Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

Music News

SONS OF RA: Chicago Progressive/Jazz Fusion Trio To Release Debut LP, Standard Deviation, On Free Electric Sound April 11th; ‘Disintegration (Alabama Revisited)’ Video And Preorders Posted

Two decades have passed since SONS OF RA emerged onto Chicago’s scene with their fusion of heavy prog, jazz, math rock, and elements of avant garde music. Initially a line-blurring experiment, the trio’s most recent work has proven the band’s sound to jazz fusion aficionados, math and progressive rock purists alike while holding their own on bills on the Midwestern heavy music scenes. Formed by guitarist Erik Oldman Vecchione (Mare Crisium, Afrofuturistics), drummer Mike Rataj (Arbogast, Mine Collapse), and saxophonist/bassist Keith Wakefield (Jan King And Medicine Ball, Afrofuturistics), SONS OF RA independently released four EPs since 2016, culminating with the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Act Of Impalement – Profane Altar

In this, its unholy 13th year, doth Nashville’s ACT OF IMPALEMENT lie us upon its third and aptly titled Profane Altar. Let the sacrifice begin… When founding guitarist/vocalist Ethan Rock revealed a new lineup before the release of 2023’s Infernal Ordinance, some wondered if this new incarnation would retain the spirit of the band some of us had followed since its early days. In a word, no. And it wasn’t intended to. Hence, when ‘Apparition’ appears, it’s with a somehow even older, more ancient tone than we’ve heard previously. Imagine BOLT THROWER as interpreted by a Cro-Magnon rhythm section and […]

Music News

GLORIOR BELLI: French Black Metal Insurgents Release First Single, ‘Weltschmerz Wield Power’, From Upcoming Self-Titled Album

Dark Empire Records is proud to announce the long-awaited eighth album from Gallic black metal insurgents GLORIOR BELLI, an eponymous assault due out next month via the recently-reformed label. No Clean Singing has graciously premiered the video for the band’s first single ‘Weltschmerz Wield Power’, describing the single and video as such: “True to the roots of black metal, the video has no more use for the trappings of The Cross and its carriers than GLORIOR BELLI has ever had, but instead confronts them with levitating horned lords of Hell and their hooded emissaries (among whom are the band members […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Balefire – Balefire [MLP]

The keys of ‘Black Sun’ dissolve into the caustic eruption that is ‘Sands Of Gemini’, bassist Chuck Sherwood and his interplanetary cohort managing to somehow be knuckle-dragging and technically mind-bending simultaneously. ‘Star-Born Revolt’ is convoluted, chaotic and cerebral, pre-Obscura GORGUTS on bath salts, when you could sense the obliteration of senses that was that album on the horizon. ‘Barbaric Rebirth’ is especially concise, yet covering so much in so short a space, so that the nearly 4 minutes of ‘Lord Of The Red Lands’ seems almost epic in scope. This is death metal birthed from some alternate dimension where entire […]

Music News

FLESHSPOIL (feat. Arsis, The Final Sleep, Illucinus alumni) Releasing Debut Album in March

Troy (NY) – A new force in Blackened Death Metal has emerged to lay waste to 2025! FLESHSPOIL, featuring veteran players from Arsis, The Final Sleep, and Illucinus, will release full-length debut album, The Beginning Of The End, March 28 on digital format. Fans of classic death, black, and doom metal take note! FLESHSPOIL delivers a haunting and aggressive soundscape, and features a lineup of seasoned musicians: Jeff Andrews (guitar/vocals), a veteran of New York’s metal scene, known for his work with The Final Sleep, Armor Column, Hush, Ironweed, Scavengers, and Held Under. Mike Van Dyne (drums), known for his […]

Music News

Album Review: Rats Of Gomorrah – Infectious Vermin

While the members of German death metal entity RATS OF GOMORRAH may not be new to the genre or the frustration that comes with wanting to branch out or explore new horizons within what (to some) is a staunchly policed style, ROG is a new project, born from the ashes of DIVIDE. The trio has trimmed down to a two-piece, and we now are given Infectious Vermin. Wasting no time with the all-too-common trope of the “Intro” track, ‘Swarming Death’ lives up to its name from the first hammering rhythm, the first chop of the guitar, Daniel Stelling’s [guitar/vocals] delivery […]

Music News

RWAKE To Release First New Album In Over 13 Years, The Return Of Magik, On March 14th Via Relapse Records; New Video/Single Now Playing + Preorders Available

After thirteen years of silence, an unsettling sound that is strangely familiar yet somehow even more haunted re-emerges from the Arkansas depths. There is no mistake as to what this is. RWAKE has released a new transmission. The Return Of Magik, set for release on March 14th via Relapse Records, has arrived. Years have now fed into an album that reaches into a swirling, cosmic unknown – RWAKE has grown, and the perspective of the material has shifted accordingly. Overwhelming at its peak and haunting during moments of respite, The Return Of Magik is undeniably RWAKE. Every movement feels like […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Aeon Gods – King Of Gods

Cosplay metal has really gotten out of hand…there’s so many bands that look like they’ve escaped from San Diego Comicon that bands wearing plain street gear now seem to be the outcasts. AEON GODS originate from Germany, but one look at their promo pic shows they would rather be from ancient Babylon. Oy vey! I put my head in my hands after seeing that, but when I got around to putting King Of Gods on the stereo, I must admit…this is not that bad at all. Yes, it is pompous symphonic power metal…what else would you expect from Scarlet Records? […]

Music News

GREENLEAF: Revolution Rock Deluxe 2xLP announced on Blues Funeral Recordings

Blues Funeral Recordings team up with Swedish heavy rock giants GREENLEAF to present Revolution Rock Deluxe, a special reissue of their first two classic records in one fully remastered and redesigned package to be released on March 28th. Stream a rocking first excerpt with ‘Sold My Lady (Out The Back Of An Oldsmobile)’. Led by guitarist Tommi Holappa of European desert rock icons Dozer, GREENLEAF began as an informal collective of friends making music inspired by their shared love of ’70s riff rock. Having transformed into a proper band in 2013, Greenleaf enters 2025 at the forefront of the global […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Harakiri For The Sky – Scorched Earth

While 2018’s Arson was, to my ears, a true fork in the road for HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY – an album where the band could’ve taken any number of divergent paths, all worthwhile – Mære felt very much as if the duo had decided to make camp in the lands of Arson, either unwilling, or undecided as to how to move forward. Factor in the re-recordings of 2010 debut and sophomore Aokigahara released in 2022, and it leaves one to wonder how the time since Mære was spent. Scorched Earth arrives, and now we know, for better or worse. Plaintive, […]

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