Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

2024

Album Reviews

Album Review: Darkestrah – Nomad

A fierce wind is blowing from the steppes once more. I hear thundering hooves on the horizon…DARKESTRAH has returned! I’ve loved this unusual band since hearing their masterpiece, The Great Silk Road, but they’ve been quiet the last few years. The silence is shattered with Nomad. This is one of the great black metal bands, with such a memorable, time-lost sound. Only the best can conjure up a true feeling of being from another time and place and DARKESTRAH have done this like no other. Yes, the style here is similar to The Great Silk Road and Turan. I hope […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Messiah – Christus Hypercubus

MESSIAH was one of the first metal bands to cross my hears from Switzerland (yes, yes, the mighty CORONER, a little-known band named HELLHAMMER that turned into an even lesser-known band called CELTIC FROST, we know). There was always something quirkily special about MESSIAH, though. From the low-slung proto-doom/death of ‘Space Invaders’, to the utterly bonkers yet melodic ‘The Dentist’ of the debut to the complete about-face that was Extreme Cold Weather and that curious polar bear on the cover, MESSIAH was just different. Fast forward to 2024, the regrettable loss of vocalist Andy Kaina certainly still haunting after the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Ihsahn – Ihsahn

I mean, really, in 2024, what point is there in backstory? If you’re into metal/extreme music whatsoever, you’re at the very least aware of IHSAHN, and his history. If not, a quick search will provide such, but let’s focus, as I’m sure he would desire, on the music/art, which is why we’re discussing him at all. For IHSAHN’s eighth – though all of his releases have an element of the forward-thinking, and he has always been seen as the most “experimentally-minded” member of EMPEROR, for better or worse – he’s chosen to pull out all stops and present the project […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: DIPYGUS – Dipygus

While death metal was born swathed in gore (I mean, it is death metal, right?), since the mid-‘80s the genre has morphed into subgenre after sub-subgenre after sub-subgenre, resulting in…well, if we’re going to take brutal death, goregrind, and gore metal as examples…does anything truly shock and appall anymore? When’s the last time a song’s lyrics truly creeped you out? When’s the last time those lyrics joined with the music to create something utterly terrifying? Returns DIPYGUS with its third full-length, ready to spew blood, choler and phlegm in a fountain of yellow bile ‘cross us all, ‘Perverse Termination (Bulb […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Black Absinthe – On Earth Or In Hell

BLACK ABSINTHE was born a little over a decade ago, yet On Earth Or In Hell is only its second full-length. While not necessarily a cause for concern, this will be a sure test of the sophomore slump most bands experience on their second release. ‘Dead Queen’ begins with a snappy riff/rhythm combo, but it seems a bit overproduced for the heavy metal/punk hybrid the trio is shooting for. Still and all, Cerre’s vocals are like a less hammered Lemmy, the mix is full, and none of the instruments are muscling the others out of the way, so let’s call […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Cancer Christ – God Is Violence

I remember the anti-poser crusades of the ’80s metal scene. Underground thrashers declaring war on sanitized hair metal and guys that spent more time with mirrors than instruments. This was quite a defining moment of those days, with sides taken and lines drawn. I think we need a new anti-poser crusade in the ’20s. Everywhere you look there are cosplay bands full of guys playing dress up, wearing masks and raiding the Spirit Halloween store for cheap makeup. A lot of these new-wave posers are supposedly in the harder sides of metal. I’m about as bored with monster bands wearing […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Obsidian Tongue – The Stone Heart [EP]

OBSIDIAN TONGUE weaves into ‘The Stone Heart’, and we, standing in a clearing while gazing toward the shimmering line of grey rain that falls steady, sure on the border with the surrounding forest. The storm shifts, turns inward, closer, then enters us, wreaking havoc. Suspended yet descending slowly, ‘Winter Child’ is ache and melancholia, yet a stark look at the flesh and eyes that gaze back at one from the mirror of truth – unfoolable and unforgiving. Amid the droning vocal harmonies and harsh howl, we bow, scrawling our destiny on frozen ground. Instrumental ‘Bear At The Tree Of Light’ […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Big Scenic Nowhere – The Waydown

While I remember digging BIG SCENIC NOWHERE’s initial two EPs, Dying On The Mountain and especially 2020’s more prog-tinged Lavender Blues, I’ll admit to letting 2020 debut LP Vision Beyond Horizon and The Long Morrow of the following year slip under my radar, always “intending to” go back and investigate what the foursome could do within the space of an album. I never did, though, so no better time than now to check in. Opener and title track, ‘The Waydown’ doesn’t so much arrive as materialize before closed eyes and open ears, the vocal harmonies and flowing, yet purposeful momentum […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Stygian Crown – Funeral For A King

THIS is how you Doom! STYGIAN CROWN have written a textbook on epic slow motion metal with Funeral For A King and demonstrate just how this art should be performed. This is one of the best doom efforts of 2023 and might just slip onto my “Best Of” list for the year. This shit is heavy! Yet it is also stately and melodic…well composed and varied. The shadow of CANDLEMASS hangs deep over STYGIAN CROWN, but it’s not merely mimickry and there’s a thick burliness to the songs that exceeds what is generally heard from the Swedish masters. The title […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Ghoul – Noxious Concoctions [EP]

For well over 20 years GHOUL has been splattering minds and bodies with their truly twisted death/grind/thrash, so it’s no surprise Noxious Concoctions follows that same formula. With ‘The Eyes Of The Witch’, the foursome chugs along at a mid-paced but mangling rhythm ‘n’ riff-ride, while the title track ups the ante in both speed and fury, a bit of UNLEASHED in the guitar tone. ‘Shotgun Gulch’ returns to a confrontational stomp/swagger, fine for what it is but a bit too “throwaway” SIX FEET UNDER for my taste. However, the snarling ‘Ratlicker’ and FUNEROT cover that put the final shovelful […]

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