Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

lord randall

Album Reviews

Album Review: Hammerfall – Avenge The Fallen

Never let it be said that I’m not nostalgic. HAMMERFALL had the good (or bad) fortune to come along at a time when metal of all sorts was deep in the throes of an identity crisis, from which it took years to emerge. Still, MANOWAR was on a major label, and BLIND GUARDIAN, STRATOVARIUS and ICED EARTH were holding the banner high, our great and shining hopes for the future. By 1999, however, HAMMERFALL – at least to my ears – sang their creative swan song with the original material on the I Want Out EP. Renegade would follow with […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Yosemite In Black – In Pursuit Of

Based on the scant amount of actual info on Georgia’s YOSEMITE IN BLACK available without either logging into Facebook or following them on Bandcamp, neither of which I’m prepared to do not having heard a note until this moment. It seems like the band probably got its start around the turn of the decade and – again, from what I’ve found – In Pursuit Of is its first album. So, let’s go… The first thing that jumps out in opener ‘Cerberus’ is the mix and production – and when I say “jumps out”, I mean leaps the fuck forward as […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: The Stabbing Jabs – The Stabbing Jabs

Ah, Cincinnati…Porkopolis herself, home of Skyline Chili, the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers. And now home to, for better or worse, THE STABBING JABS. ‘Broken Brain’ hits with the fury of BLACK FLAG’s ‘My War’ but done up in a grime-fueled rock and roll incarnation, and I’m not sure how many seconds the guitarist spent getting that tone, but it’s just drenched in motor oil, and continues through the even more punch-drunk ‘Bad Slime’. Memories of my time in Detroit at Corktown Taven come to mind, five local kickass bands for $10 in a 2nd floor shoebox just […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Carnophage – Matters Of A Darker Nature

After 2 albums on respected Californian death metal imprint Unique Leader, CARNOPHAGE returns (yep, you guessed it, eight years later), this time on India’s multi-genre Transcending Obscurity, and with Matter Of A Darker Nature. Now, here’s the thing; I don’t really give a right rolling crap how “brutal” you are. If the songs aren’t there, I’m never going to give your shit more than one spin, unless you count the one down the toilet. Keeping the same lineup intact over the past two albums has served the Turkish entity well, as opener ‘In My Bones’ holds onto the face-forward energy […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Endless Floods – Rites Futurs

There’s something I’ve always appreciated about music with vocals/lyrics in other languages than English. For the native speakers or those who’ve learned the language, it gives a sense of “ownership”, of kinship, if you would. For those of us who have anything from no idea to a passing grasp of what’s being sung about, it forces the music to stand on its own. The vocals, for non-speakers, then take on an incorporeal quality – a glossolalia, if you would. And that’s what I’m experiencing with ENDLESS FLOODS’ return trip, Rites Futurs. ‘L’Éclair’ cascades over the cliffs and into a hidden […]

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: Absorb – Smog [EP]

Hamilton, Ontario’s ABSORB bashed out two respectable full-lengths between 2015 and 2018, then poof (or puff?)! Like ‘The Smokeman’ himself, the band were in the mists until last year’s stench-ridden return by way of the EP. And now, just over a year later, the Smog be upon us… What shouldn’t also escape notice here is the sense of Confessionalism found in the lyrics of the band, especially prevalent in “I still think it’s 2020 / I never really dream / Circling the drain / I’m moulting – alone / On a dog day afternoon in the middle of summer / […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Octoploid – Beyond The Aeons

Merriam-Webster defines pedigree in part as “2a: an ancestral line (Lineage) b: the origin and the history of something”. Well, when the bloodline of a band includes current/past members of AMORPHIS and SWALLOW THE SUN (among others), to say that OCTOPLOID has “an impressive pedigree” is a bit of an understatement. Still, that’s no guarantee that what emerges will be anything more than a blending together of two already near-cousins in sound; possibly even something that would’ve worked better kept within each’s respective outfit. Alright, that’s the last of the comparisons made, now let’s get to the important thing – […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: QAALM – First Light Of The Last Dawn [EP]

QAALM arrived seemingly from nowhere in 2022, a quintet who kicked up its share of interest with debut Resilience & Despair. Now trimmed to a three-piece (Family Size to Snack Size…maybe I’m just hungry…), drummer Dave Ferrara and guitarist/vocalist Henry Derek join forces with guitarist Minsu Dylan Kim to “usher in” what purports to be “a new era” for the band. A droning intro, populated by sparse fingerings and even more spacious bass, QAALM never in the greatest rush to get anywhere. This can harm some bands more than help, as a good many just don’t know how to give […]

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 […]

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