Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

Dr. Abner Mality

Album Reviews

Album Review: Winterfylleth – The Unyielding Season

In the past, the covers of WINTERFYLLETH showed magnificent natural vistas, usually snowy mountains or rolling hills. It cannot be without meaning that The Unyielding Season shows a raging forest fire. There is no better metaphor for what is happening to our heritage and our entire planet today. These Englishmen have always taken a prideful stand for honor and history and that hasn’t changed at all here. This album is a call to resist the commercialized mechanization creeping across the land. As always, the music is rooted in majestic black metal. The opening songs here are some of the fastest, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Kate’s Acid – Hellbender

After Belgium’s CYCLONE returned to action recently, it’s no surprise that their country(wo)men ACID are also back for the attack. ACID were one of the very first female fronted metal bands, along with WARLOCK, and they played a fast and rough kind of “biker metal” that was pretty heavy for the time. Now Kate de Lombaert, the original voice of ACID, returns with an all new band of guys at least half her age. Horns up for the metal grandma! This is a real trip back to early ’80s metal, courtesy of a band who was there. First things first, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Sylosis – The New Flesh

This band has been kicking around for at least 20 years and has yet to leave much of a mark. One of the problems is that they don’t know exactly what they are themselves. The New Flesh hops from radio friendly dad rock to LAMB OF GOD style thrashing groove to almost industrial metal sounds. If they focused on one of these, they might have a more coherent album in their hands. Press describes SYLOSIS mainman Josh Middleton as if he’s the baddest motherfucker on the planet. Please! I listen to metal on a daily basis that chews this up […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Phendrana – Cathexis

If you need a break from relentless aggression and the angst of the disintegrating world we live in, I highly recommend listening to Cathexis. This is really beautiful music that doesn’t totally eschew heaviness. Most of this type of material usually only interests me briefly, but PHENDRANA have found the secret of truly thoughtful and haunting songcraft. It’s the work of one Anuar Salum, a resident of Mexico City who is well versed in classical composition as well as jazz and rock techniques. With the help of some friends, he’s created Cathexis, a four song journey into melancholy that will […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Tenebro – Una Lama D’Argento

If you like plenty of red sauce in your movies as well as your pasta, TENEBRO from Italy is the band for you. This is death metal smothered in the tasty gore of the Italian giallo films…specifically, the movies of one Dario Argento. The connection between Italian horror and death metal is well known and TENEBRO might be better at it than any one except classic NECROPHAGIA. Above all, they get the creepy, suffocating atmosphere of Argento films like Inferno and Deep Red and transfer that dread to gruesome, gory death metal. The guitar tone here is unreal, coated in […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Defaced – Icon

It seems crazy that anything that seems as angry as Icon is could be so dull, but here we are. This Swiss band…hailing from a country with a proud tradition of forward-thinking acts…winds up being a very boilerplate example of modern death metal. The cover art for Icon is absolutely spectacular. And that’s the best thing about it. If DEFACED reminds me of anyone, it’s the current version of KATAKLYSM. That’s not a great endorsement these days. The production is so shiny you can see your reflection in it. Death metal needs grit and filth. Only the best bands can […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Hyperion – Cybergenesis

Sometimes you run into a band so pure that METAL must be written in all caps to describe them. Say hello to Italy’s HYPERION! These cats came out of nowhere to hit me upside the head with one of the year’s best METAL albums! This is 100% pure steel, forged in the fires of PRIEST, MAIDEN and ‘RYCHE but with a bracing jolt of speed and a kick of modern power metal. There are eight compact songs on Cybergenesis and I can’t find much of a flaw in any of them. There’s no pointless intro or corny narration, this thing […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: 1914 – Viribus Unitis

There were times when I wondered if 1914 would ever release a new album. There were times when I wondered if they were even still alive or able to record. These doubts arise when your country is at war and fighting for its life. Thankfully, the Ukrainians are still in action and have found time to bless us with another outstanding album, Viribus Unitis. This band are metal’s premier chroniclers of the horrors of war. On the most obvious level, they write about the wrenching events of World War 1. But now that their own country is in a life […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Coroner – Dissonance Theory

The last CORONER album, Grin, came out in 1993. The world has changed so much since then (and not for the better, which only an idiot would dispute) that there are hardly words fit to describe the gulf. Yet in 2025, CORONER has returned. Have they also changed beyond recognition? Dissonance Theory will go down as one of the best “comeback” albums ever released. This is everything CORONER was in 1993 but better, more refined. Grin was hardly a great album in my book. In every way, Dissonance Theory is superior. This is progressive thrash metal at its highest level. […]

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 […]

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