Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

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Album Reviews

Album Review: Black Sites – The Promised Land?

Roughly three years after Untrue, BLACK SITES returns with fourth album, The Promised Land? Don’t let the fact that the band’s now trimmed to a trio worry you, as opener, ‘Descent’ sets the standard, robust and ready, the lyric “Cometh now the punishment for sins of yesterday / for those who lie, how many times betrayed?” laying a dark tone. Founding guitarist/vocalist Mark Sugar’s vocal range is firmly entrenched in the mid-range, so those in search of vocal gymnastics or histrionics may initially be put off, but for fans of equally melodic bands such as SOUND & SHAPE and Parallels […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Atom Driver – Occupants [EP]

By my count Occupants is ATOM DRIVER’s sixth EP, despite the band being around since 2016 with nary a full-length to show for it. Doesn’t matter, though, as the title track immediately jettisons me back to the days of snagging 7” from record stores by bands that fired off a couple-few songs at a time, little sonic pioneers, out into the frontier of independent shops, squats and bookstores. Shades of SNAPCASE’s more accessible work, JAWBREAKER’s Bivouac shove us headlong into ‘Say Anything You Want’, the snarling guitar recalling the abrasion of CAVE IN, but again, filtered through the lens of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Manic Abraxas – Skinformation

Alright, MANIC ABRAXAS, here you are again, in my face and earholes, right around two years from the time I sang your praises for Foreign Winds. What, you think I’ve got all the time in the world here? And who’s this bastard child of Eddie, Vic Rattlehead and Korgull from Dimension Hatröss lookin’ like we ‘bout to have a problem staring out at me from the cover of Skinformation? I see you finally got around to calling a song ‘Manic Abraxas’. About time, but we’ll argue about how it should’ve gone on the self-titled debut to complete the Band/Album/Song trifecta […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Brazen Tongue – Of Crackling Embers & Sorrows Drowned

‘The Weight Of Self’ suffers from a more lightweight guitar tone than the style demands, session drums of Kevin Paradis busy as all Hell, but somehow coming across as laid down after too few listens to the scratch tracks sent ‘cross the pond to result in anything he’s emotionally involved in. Vocalist/guitarist/synth-ist (synthesizerist? synther?) Scott Skopec has a fine death delivery, no doubt heavily influenced by the other guitarist – and only other actual member – Ethan Gifford’s Gothenburg surroundings, and both ‘Metaviral’ and ‘Walking The Parapets’ wave proudly the flag of G-burg’s melodic death past both in arrangement and […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Cathari – It Will Hurt The Entire Time You Are Alive

‘Philadelphia’ is a steamroller bristling with railroad spikes and vitriol, while ‘It Will Hurt’ is the relentless rage of a parking lot fight. Where the track – and this quartet – wins overall, though, is the shifting from the band’s doomed roots into the jagged realm of Hydra Head Records and Tortuga Recordings ala KEELHAUL and THE GERSCH without losing themselves in the process. ‘Weight’ is neither catharsis nor purge, more a failed exorcism of the doubt and mistrust brought on my disappointment in self and others, yet somehow, it’s healing to know you’re not the only one. Noise as […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Belushi Speed Ball – Stellkira

It was my sometimes drinking buddy Johnny Vomit who first made me aware of these guys. Goofy ass crossover thrashers from Louisville, KY armed with a wild stage show, numbskull lyrics and…best of all…sizzling thrash riffs to turn your spine to jelly! Having never seen them live, I can’t speak to that part of their repertoire, but when I saw song titles like ‘Garth, Let My Family Go’, ‘My Favorite Color Is Pizza’ and ‘Tater Tot Eyes’, I got some uneasy flashbacks to the metalcore of the early 2000s, which wrote the book on idiotic “ironic” song titles. Well, BELUSHI […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Wolves Don’t Sleep – Fears & Fractures [EP]

A Nottingham Hot Topic has exploded! ‘House Of Glass’ ticks all the boxes of whatever happened in the early ‘00s that was trying to be metalcore, but without the metal. More breakdowns than the side of the M1, melody, obscenely down-tuned guitars and clean/screamed vox is what we find through ‘Oblivion’ and ‘Shame’, and it seems the sextet has a handful of go-tos that they pull out in every song. That these fellas aren’t trying to add anything of their own to the mix is the real failure here. WOLVES DON’T SLEEP and Fears & Fractures have the look/sound of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Deliria – Phantasm

Birthed in 2017, DELIRIA had the misfortune of coming into being shortly after the “post-black metal” (I will never understand that term) dam had burst, unleashing a saddened, craft beer-sipping, beard-grooming, horde of L.L. Bean-wearing DEAFHEAVEN fans masquerading as shoegaze devotees into the gene pool. Thankfully, Nausea had enough going for it to pass as more than Muzak made for immersing yourself in during your time at the local Whole Foods Market, and thus…Phantasm. ‘Smoke & Mirrors’ wants to shimmer its way into your consciousness, but there’s just something about the tone of this guitar that’s annoying from jump. Blessedly, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Sons Of Ra – Tropic Of Cancer [EP]

Instrumental. Avant-Jazz. Fusion. Well, there are three words that sound to these Luddite ears like a recipe for disaster. While I’ve become very intrigued of late with the idea that what most would term “background music” can actually make for a worthwhile listen and fill a space, most times it’s just sonic clutter, and I’m going to hard pass on that alone. Add “Avant-Jazz” and “Fusion”, and I’m truly already wondering why I bothered. Maybe it’s that Jazz has (until very recently) always come across as some inside joke played by the performers to stroke their own already-inflated sense of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Ischemic – Condemned To The Breaking Wheel

This Canadian band definitely has the potential to make some noise in the burgeoning death-doom scene. They’ve added a couple of members since their last effort and now exist as a 5-piece. I’m glad to see they still have Necro-Nurse Isabelle grumbling and rasping for them. She’s one of the heaviest female vocalists in the scene. ISCHEMIC have matured a lot since their self-titled LP. The sound here is cleaner and more varied…not as sludgy yet still extremely heavy. You sure won’t feel like partying and cruising for chicks after hearing this mournful monolith of sound. Four lengthy tracks are […]

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