Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

lord randall

Album Reviews

Album Review: Big Scenic Nowhere – Lavender Blues [EP]

I would’ve skipped on BIG SCENIC NOWHERE’s Vision Beyond Horizon of earlier this year by virtue of not only the terms “stoner rock” and (even worse) “desert rock” being bandied about, but the trifecta of disinterest was reached with the knowledge that a member of FU MANCHU figured heavily into the band’s makeup. That band and their sonic cohorts in the Dune Buggy/Shaggin’ Wagon set of fun-in-the-sun weed worshippers are just not my type of stoner anything, rock or otherwise. They’re simply doing it wrong. The announcement of the release of Lavender Blues, however, caught my eye in a big […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Artillery – The Last Journey [Single]

While I’d normally not bother with reviewing a single release here, ARTILLERY is one of Denmark’s greatest musical contributions to the world of metal, another being MERCYFUL FATE, and another not being Lars Ulrich. But that’s another story. ARTILLERY is also one of the first heavier bands I discovered on my own, “liberating” Metal Mania magazine off the rack at the grocer’s in Alabama in the mid-‘80s under my denim jacket, which I didn’t realize was already part of the metal “uniform”. The pic of the band beside the Terror Squad write-up had the brothers Stützer & co. brandishing firearms, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: UADA – Djinn

To say Portland’s UADA has “blown up” during the two years between Cult Of A Dying Sun and what we now have before us in the form of its all-important third album is the height of understatement. High profile tours (remember tours?), the made-for-mass-consumption safety of its music, and the band’s ridiculous “left hand presence” photos of late have taken what I believe was a decent “enough” second album, and sculpted the quartet into basically melodic black metal’s GHOST. The title track begins sounding like some bastard wedding of Morricone high on bath salts and an even more tremolo-heavy ALESTORM, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Void Rot – Descending Pillars

I’ll be honest from jump here. When it comes to death metal, my tastes lean decidedly toward Scandinavia. Be it the dimed-out HM-2-driven Stockholm sound, the melodic elements of AT THE GATES / DARK TRANQUILLITY, the myth-worship of AMORPHIS, or the twists ‘n’ turns of CONVULSE / DEMILICH, those are the lands of death where I’m most at home. Of course, there are a handful of USDM acts I’m into, but, for the most part, I’ll take a pass. Enter VOID ROT, from Minnesota, which, to be fair, is about as far north as you can get within the US […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Valkyrie – Fear

VALKYRIE of Virginia has never been one to put out albums just willy-nilly, or “because we had enough songs written”. The brothers Adams and their cohorts aren’t averse to “sleeping” on songs, letting them bake a bit longer, marinate in their own seasonings until what comes out of the oven is exactly what they want to put before us. Which is part of what makes the 5-year wait between 2015’s Shadows and Fear worth it for the listener. I’ll admit to being foremost a fan of doom in all its forms when it comes to metal, without excluding the occasional […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: THE DEATHLESS DOGS – Five Across The Eyes [EP]

When a band’s promotional one-sheet references CLUTCH, I’m already on guard. Not that picking up sonic and lyrical cues from the Maryland Men Of Cordial Gentility is anything bad per se. It’s just that 8 of 10 times what we get is an act that’s flipped through a thesaurus, listened to a REVEREND GARY DAVIS album once, and probably covers ‘Big News I & II’ live to show its “diversity”. Thankfully, in real life, THE DEATHLESS DOGS are very much their own blend. Sure, the duo is the sum of its influences, but that’s the majority of what’s in all […]

Interviews

INTERVIEW: EREMIT

From Lower Saxony cometh EREMIT, spreading a sludge/doom hybrid we’re soon to find is not as rare in Germany as most would’ve expected. Instead of spewing bile-drenched hymns of misanthropy and addiction (though there may be something of allegory within), this trio envelops the listener in a world of its own creation, and its recently-released EP, Desert Of Ghouls. Wander… BENEATH A CRUSHING WEIGHTInterview with Moritz Fabian [Guitars/Vocals] of EREMITInterview By: Lord Randall Rebel Extravaganza: Germany. Known for thrash, black and folk metal, but doom? Moritz Fabian: I think this is always dependent on the perspective from where you´re looking […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Atramentus – Stygian

Though members of CHTHE’ILIST, FUNEBRARUM, and other acts comprise Longueuil, QC’s ATRAMENTUS, the quintet is very much its own beast from the start. Opener ‘Stygian I – From Tumultuous Heavens… (Descended Forth The Ceaseless Darkness)’ reveals a band certainly in no rush to get anywhere with great speed, yet more layered than FUNEBRARUM, less ribaldly feral than CHTHE’ILIST. We move through vast tundra wastes at times, lean against blizzards that howl through the bones others, but always, always alone. Solitary. While certainly beholden to its genre forefathers, who need not be named except as reference points for all that came […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: The Passing – The Passing [EP]

We have Viking metal bands who call the fjord-hewn shores of Croatia home, so why not a band of Los Angeles miscreants dressing up a blend of Scandinavian extremity for the ’20s? That’s what THE PASSING is on about, and it works. The self-titled blister-fest clocks in at just over 15 minutes, the definition of a short, sharp shock. ‘Condemned’ recalls d-beat OGs SKITSYSTEM in its hysterical forward momentum, while ‘Please Him’ is even more unhinged in that glorious kangpunk, MOB 47 of ways. If you’re looking for second to breathe, it’s not to be found here, that’s for sure, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Falconer – From A Dying Ember

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve been into FALCONER since before there was a FALCONER. With the ending of MITHOTYN, I was glad to see founding guitarist Stefan Weinerhall moving on in any capacity, and FALCONER fit the bill, which now comes full circle in the band’s final release. While 2014’s Black Moon Rising was undoubtedly FALCONER at its heaviest, most gritty, I wasn’t expecting the lackluster ‘Kings And Queens’, which opens From A Dying Ember. Musically, the band still knows how to write a tune, but Mathias just sounds tired. Not just a bit weary; dog-ass-dragging knackered and, […]

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