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: Indestructible Noise Command – Terrible Things

I remember INDESTRUCTIBLE NOISE COMMAND from the tail end of the 80’s, when they part of the huge thrash metal boom at that time. I can’t say they made a huge impression on me, as they seemed to be decidedly second-tier and not on the same level as the big boys. More than 30 years later and INC are still in action. Terrible Things gives the listener a fuzzy glow of thrash nostalgia as the band is still plying thrash in the time-honored tradition. The production here is a level above their old stuff (which I remember having a horrendous […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Ewigkeit – DISclose

Ah, Mr. Fog there you are! Haven’t seen you for a while. But then, you pick the oddest times to pop up… EWIGKEIT, the creation of one James “Mr. Fog” Fogarty, has been one of the most one of a kind metal acts out there for many years. I even had the pleasure of speaking to him for Wormwood Chronicles years ago. Always obsessed with cosmic matters, he’s returned to action with DISClose, an album revolving around UFOs, conspiracies and the nature of truth. And it’s another great example of how he combines metal heaviness, appealing melodies and spaced out […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Vimur – Triumphant Master Of Fates

Don’t look now, but the 90’s black metal nostalgia kick is in full swing. After hearing the excellent new WINDSWEPT album recently, here comes the freezing fire known as VIMUR to try their hand at the classic misanthropic style. What’s more, these guys hail from the frostbitten plains of…Atlanta, Georgia?! They make a good first impression simply with the excellent cover art here. That always helps put one in the mood for epic darkness, and epic darkness is the best description of the VIMUR sound. The songs are extremely fast, cold and vicious but still with very notable melody and […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Rotting Christ – The Heretics

ROTTING CHRIST have existed in their own self-contained universe almost from the start of their career, which is now approaching the 30 year mark. They have never been interested in the typical trappings of what many perceive as extreme metal…they’ve never tried to be the fastest, the most brutal or, despite the obvious connotations of their name, the most blasphemous. They just create music on their own terms with no desire to meet any outside expectations.  The Heretics is for sure the most cinematic of all ROTTING CHRIST albums. A lot of this sounds like it could be the soundtrack […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Totalitarian – Bloodlands

Billed as a full-length, but with only half the running time of the Italian cult’s 2017 De Arte Tragoediae Divinae, Bloodlands gets right to the point, and O, that point is sharpened. Now, don’t get me wrong, with three songs over the 13-minute mark, the debut was impressive – a band coming out of nowhere with the chutzpah to not only attempt but succeed in making such lengthy works interesting – but it’s fulfilling to hear that, when it wants to, TOTALITARIAN can “trim the fat”, as it were. The band gets down to business with the strafing of ‘1933’, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: LACERATION – Remnants

Bay Area death-thrashers LACERATION deliver crushing, no frills, no bullshit death/thrash on their compilation Remnants. The album features LACERATION’s earliest recordings; an EP, a demo and tracks from the band’s 2013 split with TINNITUS. Remnants also features 2009’s Consuming Reality and the acclaimed Realms Of The Unconscious EP. This brings all the work Laceration has done over the years in a tight package. Remnants brings me back to the days of getting my first taste of extreme metal such as OBITUARY’s Cause of Death and SODOM’s Witching Metal demo, and this is a nostalgia trip from whence I hope never […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: OVERKILL – The Wings Of War

If there’s any such thing as an atomic clock in heavy metal, OVERKILL are it. Every other year, a new platter surfaces from the Jersey Boys and almost never does it disappoint. Usually a 10 tracker as well, just like The Wings Of War. What can we say about the 19th album from this most dependable of wrecking crews? New drummer Jason Bittner – late of SHADOWS FALL and FLOTSAM & JETSAM – has given the band a kick in the ass. His drumming here is explosive and machine gun-like in its velocity. Much like Scott Travis did for JUDAS […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Lonndom – Hågkomster från nordliga nejder & Norrskenritual

I first came across LONNDOM – or rather, LONNDOM came across me – courtesy of its debut release Falen Fran Norr. And here’s why that’s special to me. Not only had the duo crafted a sound the likes of which was at once new and familiar, but the album was the first release on Nordvis Produktion. The label’s credo of “Poor Music For Poor People” could not have rung more true than it did in LONNDOM, alternately frigid as Winter and soothing as Spring rain, often within the same song. And now, 12 years hence, we see the re-issue of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: JUDICIARY – Surface Noise

JUDICIARY, a 5-piece metallic hardcore band from Lubbock, Texas, brings the breakdowns on their debut full length album Surface Noise. The album rips open immediately with ‘Social Crusade’. It is a defiant call to violence and action. The riffing has the definite chug and bounce you would expect from any hardcore outfit, but I feel the meat of this album is more the words and message it is trying to convey. The message is defiance, violence, and burning down the old guard to make way for revolution. I can already feel the march of anarchist and slam dancers flocking to […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: HOT LUNCH – 
Seconds

So, maybe I’m not as jaded and cynical when it comes to the state of modern music as I come across when a band like HOT LUNCH can impress me the way it has with the aptly-titled Seconds. Having missed out on the band’s 2013 debut, and with nothing more to go on than a Julian Cope comparison to MC5, I pressed Play and the snap-mare rhythm of ‘Smoke Ring’ flung my ears into grooved out rawk recalling the mighty – and mightily underrated – DIXIE WITCH and FIVE HORSE JOHNSON, while sounding directly like neither. Around halfway through, the […]

Older Posts