Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal & Extreme Music And Culture

lord randall

Interviews

Interview: WINTERFYLLETH

After five atmosphere-charged black metal albums – and one acoustic release -, Manchester’s WINTERFYLLETH took to the stage at Bloodstock to celebrate not only the first festival to give the band a headlining show, but the first decade of its existence. The Siege Of Mercia is volatile, enthralling, and triumphant, a true sonic (and visual) representation of a band at its peak. Lord Randall recently sat down to talk to bassist Nick Wallwork about the live set, the band’s most recent studio album, The Hallowing Of Heirdom, and where the quintet are headed from here… THE FATHERS OF ALBIONInterview with […]

Album Reviews

ALBUM REVIEW: DEATH WOLF – IV: Come The Dark

After leaving behind its obvious MISFITS/SAMHAIN tribute work as DEVILS WHOREHOUSE and rechristening itself DEATH WOLF in 2011, the band got down to the business of – while maybe not entirely turning its back on its initial sound – creating its own persona, which has worked to varying degrees of success over the last three albums. Now, roughly five years after III: Ostergotland, DEATH WOLF leaves behind Century Media, returning Blooddawn Productions to its original home under the Regain Records banner. ‘He Who Hates’ kicks things off, and I do mean kicks, hard-charging and menacing, easily the best opener on […]

Uncategorized

Album Review: Municipal Waste – The Last Rager

I’m not about to sit here and tell you I’ve been a fan of, well, anything Tony Ferrera and his band of self-styled hard-partying miscreants has done under the banner of MONOLITHIC…erm, sorry…MUNICIPAL WASTE. To be honest, the whole idea kinda rubs me up the wrong way. Sure, EXODUS had its moments of fun for fun’s sake in the likes of ‘Toxic Waltz’, and don’t even get me started on the never-deserved-to-be-in-the-Big-Four-anyway ANTHRAX, but at least occasionally they’d kick out some decent jams to make up the difference. Not so with these guys, and I’m not really sure how, nearly […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Gatecreeper – Deserted

Comprised of ¾ of doom lords SPIRIT ADRIFT and the rhythm section of blackened crusties HELLHORSE, I was not expecting Arizona’s GATECREEPER to sound like, well, GATECREEPER. Yeah, I know its been around for awhile now, but I just haven’t had the time nor, to be honest, inclination for death metal of late. What with all the buzz around the release of sophomore album, Deserted, though, I figured it was about time. All I know going in is this: When your press bio contains comparisons to BOLT THROWER, DEATH and CIANIDE, you best have your shit together in a big […]

Interviews

Interview: Formicarius

Only in active state for the past five years, one could easily be tempted to write off London’s FORMICARIUS as yet another in the seemingly evermore crowded UK black metal bandwagon. Let’s call such a dismissal a reason to avoid temptation, then, as vocalist/guitarist Lord Saunders & co. have recently released the aural plague of Rending The Veil Of Flesh and, while not everyone’s cup of blood, for sure, to say the band has set a high standard for its next output will be clear to those who sup willingly upon first listen. Lord Randall sat down with the band […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Conjuring Fate – Curse Of The Fallen

CONJURING FATE’s second starts at a deficit, which, after a 2014 EP, an album two years hence, and close to 15 years as a band does not a good impression make. After a lethargic, shiftless – and incredibly drawn-out, might I add – intro, though, ‘Burn The Witch’ springs from the gates, punchy riffs and driving rhythms carrying the vocals of Tommy Daly along, bloody, sweating and tearing its way into your earholes. ‘Voodoo Wrath’ is as energetic, ghosts of SAXON and DIAMOND HEAD, the Gibson/Horner guitar team pulling off tasty dual leads with a seeming effortlessness, but I keep […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Vokonis – Grasping Time

Returning with its all-important third album, Sweden’s VOKONIS wastes not a second in getting down to business with ‘AntlerQueen’, roiling rhythms and riffs alternately ascending/descending letting the listener know they’re in for a bit of a jostle from the start. Shades of Leviathan-era MASTODON are lain over the rumble of TRANSPORT LEAGUE at its best, and both melding seamlessly, the plaintive leadwork of Simon Ohlsson at around the 4-minute mark crashing, then languid in a dreamlike haze over the rhythm section of Jonte Johansson and Peter Ottoson (bass, drums respectively), to the climax of an already memorable album. Replacing a […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Patronymicon – Ushered Forth By Cloven Tongue

Aside from guitarist / sometimes-everything-else-ist N. Sadist, Sweden’s PATRONYMICON has ever been in flux, both in lineup and quality. Now, after having worked with a dedicated vocalist (H. Sulphur) and second guitarist (J. Malice) since shortly after 2013’s All Daggers Towards The Sky, N. Sadist returns, rounded out by a new rhythm section, attempting to finally stake his claim. Ushered Forth By Cloven Tongue rips forth from the gates of perdition, less black scathe and more an all-out death assault. One element greatly improved from past efforts is the injection of true melodic riffing that sacrifices no brutality in the […]

Album Reviews

ALBUM REVIEW: AIMA – Tragos

While what’s happening to the goat in the lead track from AIMA’s debut full-length, Tragos may involve fucking of a sort, it definitely doesn’t sound as if anything’s being redeemed, so furious is the rhythm cannonade, so malevolent the riffs. Slithering back and forth and back again, from INCANTATION-style doom to a more cavernous BLEEDING FIST, this trio is locked into each other’s musical sensibilities, grafted to one another, even when ‘The Occultist’ threatens to take the whole careening train off the rails. ‘Possessed Preacher’ imbues and invades, a sonic reverse exorcism, casting demonic forces in rather than out. The […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Undoer – Survival Is A Myth

The phrase “unlooked-for” fits Turkey’s UNDOER like a black, fingerless glove. Only a year out of the gate, the trio self-released Survival Is A Myth late 2018, streaking low under the radar of those (myself included) who weren’t paying enough attention, but should’ve been. It’s the nature of the beast circa 2018-19, however. The press/media is bloated with our own ego-driven elitism, fancying ourselves the watchguards of taste, so it’s unavoidable but – let’s be honest here – unfortunate that sometimes entire bands literally going supernova with quality exist in the exile of our oblivion. Wisely snapped up for wide(r) […]

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