Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

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Short Sharp Shocks

Endseeker – Coffin Born [EP]

After 12 years, 4 studio albums, and hanging onto the same lineup through it all, Germany’s ENDSEEKER depart this sewage planet via Coffin Born. ‘Enemies Of Peace’ conjures images of tanks cresting the hill, but you’re in the valley and doomed. Elements of SACRILEGE, MEMORIAM, and whatever DYING FETUS wishes they could ever be join the rampage party, which only increases the sense of volatile danger. Witness ‘No After. No Before’, where off-time rhythms and riffs careen into the title track, sirens and slaughter surrounding your twitching, pleading forms. ‘Life Breeds Death’ grants no reprieve, and a DAVID HASSELHOFF cover […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Witch Ripper – Through The Hourglass

When a band’s PR one-sheet compares any band to MASTODON, DAVID BOWIE and COHEED AND CAMBRIA not only in the same paragraph, but the same damn sentence, ya just gotta wonder what kind of fever dream or ayahuasca trip was being recovered from here. You know the bands themselves don’t write these, and – while you trust this particular source – you kinda hope for the best. WITCH RIPPER’s been at it awhile now, and Through The Hourglass is it’s third. Riding on the back of two solid releases, the chances of the ball being completely dropped are few, but […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Soul Exchange – Slow Descent [EP]

Texans SOUL EXCHANGE return with the Slow Descent EP, clearly of the HATEBREED school but tossing in just enough early BIOHAZARD / SIX FEET DEEP to keep things interesting. ‘Familiar Poison’ drops unexpected dual leads into the mix, while ‘In The Room But Not With Me’ employs clean vocals at times to good effect. Mostly mid-paced for hardcore, I’d love to see the quintet rev the engines a bit above 2nd gear a bit more often (‘Cash And Cold Hands’), but there are elements that – if focused on – could make them stand out. Bands of this style are […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Goetia – Mortuary Cult

After three years and as many EPs, Washington, D.C.’s GOETIA welcomes us into the Mortuary Cult on its first full length release. I’m blindfolded, mind, having never heard the band before, but given their previous choice of covers [KREATOR’s ‘Ripping Corpse’ and ‘Don’t Burn The Witch’ from VENOM], one hopes for at least a spark from these mighty torches has found its way into what we’re about to hear. Ahh, the intro. The seemingly ever-present and often pointless intro which seems to plague death metal bands specifically. Thankfully, ‘Lanterns Of The Dead’ rips the scab off, taking its share of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: THE FRĒQS – No God On The Gold Coast

There’s been quite the resurgence of noise and noise-adjacent rawk in the past few years, with longtime bands like THE ANTIKAROSHI releasing the finest work of its career [2024’s L’inertie Polaire], the recent MELVINS / NAPALM DEATH’s Savage Imperial Death March collaboration, not to mention relative newcomers EYES and BRIGHT SUNSHINE adding their own angular, jagged shards to the scene with Spinner and Executive Power Supreme respectively. ‘John Travolta’ pops his collar to the sound of that prehistoric dial-up internet connection we love so well, and THE FRĒQS follow shortly. Messrs. Crowell, Mandly and Fierman have come darker this time, […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Mangled Recrement – Demo [EP]

ENTOMBED. DEATH. MARDUK. Judging by the t-shirts, Poland’s MANGLED RECREMENT as least have good taste. ‘Boiled To Death’ instantly sears, white hot and bubbling, a twisted mishmash of NIHILIST and pre-Obscura GORGUTS, before all the prog came in. Really, it’s like the world blew up somewhere around ’94 when it comes to sonic references here, ‘Irresponsive Cephalic Fracture’ ascending / descending riffwork and herculean drum assaults caressing shadows of early OBITUARY, while ‘Bile Seeping Crypt’ steps out into frenetically off-kilter time signatures. Concluding this initial demo, ‘Buried Beneath Grubs’ brings the burl of Florida slammed against the largely more intricate […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Immolation – Descent

I’ve intentionally shied away from reviewing certain bands over time, either due to a blatant dislike or an appreciation that bordered on the slavish, knowing that both would result in a bias leaning heavily on one side or the other. DRAGONFORCE lies on one end of that seesaw, IMMOLATION the opposite. As I suffered through the latest album of the former, I felt the Noo Yawk-based death metal stalwarts were deserving of the same, so let us begin the descent into…Descent… Imagine, for a moment, a pastoral scene; maybe something of John Bradley or Frederic Edwin Church. But only for […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Relic – Crown Of Flies [EP]

Comprising a few of Milwaukee’s best and darkest, RELIC’s Crown Of Flies debut explodes with ‘The Void Between The Gods’, a cavernous maw in which the entrails of HERESIARCH and ORDER FROM CHAOS writhe in unbridled ferocity. War metal missiles streak across the skies of ‘Filth Of Rebirth’, yet pummeled broadside with mid ‘00s death ordnance and, though ‘Scavenger’s Daughter’ may slow the pace overall somewhat, it lends the punishment extra heft. A surprisingly melodic solo near the end leads us into ‘Iron Sacrament’, which imagines a more scattershot MEMORIAM in league with recent BELPHEGOR to disastrous effect. While Crown […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Restless Spirit – Restless Spirit

RESTLESS SPIRIT came up old school, the way it should be done; dropping three EPs, tweaking and molding its sound so that by the time an album was even conceived, founding members Marc Morello [bass] and Paul Aloisio [vox, guitars] had at least a general idea of what they were going for. Can’t hurt that they’d known one another for practically their entire time on this rotting planet, so their musical language was inspired by decades of hailing favorites and mocking the “shitty” albums in each other’s collections. Enter drummer Jon Gusman, just in time for 2021’s Blood Of The […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Ignobleth – Manor Of Primitive Anticreation

Italy’s IGNOBLETH arrived with 2024’s Voidspawn Sacrifice EP, which was solid, but was also the sound of a band searching for itself. Heavy? Sure! Dark? As midnight. But memorable? Not so much, at least for these ears. And now the time has come to enter the Manor Of Primitive Anticreation. What lurketh beyond its gates, within its chambers? ‘Cults Of The Undead And Profane Necrolatry’ easily moves beyond a paltry “intro” track, an assurance that something is beginning that’s more than filler to the band. ‘Obelisk Of Deformity’ is gargantuan in riff and rhythm, cosmically malformed and unrelenting, collapsing us […]

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