Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

lord randall

Album Reviews

Album Review: The Brood – For The Dark

Come to think, it’s really not all that rare for a punk/hardcore band to start up, then spend years playing in local dives, squats, basements and VFW halls before deciding to crank out an actual album. I’d even add that, as a genre, the type of punked up hardcore THE BROOD is on about is more geared to a live setting, where the band and the crowd become one heaving, moshing organism than something you’d toss onto a record player. But that’s not keeping the Philadelphia crew from delivering with For The Dark. ‘Sinkhole’ is exactly that from the start, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Barren – The Hanged Man

New Jersey’s BARREN arrives with its debut, The Hanged Man. ‘Unheard’ begins with the all-too-common sound of the church bell, winds blowing in the darkness, and a wail over a plain – but still somehow interesting – chord structure. There’s a feeling of an extended prelude here, though, as a true song never takes shape. Vocalist/guitarist/bassist Andrew Campbell does seem to be desirous of some sort of purging, and his delivery is understandable, while carrying the burden of desperation. There’s something of the Akron – Cleveland, OH sound in ‘Death Interrupted’, bands like ULTRALORD and FISTULA coming to mind in […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Bedsore – Dreaming The Strife For Love

Aside from a split album with Japan’s MORTAL INCANTATION, 2020’s slow grower, Hypnagogic Hallucinations was the last we’d heard from BEDSORE… until now. When I refer to the debut as a “slow grower”, the mistake would be to view that as a bad thing, especially in this case. Neither one to chop the tail off a song unnecessarily to meet some self-enforced track length, nor to draw out a piece to the snapping point for the same reason, there was a lot going on in BEDSORE, even from the start. And thus, it’s no real surprise that, if anything, the […]

Short Sharp Shocks

NECRONOMICON EX MORTIS – The Mother Of Death [EP]

Churning out two EPs last year and as many this year, adding up to the playing time of pretty much a single album, Chicagoans NECRONOMICON EX MORTIS return with The Mother Of Death. ‘Trick Or Treat’ leads, a beefed up RUMPLESTILSKIN GRINDER blended with ACID WITCH vocals, obsession with ‘70s/’80s horror flicks in full force. While the drums could stand a bit more heft in the mix, and the guitars tend to get buried in the bass-heavy mix, ‘Infestation’ and the title track are punchy and chock fulla riffs. The ambient ‘Itchy Tasty’ is surprisingly worthwhile, and ‘Salem’s Lot’ conjures […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Goatlord Corp. – Temple Of Serpent Whores

GOATLORD CORP. arrives, kicking open the rust-encrusted gate to Temple Of Serpent Whores with ‘Slave Disciplin’, a confidently striding riff soon devolving into the equivalent of a sentient woodchipper on crack, ferocious. Vokillist Saint Vincent dredges up a mighty Mille Petrozza from KREATOR’s early years, all snarl, sneer and raspy execution. The title track only fans the flames here, the chorus of ‘Temple Of Serpent Whores’ demands horns raised, heads banged, blood in the pit in a way that those black metal bands with convoys of tour buses and Nuclear Blast touring budgets rarely succeed. Deceptively, the song shifts and […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Ensiferum – Winter Storm

That ENSIFERUM was on a downward slide between 2009 classic From Afar and ‘20s Thalassic still kind of hurts, given how reliable the band was for its first four albums. I’ve kept up peripherally with them since, always at least given each new release a spin, but have come away feeling disappointed, and never went back to see if there was anything I might’ve missed, because there was so much more to hear and give time to, even within the folk metal sub-subgenre. Intro ‘Aurora’ sounds like the loading screen for the flash game Crush The Castle, and ‘Winter Storm […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Noroth / Grave Infestation – Split

When Washington State deathmongers NOROTH and GRAVE INFESTATION of British Columbia get together, there’s gonna be mayhem. NOROTH begins with ‘Trepanation Ritual’, positively spewing bile and fueled with an d-beat urgency, The Cult Is Alive DARKTHRONE, but more meaty, more burled, more gnarly and destructive; memorable in the way getting smacked in the cranium with a ball peen hammer is memorable. Instantly overpowering, GRAVE INFESTATION wields riff and convulsing rhythm with an uncompromising dexterity within the ‘Necroslaughterhouse’, sheep-bleating (bleeding?) leads and time changes aplenty, daring us to latch onto a time signature for more than 10 seconds, knowing we’ll fail […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Gaerea – Coma

Sticking with the pattern of releasing an album every two years since 2018’s aptly named Unsettling Whispers, Portuguese outfit GAEREA return with Coma. ‘The Poet’s Ballet’ glides into the ears, unhurried, yet with a sense of the near-liturgical, ALICE IN CHAINS vocal harmonies over peaceful keys and synths, the antithesis of what most have come to expect from GAEREA thus far – at least not to this degree. The true mark of quality here, among the many to be found over its catalog, is that, at just over 1/3rd of the way through the track, when treble flurries and the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Deadform – Entrenched In Hell

DEADFORM’s self-titled EP didn’t so much “burst” onto the scene in 2022, unless speaking of a pustule oozing its infection out after the needle has pierced it to drain. Apparently the pus has returned, but instead of the surgical prick of a needle, the trio has decided to apply pressure until it ruptures of its own accord with Entrenched In Hell. What else would one expect from former members of STORMCROW, the mighty DYSTOPIA, and LAUDANUM? ‘Of Plagues’ quickly shifts from cave dweller drone to HELLBASTARD groove-laden crust, the rhythm section/dual vocalists battling to be heard over their own cacophony, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Dark Tranquillity – Endtime Signals

While Gothenburg stalwarts DARK TRANQUILLITY were there at the start of the whole melodic death metal sound – and, in fact, had a hand in creating it – the band has never really “broke through” to mainstream consciousness on the level of IN FLAMES or AT THE GATES. Factor in that, post-1999’s Projector, DT fell victim to the ‘00s in a very real and recognizable way. While never quite going off the deep end into blatant courting of the Hot Topic set ala Jesper Stromblad & co., there’s no denying that founder Mikael Stanne has been playing it safe for […]

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