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: Sacred Reich – Awakening

Here’s the long-awaited comeback for classic thrashers SACRED REICH. You knew it was coming, you just didn’t know when. This band sure had their moments (mostly Ignorance and Surf Nicaragua), but they never really broke through to the top tier level many thought they could reach. Their later albums like Heal were downright boring. Awakening features all of the classic SACRED REICH elements you would expect, but much like back in the day, it is just not a blow away record. One thing’s for sure, they don’t overstay their welcome. Awakening is a very brisk 31 minutes and change, consisting […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Patronymicon – Ushered Forth By Cloven Tongue

Aside from guitarist / sometimes-everything-else-ist N. Sadist, Sweden’s PATRONYMICON has ever been in flux, both in lineup and quality. Now, after having worked with a dedicated vocalist (H. Sulphur) and second guitarist (J. Malice) since shortly after 2013’s All Daggers Towards The Sky, N. Sadist returns, rounded out by a new rhythm section, attempting to finally stake his claim. Ushered Forth By Cloven Tongue rips forth from the gates of perdition, less black scathe and more an all-out death assault. One element greatly improved from past efforts is the injection of true melodic riffing that sacrifices no brutality in the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Tomb Mold – Planetary Clairvoyance

TOMB MOLD have emerged as one of the most talked about new death metal bands around. Usually that bodes ill for a band, but for these guys, it is perfectly understandable. They have found a way to merge sick, diseased sounding death metal with a more technical and progressive version of the genre. This is by no means an easy thing to do, as the scale usually tips too much in one direction for such a combo to actually work. TOMB MOLD make it work. Planetary Clairvoyance picks up where their last album Manor Of Infinite Form left off. They […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Memoriam – Requiem For Mankind

MEMORIAM continues to crank albums out at a pace that most modern bands wouldn’t have a clue about. As soon as one has come out, work starts immediately on the next. It hasn’t been that long since The Silent Vigil emerged and now here is Requiem For Mankind. Sometimes having albums come out on a conveyor belt means a drop in quality…how about in MEMORIAM’s case? This is actually the best MEMORIAM yet. It totally retains the old school BOLT THROWER/BENEDICTION feeling of the band but the pace seems quicker, the music a little angrier and the riffs a bit […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Picture – Wings

PICTURE is a band that almost made it big in heavy metal. Like many other bands of the dawn of the metal age, they SHOULD have made it big. All the tools were there. It’s been 40 years since these Dutchmen first made their mark. Is there a place for PICTURE in 2019? You bet your sweet bippy there is. Wings has such a flavor of what made metal great in the early ’80s and that formula still works today. You’d have to be dead inside to not get a warm fuzzy feeling from this record. This is where classic […]

Album Reviews

ALBUM REVIEW: Gaahl’s Wyrd – GastiR – Ghosts Invited

There’s no doubt that Mr. Kristian Espedal better known as GAAHL is one of the most polarizing, if not the most polarizing figure on the black metal scene. And so he’s been for quite some time. Much of it seems to revolve around his sexuality, which I could give a rat’s ass about. It’s no more pertinent with Gaahl than it is with Rob Halford or the dude from TORCHE. But even beyond that, the guy’s been a real outsider since Day One and in a lot of ways he sums up the rebel aspect of black metal a lot […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Burial Party – Please, Electric Move Slow

BURIAL PARTY launches its 10+ minute debut 7” with jagged riffing, snap-mare rhythms and Ian MacKaye-styled vox, and it’s the early ’90s all over again, son. No, not the Use Your Illusion, or even Nevermind early ’90s, mind you, but the ones that brought us Grippe / In On The Kill Taker, so you know right off what BURIAL PARTY has on offer. ‘Black Stripe’ jiggers its way into the angular, saw-toothed ‘Crisis Actor’, yanking the ghosts of noise-rawk gods DRIVE LIKE JEHU back into corporeal form, all tension, build and release, something many post-whatever bands could take a lesson […]

Album Reviews

ALBUM REVIEW: AIMA – Tragos

While what’s happening to the goat in the lead track from AIMA’s debut full-length, Tragos may involve fucking of a sort, it definitely doesn’t sound as if anything’s being redeemed, so furious is the rhythm cannonade, so malevolent the riffs. Slithering back and forth and back again, from INCANTATION-style doom to a more cavernous BLEEDING FIST, this trio is locked into each other’s musical sensibilities, grafted to one another, even when ‘The Occultist’ threatens to take the whole careening train off the rails. ‘Possessed Preacher’ imbues and invades, a sonic reverse exorcism, casting demonic forces in rather than out. The […]

Album Reviews

ALBUM REVIEW: Magic Circle – Departed Souls

Finally, some honest music. MAGIC CIRCLE have been a kind of cult name in doom metal circles the last few years and have shown a talent for epic metal in the CANDLEMASS vein. Their previous effort Journey Blind was a really strong release that definitely aimed for that mark. On Departed Souls, they are going for a more earthy vibe, injecting some blues and classic rock elements into the heaviness. Think of PENTAGRAM and early BLACK SABBATH more than CANDLEMASS this time around. Most importantly, this has a real pure analog sound to it. Praise be to the metal gods […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Undoer – Survival Is A Myth

The phrase “unlooked-for” fits Turkey’s UNDOER like a black, fingerless glove. Only a year out of the gate, the trio self-released Survival Is A Myth late 2018, streaking low under the radar of those (myself included) who weren’t paying enough attention, but should’ve been. It’s the nature of the beast circa 2018-19, however. The press/media is bloated with our own ego-driven elitism, fancying ourselves the watchguards of taste, so it’s unavoidable but – let’s be honest here – unfortunate that sometimes entire bands literally going supernova with quality exist in the exile of our oblivion. Wisely snapped up for wide(r) […]

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