Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

Dr. Abner Mality

Album Reviews

Album Review: Haunt – Mind Freeze

HAUNT keep whipping them out like it’s 1972! Back then it wasn’t unusual for bands to release 2 full lengths a year. It hasn’t been much more than six months since the last HAUNT album If Icarus Could Fly came out, and that doesn’t even include HAUNT main man Trevor Church’s other band, BEASTMAKER, (now sadly defunct due to HAUNT’s success) having their own album out. Sometimes this kind of quantity affects quality…is that the case here? Mind Freeze is really what the new ANGELWITCH album, Angel Of Light, should have sounded like. It has that dark, musty production that […]

Interviews

INTERVIEW: LEGENDRY

Welcome to our humble pub here in the city of Ardona, far beyond the world you know. Have a seat and a tankard of ale while we listen to The Bard tell us of The Warrior with No Name. Here we await the presence of Vidarr, himself a bard of no mean renown, and the man behind the metal majesty of LEGENDRY, a band reveling in stories of courage, danger and high adventure. Vidarr knows much of the Warrior’s tale and has used LEGENDRY to tell the story. The latest chapter is The Wizard And The Tower Keep, which tells […]

Music News

Album Review: Rebel Priest – R’lyeh Heavy

I was expecting the usual gruesome death metal from the band and album names, but instead I got a shot of pure rocking heavy metal with traces of punk and stoner. It hooked me right away and if it wasn’t for one misstep at the end, I would have put this in the running for one of my top records of the year. This trio from Vancouver, B.C. don’t overthink things, they keep their music simple and full of hooks. There’s a fair amount of hair metal sleaze mixed with influences like MOTORHEAD, METAL CHURCH and LA. GUNS. ‘The Summoning’ […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Legendry – The Wizard And The Tower Keep

This is a real oddball release, and perhaps that is its greatest strength. With their 1982-era Dungeons And Dragons style artwork, Pennsylvania’s LEGENDRY looks like they might be another knock-off of NWOBHM and epic power metal. And indeed, you can find much of that style here. But there’s a lot more going on sonically here than can be described in one easy sentence. There’s a lot of ’70s love and worship in LEGENDRY. They have the kind of quirkiness that could be found in early SABBATH, RAINBOW, ’70s RUSH, even JETHRO TULL and KANSAS! They don’t restrict themselves to basic […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Strigoi – Abandon All Faith

VALLENFYRE is no more. The crusty death metal project of PARADISE LOST’s Gregor Mackintosh has breathed its last. But rushing in to fill the gap is STRIGOI, named after demons of Romanian folklore. The differences between VALLENFYRE and STRIGOI are not extreme, but they are there and it’s a good bet that fans of both VALLENFYRE and PARADISE LOST will enjoy the murky gloom of Abandon All Faith. Though the debut has the same grimy feel as VALLENFYRE, Abandon All Faith is a little more varied and, on occasion, more sophisticated. ‘Phantoms’, ‘Carved Into Skin’ and the title track all […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell – Very Uncertain Times

Yes, these are very uncertain times indeed, but fortunately we can rely on the good ADMIRAL SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVELL to blast our brainwaves with greasy, gritty retro-rock on a fairly predictable basis. This is getting to be one of those “never fail” bands and I can’t think of anybody doing the early ’70s proto-metal/blues rock shtick with more authenticity and good humor than the good ADMIRAL. It is tedious to repeat in each successive review of ASCS, but these guys are able to channel the rugged, raw and loud sounds of the early 70’s blues rock scene with amazing fidelity. […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Angel Witch – Angel Of Light

Talk about an erratic album schedule…ANGEL WITCH should top that list. The last effort from the NWOBHM giants was As Above, So Below back in 2012…7 years ago. Over the last three decades, I’m never exactly sure if these guys are an active band or not, but Angel Of Light definitely declares that ANGEL WITCH is back in the game. My feelings towards this one are conflicted. It is certainly true to the classic ANGEL WITCH style of gloomy and galloping melodic metal that approaches doom, but is not quite there. The band hasn’t thrashed up their style or gone […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Warsenal – Feast Your Eyes

Here’s a shot of something fresh in the thrash world. Hailing from the metal hotbed of Montreal, WARSENAL is doing something a bit different than just imitating what has gone before, but at the same time, they have the feel of something that could have come from the glory days of thrash. Think of ’80s thrashers that went against the grain; REALM, ANNIHILATOR, DBC, even VOI VOD. That’s the ballpark these guys are trying to inhabit. Feast Your Eyes is fast! Above all else, these guys play with high velocity, but favor unusual time changes and riffing patterns. It is […]

Show Reports

Show Report: OBITUARY / ABBATH / MIDNIGHT / DEVIL MASTER

OBITUARY / ABBATH / MIDNIGHT / DEVIL MASTEROct. 13, 2019The Majestic, Madison, WIBy: Dr. Abner Mality I was in a bind. There were a number of cool concert options available to me, but with this inconvenient thing called a weekend work schedule looming over me like a dark cloud, I could select only one show to get time off for. It wound up being this one and I think it was a solid choice. From top to bottom, this was an interesting lineup for the diehard metal connoisseur. The show was originally scheduled for the Sylvee but moved to The […]

Interviews

Interview: Tomb Mold

Our planet is in peril. Does it have its own consciousness, its own voice? Perhaps it speaks to us through music. If Canada’s TOMB MOLD are the conduit for this planetary mind, then the voice of the world is more of a scream of rage and horror. That is what TOMB MOLD captures on their new album Planetary Clairvoyance. The band has been one of the most talked about in death metal circles for the last few years. Few bands can capture both sickness and technicality like TOMB MOLD can. They also have a cosmic/science fiction edge which gives their […]

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