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: Serpents Of Secrecy – Ave Vindicta

Formed by members current and past of the mighty SIXTY WATT SHAMAN, KING GIANT and more, Baltimore’s SERPENTS OF SECRECY has Maryland Doom in its rattling bones from the start, the fuzzed out bass of dear, departed bassist Rev. Jim Forrester leading the slow and low charge in the title track. Fluid yet fang’ed, elements of bands as varied as SOLACE and FOGHAT (who were actually a pretty heavy live band) show up in ‘Heel Turn’, which carries on through the syrupy sludge of ‘Time Crushes All’, the early Cornell tinting to vocalist Mark Lorenzo’s delivery dripping over the tune […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Mortiferum / Hyperdontia – Split 7″

I use the phrase “short, sharp shock” a fair amount. I try not to, but I’ll admit to it popping up more than I’d like. Besides, it doesn’t really fit this release. Two bands, two songs. Get in, get rabid, get out. Back in the day, those Maxell or TDK 60-90 minute cassettes we’d get in the mail from writing addresses in the back of metal magazines to trade bands and hear music were treasure troves. Yeah, of course there were some clunkers, but more often than not, you’d come away with at least a handful of new (to you) […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Starcrazy – Played For Suckers [EP]

Sydney, Australia’s STARCRAZY make their play for the spotlight early next year with this EP, Played For Suckers but, what with the promo sheet espousing such legendary influences as HANOI ROCKS, BOWIE and MOTHER LOVE BONE, I felt we were setting the bar a bit high, perhaps. The just shy of 2-minutes opener, ‘Rise’, wasn’t that great of an idea as a lead-off, as it’s basically an instrumental build to what would, in other times, have been that moment when the backlit stage bathes ‘n’ blinds legions of die-hard fans, the band kicking off their show in grand style. As […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Mors Principium Est – Seven

I’ve always had a soft spot for melodic death metal, especially that of the Scandinavian/Teutonic variety, so Finland’s MORS PRINCIPIUM EST fit easily into my listening choices when NIGHT IN GALES took a hiatus for the ‘10s, when we didn’t know if AT THE GATES was going to be a thing anymore, and when IN FLAMES disappeared up its own ass starting with 1999’s Colony, incidentally the year of MPE’s founding. Now on its appropriately-titled 7th album, the duo has largely been reliable, not having released an outright clunker during its two decades. Certainly, there are some standouts as well […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Hatebreed – Weight Of The False Self

I just can’t get behind Jamey Jasta & co. One could make the case that HATEBREED’s frontman/heart and soul of the band has done much for hardcore, as far as bringing it into the spotlight. Whoever said that’s where hardcore wanted to be is my thought. Anyway, the band’s never impressed me, but I can’t seem to help giving each new album a listen. Not sure exactly what I’m hoping for, but I know I haven’t found it yet. And so it remains with Weight Of The False Self, HATEBREED’s eighth. I couldn’t help but wince at the rhyme of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Zebadiah Crowe – The Cloven Hand [EP]

Remember when bands like DIE KRUPPS, the mighty GODFLESH and PITCH SHIFTER used to take on remixes of straightforward metal bands and mangle the songs, turning them inside out, so that what came forth from your speakers was nothing whatsoever like the original? It was liberating to hear, at least to these ears. But when those aforementioned would allow the scalpel to be taken to their own tracks, all bets were off, and what often happened was no less than a dissection and a piecing back together, an electronic Frankenstein’s monster with a result no less bleak than Shelley’s doomed […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Prometheus – Resonant Echoes From Cosmos Of Old

Named after the god who brought fire and wisdom to mankind, PROMETHEUS comes across as a band with a bit of an identity crisis. There are six songs on their long-winded album, and the first three differ quite a bit from the last three. Their sound touches upon crushingly dark death metal, epic black metal and a kind of cosmic ambience. The first three songs are by far the more interesting and punishing. ‘Gravitons Passing Through Yog-Sothoth’ goes for the jugular with a brutal rush of old school death in the vein of early MORBID ANGEL and ABSU. It’s a […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: White Dog – White Dog

There’s really no reason at all why I shouldn’t be frothing at the mouth over Austin, TX pack WHITE DOG. I mean they tick ALL the boxes. From the Southern US, named after an animal, twin guitar harmonies (scratch that – “guitarmonies”, as the band say), guitars, long hair, hats, AND the quintet looks like 5/6 of the ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND or the classic lineup of MOLLY HATCHET shat them out their ass in the promo photos. So yeah, absolutely no reason. Oh, and and they’re on Rise Above, one of the most reliable labels going since it began. But […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: ILSA – Preyer

Ugly, mean, depressing…ILSA is all of these things. But what else is new? These morose cats from DC have been dishing out sludgy death metal with nary a ray of light for quite some time now, and Preyer sees them at their most misanthropic and disturbing. The album starts with a truly unsettling monologue from one Sean Sellers, devout Satanist and the youngest killer to ever be executed on death row, detailing the cold blooded murder of a convenience store clerk. That gets the album off to a nice brisk start and things don’t get much more cheerful from there. […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Undeath – Lesions Of A Different Kind

It takes a lot of either courage, confidence, or flat out balls for a new death metal band to release a debut album. Sometimes it’s all of one of the aforementioned, sometimes an equal blend of all three. Nonetheless, when the promo sheet from Prosthetic Records hails your album as “a whole new level [Insert Obligatory “of confidence and powarrr!” Here] of skull crushing intensity, you’d best know what you’re about. I’m also a little concerned that, within a little over 1 ½ years, New York’s UNDEATH has managed to crank out 2 digital demos, a vinyl split, a compilation, […]

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