Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

lord randall

Album Reviews

Album Review: Lychgate – Also Sprach Futura

LYCHGATE’s fourth release (and first for Debemur Morti Productions) seems as good a starting point as any for my ears. Having three full-lengths to its name at this point, and with nary a core lineup change since its inception, LYCHGATE should be settled into what it is and what it is not, thereby providing the new listener an experience of a band at its best. Quite frankly, I’m ashamed at myself, as big a fan of ESOTERIC as I am, not realizing the part Greg Chandler plays as a third of this trio, but rest assured, this isn’t some “pet […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Formosa – Danger Zone

With two albums under its belt (2016’s Tight & Sexy and Sorry For Being Sexy from 2018), and promo photos that make FORMOSA look like either stunt doubles for General Zod, Non and Ursa from Superman II or extras from the Blue Oyster scenes in the first Police Academy movie, I cannot bloody wait to hear this shit. ‘Dynamite’ prances out of the gate, positively poppy, BIBLE OF THE DEVIL at half-speed and ¼ the passion, and ‘Masquerade’ fares not much better, FORMOSA revealing itself to be any one of a thousand club bands you can see in any mid-sized […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Invictus – Eden

Subdued and pastoral, the abbreviated intro is less a standard, bland “intro track” than an opening of a door, a passing through of a gate…that is until the rough ‘n’ ragged guitar tone of ‘The Hammer’ crashes down, frayed around the edges, and the better for it, reminiscent of the passion-over-proficiency so prevalent in the garage days of power/thrash. Not that the Bavarians aren’t skilled at their craft. Far from it, in fact, especially when the pace slows down ¾ of the way through to give the solo room to breath. After the Sacred Heart-era DIO influence of ‘Inside Your […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Rosy Finch – Scarlet

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from ROSY FINCH, as not only has Spain never revealed itself as a hotbed of anything remotely sludge-related, but that I always brace myself for disappointment when a band uses the “s” word but fails to deliver. While technically the band’s third release, we might as well call Scarlet a debut, because when a trio changes out 2/3 of its lineup, it can hardly be called the same band, right? With each song named after a shade of red, the album should be looked at as a singular piece of art, but not […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Pure Wrath – The Forlorn Soldier

In the realm of the black metal lyric, it’s uncommon to note such a stylistic shift between albums – at least not so abruptly – as what occurred in PURE WRATH between 2017’s Ascetic Eventide and Sempiternal Wisdom of the following year. While not entirely bereft of the former’s Nature-worship, it was clear that the fulcrum had tipped in the way founder and solitary member Ryo saw his place in the world, and his Indonesian heritage. And, thus, does The Forlorn Soldier find PURE WRATH not only tipping the fulcrum, but stepping off and into an EP thematically linked in […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Don Jamieson – Denim And Leather

I’m not a big fan of “fun”. It’s not that I don’t enjoy doing things in life, but “fun” – in the traditional sense, at least – has always, in the words of TOM WAITS “…rubbed me up the wrong way.” The same goes doubly for stand-up comedy. Quite frankly, all our gods are dead in that realm, and modernity (by and large) has yet to bestow on us the next Foxx, Hedberg, Carlin, Williams, Hicks, Bruce, or Gardner. You get where I’m going with this, surely… I’ll admit to being fairly curious when DON JAMIESON announced his first offering, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Seven Planets – Explorer

After over a quarter-century playing together in various incarnations, there’s no quarter given for half-assing a performance (live or on record), or not playing to the strengths of both yourself and your bandmates. Now, three albums deep into the space inhabited by SEVEN PLANETS, we have Explorer, so let’s just climb aboard and hope this ship takes us somewhere worth the trip. Opener ‘Vanguard’ sports a LEAF HOUND groove, albeit a bit more funky than London’s highest ever went. Instrumental rock bears a curse, in that there’s no room for “dead air”, or just wandering aimlessly, and it never feels […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Blood Spore – Fungal Warfare Upon All Life

I always get a little snarky when a band’s first release for a label is also their demo/album that originally came out anywhere from a month to years prior. I get the feeling the band’s got new material in the bag or “almost ready”, but one party or another wanted to buy some time for whatever reason. ‘Hostile Fruiting Bodies’ blooms and looms large, towering, crimson-bathed riffs and near-sludge pacing in parts, gnarled OBITUARY-an gore (think Cause Of Death) in others, the section from 1:16-1:33 being particularly Cro-Magnon in its abuse. Slow, and with a tinge of sable-hued psychedelia, I […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Nick Giannakos – The Alchemist

Ohio’s WRETCH fired off a few rounds in the mid-late ‘80s, never really rising above the demo/rehearsal stage. After – sort of – reuniting in the early ‘00s, it seems founding guitarist Nick Giannakos and longstanding drummer Jeff Curenton have hit their stride, adding new blood and crafting some fairly solid power/thrash over the past few years in the process. This isn’t a WRETCH review, though, but backgrounds can be important when it comes to instrumental albums, The Alchemist, in this case. Released under the moniker NICK GIANNAKOS And Alchemy, this debut is clearly meant to highlight the WRETCH gunslinger’s […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Kilter – Axiom

In the interest of full disclosure, let’s be clear. I know as much about the inner workings of jazz as you do about what I had for breakfast, and, by and large, I feel that it’s a joke I’ll never get the punchline of. It’s math masquerading (mathsquerading?) as music, and I never had a head for numbers, so… On the other hand, what this does do is free me up to enjoy – or not – the style on a purely visceral/emotional level. Either it speaks to me, or it doesn’t, and there’s literally zero historical context from which […]

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