to […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: VREID – Wild North West

Sogndal’s favorite sons, VRIED, return with album number nine, having kept to a reliable schedule of an album every 2-3 years throughout the entity’s nearly two-decade career. While never veering too far from the path originally embarked upon in Kraft, the outfit has managed to remain reliable in quality as well thus far. To be honest, Wild North West was one of those albums that, even before listening, I entered upon the assumption that it would rise to the same watermark as the formers had. At first look, there was that rare sight of a vibrant cover, bursting with Frank […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Hellcrash – Krvcifix Invertör

Italy’s HELLCRASH cranked out two demos and a split between 2013-2015, then unceremoniously departed from sight. Apparently, the trio has spent the time since on a strict regimen of liver punishment, graveyard hijinks and a diet of pre-’87 thrash/speed metal, now returning with its first full-length, Krvcifix Invertör. HELLCRASH makes no secret of its allegiances right out the gate, four of the nine song titles invoking the name of Satan, so it’s clearly time to party, right? Hellraiser’s guitars and sneer could’ve literally been spawned from Killing Is My Business… – era Mustaine’s drunken sweat, while the title track is […]

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