Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

2025

Short Sharp Shocks

EX DEO – Year Of The Four Emperors [EP]

EX DEO has always been a band with no reason to exist to my ears, largely as it’s literally KATAKLYSM with one extra member. I will say this for opener ‘Galba’, though; it’s more enjoyable than most of what’s come from either band in over a decade. ‘Otho’ is lackluster, basic and by-the-numbers, while ‘Vitellius’ begins with a fucking stellar low-end groove, and does return variations on this from time to time. Too little too late at this point, though. Obviously a vanity project from its start, EX DEO continues its own revelry in glut with Year Of The Bored […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: ALKYMIST – UnnDerr

I remember hearing the debut from these Danish noise-mongers what seems like a millions years ago. And to be brutally honest, that’s all I remember. I can’t recall a note from the actual record. Lots of things have happened since then, including a pandemic, a war and mass environmental chaos. Would 2024’s version of ALKYMIST be a bit more memorable? I think so. UnnDerr is a dark, heaving mass of foreboding heaviness that comes across as very direct and “simple” but which has some hidden depths to it. It certainly isn’t standard doom or death metal, yet I think it […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: ÚLFARR – Fornetes Folm / His Crown Grows From His Skull

ÚLFARR’s debut full-length, Orlegsceaft, arriving as it did in late December of 2023 gave it both the notable honor of being the last album released in the year that I’d review and allowed it to qualify for my much-respected Top 20 albums list for 2023. Which it did. And now, they’ve done it again. The Cumbrian horde returneth with Fornetes Folm / His Crown Grows From His Skull. ‘Alarūna’ ushers we in, conjuring the droning incant of Atilla Csihar initially, but soon enough shifting to early CRAFT in attack, merciless, but more ancient, and the more foreboding for it. Slicing […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: The Kearns Family – Together And Alone

Take a husband and wife old-time music duo, give them a sound to paint to, a touch of JOHNNY DOWD, and more than a little style. Now, take those two, put them in the Mojave Desert, and put a few mics in the room. What comes out is Together And Alone. ‘The Dust’ immediately resonates, bell-clear and crystalline despite its title, Susan Kearns’ upright bass already as integral to the sound as the weathered, careworn voice of Pat. Grains of BRETT DETAR are sifted through vocal cords just this side of brittle, a breath away from brimstone and heart-deep in […]