Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

Century Media

Album Review: Witherfall – The Curse Of Autumn

While Nocturnes And Requiems and its follow-up, A Prelude To Sorrow, quickly established California’s WITHERFALL as modern prog-power players on a field that simply doesn’t have that many worthy competitors in the band’s native US, I confess a bit of trepidation when it came to The Curse Of Autumn. Would this be just another disappointment when it comes to third albums released thus far in 2021, or would the quintet finally find their own sound and wake the sleeping giant I felt might lie dormant within? After the neck-snapping rhythms and skipping riffs of ‘The Last Scar’ revealed itself as […]

Album Review: Atramentus – Stygian

Though members of CHTHE’ILIST, FUNEBRARUM, and other acts comprise Longueuil, QC’s ATRAMENTUS, the quintet is very much its own beast from the start. Opener ‘Stygian I – From Tumultuous Heavens… (Descended Forth The Ceaseless Darkness)’ reveals a band certainly in no rush to get anywhere with great speed, yet more layered than FUNEBRARUM, less ribaldly feral than CHTHE’ILIST. We move through vast tundra wastes at times, lean against blizzards that howl through the bones others, but always, always alone. Solitary. While certainly beholden to its genre forefathers, who need not be named except as reference points for all that came […]

SPIRIT ADRIFT ANNOUNCE TRIUMPHANT NEW ALBUM, ENLIGHTENED IN ETERNITY

SPIRIT ADRIFT are a band who refuse to slow down. On their new album, Enlightened In Eternity, guitarist/vocalist Nathan Garrett alongside drummer Marcus Bryant have created yet another monument to the timelessness of heavy metal. While Enlightened In Eternity builds on the sizable foundation established by the band’s previous albums, it also sets itself apart in formidable new ways, widening the scope of what SPIRIT ADRIFT can be. Listen to the album’s powerful first single ‘Harmony Of The Spheres’ HERE SPIRIT ADRIFT have mastered the ability to invoke the power of metal’s past, whether it be the ’70s, ’80s or […]