Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

Dr. Abner Mality

Album Reviews

Album Review: Bangladeafy – Housefly

The last time I encountered BANGLADEAFY, they were a mind-melting avant-garde bass-and-drum assault that probed the limits of fusion playing. Strike that memory of BANGLADEAFY. Delete it and wipe it from your memory core. This version of BANGLADEAFY is a completely different beast. And it’s a totally refreshing one. For those who don’t know, the band is a duo. Powerhouse drummer Atif Haq originally hails from Bangladesh and bassist/vocalist Jon Ehlers has hearing impairment…hence the name. Housefly finds them reinventing themselves as a synth-driven rhythm bulldozer and erasing their former electric bass gymnastics. In fact, the bass does not exist […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Manticora – To Live To Kill To Live

Power metal doesn’t get much more epic than this. Bowing deeply at the altar of BLIND GUARDIAN, MANTICORA holds nothing back here. This Swedish band has been around for a while, but their exposure in America has been almost non-existent except for a single performance at the ProgPower Festival. This is the second album of a grand concept and the follow up to the logically titled To Kill To Live To Kill. When you open your album with a 14-minute-plus, over the top power/thrash opus, you lay all your cards on the table right away. They sustain the intensity remarkably […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Havukruunu – Uinuos Syomein Sota

This is the discovery of the year for me so far. I ran across this quite by accident on Youtube and I’m quite ashamed to say it’s the first I’ve heard of Finland’s HAVUKRUUNU. This is their 3rd full length album, in addition to numerous splits and demos. All of which I now intend to track down diligently, because this is some of the most soaring and brilliant black metal I have heard not just this year, but any year. Finnish is one of the most jaw-breaking languages around and I won’t insult you by trying to cope with the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Incantation – Sect Of Vile Divinities

INCANTATION have inspired so many death metal bands, they sometimes almost sound like they are following in their own footsteps, as strange as that may sound. It’s not exactly fair to them. They marked out their territory a long time ago and have stayed in those boundaries. They are determined to be the best they can be within those borders and leave experimentation to others. Most of the bands picking up on their sound are easy to spot as mere knockoffs. Sect Of Vile Divinities shows INCANTATION is still totally devoted to the cryptic, cavernous death metal sound they practically […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Ensiferum – Thalassic

It’s been a while since I shipped out with ENSIFERUM, the Euro folk metal veterans. A lot has changed in that time. Folk metal has gone from a relative novelty to a well-worn genre with hordes of bands jostling each other for attention. I remembered the band being more “warrior-like” and stern than the fun and happy melodies that pop up on Thalassic – too happy and fun for this grumpy Cornish Viking to digest. I like my folk metal with a bit more grit than this. Everything on Thalassic has been polished to a blinding sheen and many of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Bedsore – Hypnagogic Hallucinations

Lovers of both oddball death metal and weird psychedelia might find something to catch their interest here. BEDSORE is an Italian bunch who sure don’t follow in any of the rigid death metal tropes. They aren’t the usual Swedish DM knockoff or the typical slamming deathfest or any of the “cavernous” INCANTATION-inspired stuff. They aren’t “normal” in any way, shape or form, and that’s a big advantage in these days when most bands are slavishly obedient to preset “rules”. Psychedelic and prog rock play big parts in BEDSORE’s make-up. Italy used to be known for a lot of weird horror-prog […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Onslaught – Generation Antichrist

ONSLAUGHT soldiers on, and you have to admire them for that. They recently lost long-time vocalist Sy Keeler, but barely missed a step, coming up with new man Dave Garnett. They also resolutely continue playing high speed thrash metal in ’80s style. Why, then, does Generation Antichrist come across as so generic? The sound of the album is that of a million and one other modern thrash albums. ONSLAUGHT’s ancient debut Power From Hell was crudely produced and murky, but still remains their most memorable opus, but Generation Antichrist seems to have come off a thrash metal assembly line. I […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Ulthar – Providence

ULTHAR proves their 2018 debut Cosmovore was no fluke or one-and-done episode. They return to the fray with Providence (the hometown of H. P. Lovecraft…coincidence?) and they are back to mangle minds and reap souls with a whirlwind of fierce and technical death metal. There’s very little primitive gloom here. This is the fast and nasty side of the beast, touching on such primal sources as MORBID ANGEL, PESTILENCE, IMMOLATION and lesser known entities like ANATA and MERCYLESS. There’s also a touch of blackness to the affair, especially in the ripped throat vocals. Highlights are many, but I would bring […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: High Spirits – Hard To Stop

HIGH SPIRITS have been ahead of the game when it comes to the revival of classic metal and ’70s hard rock. They’ve been following that path since before it became a trend. Once lonesome, they now have plenty of company. The band continues to stick to their usual style here for the most part, but they were smart enough to throw in a few curveballs this time around, which is a good thing. The HIGH SPIRITS style is sometimes uncomfortably staid. ‘Hearts Will Burn’ surprises by being the heaviest song the band has done yet…a real riff-cruncher that doesn’t pretend […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Sinister – Deformation Of The Holy Realm

If Europe has an equivalent to CANNIBAL CORPSE, it’s got to be SINISTER. These Dutch madmen have been going at it at least as long as the Boys from Buffalo…this is their 14th album! And they are still as brutal as a nightstick shoved down your throat! With hyper-aggressive death metal, there’s a certain amount of monotony that arises and while SINISTER doesn’t totally avoid it, they do a pretty good job of keeping it at bay here. Hard to believe a band with a 30-year history can still smash skulls and tear out guts like this. The tunes are […]

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