Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

2025

Album Reviews

Album Review: Pupil Slicer – Fleshwork

Cards on the table, I’m a complete dunderhead when it comes to mathematics. A rube. Anything over short division, and I am not only not to be trusted, but avoided like the plague. Hence, I despise “mathcore”, “math rock”, and the majority of jazz, simply because it’s too wonky and up its own arse to be bothered with. Grab your slide rules, kids, it’s time to rock the fuck out to some 29/16 time signatures! I’m looking at you, THE MARS VOLTA. And don’t even get me started on MESHUGGAH post-None. I hadn’t torn an album a new rectum in […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Agnostic Front – Echoes In Eternity

AGNOSTIC FRONT’s pedigree is impeccable, and its history and importance in heavy music in general, much less hardcore, cannot be overstated. Yep, as a matter of fact, if you’re of a certain age and haven’t heard the band, you’re probably lost on the internet, which is the way most people stumble across this site anyhow. Regardless, if – even nearly a half-century of the New Yorkers kicking global ass from basement shows to arenas later – you’re still not familiar, welcome to Echoes In Eternity, the band’s thirteenth studio record. No useless intro to wade through, as ‘Way Of War’ […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Death Yell – Demons Of Lust

From the mists of the past comes a scream of defiance. DEATH YELL are among the oldest South American extreme metal bands. They emerged from Chile in the late ’80s, around the same time as PENTAGRAM, and were contemporaries of SEPULTURA, KRISIUN, SARCOFAGO and other beasts of ancient South American metal. They’ve hardly been a prolific band, as this is only their second full length, but their name has lingered in the memories of those times. Demons Of Lust is an absolute nostalgia trip, but one that’s fully justified because these dudes were there from the beginning. Everything about Demons […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Gorleben – Menetekel

Though in existence for a decade and a half as of this writing, the first we heard from Dresden’s GORLEBEN was the 2021 EP containing ‘Sleepless’ and ‘Contaminated’, both songs well over the ten-minute mark, declaring the band as one comfortable with letting things play out naturally. Game Over followed, further sonic explorations ensued, and the sound seemed not so much “solidified” as “in flux”, but with a general idea of where the quintet wanted to go in mind. The keys of 85KR begin the ‘Countdown’, almost TANGERINE DREAM in their nearly hypnotic pulse, joined soon after by the syrupy […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Auditory Anguish – AFA [EP]

The title track is a perfect intro to AFA, bargain basement Roots-era SEPULTURA aping as it is, while ‘Chained In A Hole’ is rife with jumpdafucup bro-core, the likes of what you’d hear from the band that goes on first at a HATEBREED show, and you just know there are five bands left before you get to be bored by Jasta and his boyos. ‘Clementine’ is Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. dreck with some silly-ass backmasking at the end, and ‘Tierra Santa’ is – I cannot believe I’m about to say this – even worse because it tries and fails so […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Sacred Leather – Keep The Fire Burning

‘Resurrection’ flows naturally into ‘Spitfire At Night’, which is rife with dual leads, snapmare rhythms, and the Turbin / early Belladonna delivery of vocalist Dee Wrathchild. Come to think, at the start this one shares a bit too much shade with ‘Deathrider’ for comfort; however, to the quintet’s credit, by the end we’re being fricasseed in the fiery blaze of SACRED LEATHER’s second go-round, and it’s getting hot in here. ‘Phantom Highway (Hell Is Comin’ Down)’ is divebomb after divebomb, dual lead after dual lead, and done well, Messrs. Owens & St. Michaels flying o’er the nightside streaker freeway, swooping […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Withering Soul – Passage Of The Arcane

The best kept secret in Chicago metal is WITHERING SOUL. These guys should be mentioned in the same breath as CIANIDE, CARDIAC ARREST, USURPER and Chi-town’s other masters of the extreme. But instead there is silence. The band’s last album, Last Contact, was a Top Ten effort in 2021. And if anything, they’ve gotten even better with Passage Of The Arcane. They are masters of blackened death metal (or deathly black, take your pick),delivering true epics full of pounding aggression but also dense melodies and complex arrangements. They don’t really have that much in common with the other Chicago bands […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Binah – Ónkos

BINAH’s never been one to shy away from lengthy explorations within its limited number of releases, – half of the actual songs found on 2012’s Hallucinating In Resurrecture debut passing the 7-minute mark – but when the band waited seven years after Phobiate to return with Ónkos, I knew we had something potentially intriguing on our hands. Composed of two pieces, each extending past 20 minutes, it’s obvious the band wants us to immerse ourselves in this experience, and thus, headphones ‘round my earholes, I began to ascend ‘Mount Morphine’. With two synth players in the ranks, and over a […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Denial Of Life – Witness The Power [EP]

Look at the cover of DENIAL OF LIFE’s Witness The Power EP and can someone please tell me why basically a mash-up of two of the most recognizable album covers of one of the most recognizable bands in the history of metal seemed like a great idea? And thus, armed (or footed) with monkey boots and a length of chain, did I step boldly forward to wage unholy war against such flagrant abuse of…wait, I never really even liked SLAYER that much anyway, and – aside from the album after Those Two, for all I know or care, they more […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Dead Heat – Process Of Elimination

Coming up on its 10-year anniversary, Oxnard’s DEAD HEAT returns. The band’s been consistently at it and consistently solid over this time, knocking out two full lengths, a live album, and an EP, moving from releasing its music independently to Boston’s largely hardcore Triple-B Records, and on through the more diverse roster of Tankcrimes, to reach its all-important third album – and Metal Blade debut – Process Of Elimination. Now, this how you start an album, folks! In lieu of some piss-poor, tossed together “intro”, a guitar piece touched with the classical gently welcomes us before the lid is ripped […]

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