Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal & Extreme Music And Culture

lord randall

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) […]

Interviews

Interview: Forever Autumn

TIME IN THE TIMELESS REALMInterview with FOREVER AUTUMNBy: Lord Randall From its doom’ed beginnings, Massachusetts’ FOREVER AUTUMN (in the persona of Autumn Ni Dubhghaill) quickly morphed into stark, yet beautiful neofolk brilliance, shimmering on the pond in some moments, striking lightning through the mountains in others – sometimes within the same song. Earlier in this year, did Lord Randall spend a time of communion with the woman behind the music of her newest, Howls In The Forest At Dusk, and the Nature behind us alle. Here…listen, for it beckons… Rebel Extravaganza: Twelve years lapsed between I Bury My Face In […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Abysmal Grief – Mors Eleison

The mid-late ‘90s in doom metal were a time of flux, moreso than any before or since. On the US front TROUBLE had gone full bloom, from the Sabbathian tones of its classic era into the hazed out, psychedelia-fueled Manic Frustration and Plastic Green Head, whilst on the other side of the Pond, Peaceville’s Big 3 and CATHEDRAL had morphed into entities that – while still miserable as ever – were not what they were at the start. It’s a safe bet, though, that all sub-variations of doom today owe themselves to the exploration of that time, so all that […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Full Of Hell – Weeping Choir

Depending on whom you’re speaking to, FULL OF HELL is either a merchant of modern death/grind of the highest order, or a marketing-funded merch machine masquerading as a band on the level of JOB FOR A COWBOY. For myself, I’ve always thought the Maryland quartet passable, but no great shakes in the grand scheme of things. Just seemed a bit too groomed for the Summer Slaughter circuit for me.It’s comforting, strangely, to know that some things never change. While opener ‘Burning Myrrh’ is SSDD when it comes to FOH, ‘Haunted Arches’ ups the ante, a bit of the ol’ power-faux-lence […]

Album Reviews

ALBUM Review: BERTHOLD CITY – What Time Takes

Igniting with all the energy of JUDGE, XREPRESENTX and early SICK OF IT ALL, Los Angeles’ BERTHOLD CITY lets you know what it’s about in the first 10 seconds of What Time Takes…which is good, as we only have 7 minutes to work with here. Slashing guitars, drums on full auto, and vocals that demand to be not only heard, but respected. ‘No One To Blame’ flails, but focused, a clear sense of direction and self-introspection snarl-spitting into a mirror held up to modern society. “I’ve seen the ugly truth! Got you figured out!” is confrontational in the way only […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Warmrain – Here Comes The Rain Again

Britain’s WARMRAIN moves in like its namesake, the title track (yes, it’s the EURYTHMICS cover) showering down, tasteful leads and downtempo taking the place of the original version’s synth-laden throb. It takes confidence to title a release after a cover, much less to transform someone else’s work with what seems like effortlessness to make it your own…and WARMRAIN does here. ‘Shadowline Paradigm’ follows, plaintive, yet seductively so, wandering in the realms of GREEN CARNATION’s The Acoustic Verses or early BLACKFIELD, while ‘Keep Going’ is driven along by understated, yet persistent rhythm patterns. The one fault that I can find within […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Victims – The Horse And Sparrow Theory

D-beat may have first been shot forth from the uterus of hardcore punk in the UK (BUZZCOCKS, DISCHARGE), but its continuation and thriving as a sub-genre owes a lot to Sweden, where bands such as ANTI CIMEX and MOB 47 joined the kangpunk gangbang, thereby spawning hundreds of blindingly fast, sloppier than a $2 whore, heavier than Messiah Marcolin children, and at least a dozen DARKTHRONE songs. Kicking out 8 tunes in 28 minutes, it’s clear VICTIMS comes from the VARUKERS / SKITSYSTEM school of “blast first, ask questions later”, which serves the quartet well over most of The Horse […]

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