Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

lord randall

Album Reviews

Album Review: Foetal Juice – Gluttony

Not many bands take over a decade to release their debut album. That’s not to say Manchester’s FOETAL JUICE has been sitting on its collective arse since 2005, either, though, having filled the time with a demo, two EPs, three split releases, and as many singles. And now, a “scant” four years after Masters Of Absurdity comes Gluttony. At first notice, it seems the quartet has left behind much of the parody/juvenile humor element, or at least the twisting of film/song title/band names for its output, which could be chalked up to either input of the band’s new vocalist and […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Noctu – Gelidae Mortis Imago

The sound of dripping, as of water from a stalactite in a long-forgotten cave begins Gelidae Mortis Imago, ‘Suicidio al chiaro di luna’ acting less as a standard “intro”, carrying its own ambience. Melancholy keys, evoking an air of the classical and befitting the genre in which NOCTU operates, lead into ‘Fitte Tenebrae (Le radici dell’ inferno), which oppresses and shrouds as it was meant to, multi-tracked and oppressive choral vocals perverting the liturgical. It’s here that we first realize what NOCTU exhales are more “patterns” than “songs”. If one is looking for verse/chorus/verse – or anything “standard”, it can […]

Interviews

Interview: SAMMATH

Black metal death engine, SAMMATH, has been crushing eardrums under its tank treads for over a quarter century, yet sixth full-length, Across The Rhine Is Only Death shows no second of fatigue, no moment of weariness or unreliability from founder J. Kruitwagen & co. Normally, we keep current as possible with interviews, but our recent chat was too good not to include here. Lord Randall armors up… THE STRENGTH OF KRUPP STAHL Interview with J. Kruitwagen of SAMMATH Interview By: Lord Randall Rebel Extravaganza: After putting out your first 4 albums on a fairly regular schedule, it’s been close to […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Cadaver – D. G. A. F.

Norway’s CADAVER has always been, is, and looks to forever be Neddo. It also seems to foul the ears so sporadically as to almost be forgotten in the interim, despite cranking out some morbidly grotesque death under the name CADAVER. And so, 16 years after the flesh-covered wrecking ball that was Necrosis, Neddo surfaces again, journeyman skinbasher Dirk Verbeuren behind the kit, to deliver D. G. A. F. At just over 10 minutes long, the duo has neither the time (nor thankfully) the inclination to fuck around, Jeff Walker lending his rasp to the title track. Luddite as all Hell, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Trivium – What The Dead Men Say

I don’t know what it was about TRIVIUM’s debut Ember To Inferno that I dug back in ’03, but clearly, it didn’t take long for Heafy and the boys to monkeywrench what was already a barely roadworthy machine, becoming a pastiche of even themselves only two years later, and firing off an album that would’ve killed a less merch-driven band only one year after that with The Crusade. It’s nearly 15 years later now, and the musical climate has changed. TRIVIUM hasn’t, though, and album #9 flails and falters from the start, twee guitar squeal with all the rage of […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Khemmis – Doomed Heavy Metal

KHEMMIS’ 2018 release proved my Third Album Theory on so many levels. At some point, I’ll have it up on this site, but suffice it to say that it wasn’t only my ears which heard something special in the Colorado quartet that – while it might’ve been there before – came shining through within Desolation. It’s really no surprise that the first tune we’d hear from the band after its most blatantly metal album was a song of the stature of ‘Rainbow In The Dark’. What is impressive, however, is that KHEMMIS pulls it off with nary a hitch nor […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Front – Antichrist Militia

After four years and doubling its lineup in size, Finland’s FRONT return with MCD, Antichrist Militia. Still on the Iron Bonehead imprint, still peddling its brand of war-tinged blackthrash, a bit of death sprinkled here and there for taste, Missile shriek string histrionics and an instantly catchy riff & rhythm riot advance onto the battlefield, the title track literally spilling over with bloody ideas come to fruition, riffs imprinting on your memory at first listen, and would’ve stood just fine as an opener without the seemingly obligatory and needless intro, ‘Doom Cult Legion’. After the blatant MOTORHEAD homage ‘Iron Front’, […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Collision – The Final Kill

15 releases in 20 years ain’t that bad of a run for a band of any sort, and while a good many of those were of the Split/EP variety, there’s no doubt the Dutch killing machine that will be remembered as COLLISION ate, drank, and shat grind. The Final Kill is to be the quintet’s swan song, if the press releases are to be believed, but at the end of this 15-minute (17+ minutes on album due to the vinyl-only cover of S.O.D.’s ‘Kill Yourself’) blastfest, you’re left with the feeling that COLLISION wasn’t planning on going out with anything […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Curse Upon A Prayer – Infidel

Much has been made of the fact that Finland’s CURSE UPON A PRAYER have anti-Islamic lyrics, to the point that all other facets of the band are in danger of shuddering under the weight of this supposed gimmickry. Truth is, CUAP has crafted some fairly solid black metal in its short history, and isn’t black metal supposed to be anti-…well, pretty much everything anyway? So let’s get to it. While I was a bit concerned that ‘Call To Prayer’ was going to be a full on intro of the Adhan, I needn’t have been, the foursome unrolling a hazy rug […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Death The Leveller – II

When a band’s first long-player is titled II, two things become starkly clear. One, something has come before – in this case, 2017’s creatively-titled I. And two, that what’s found on DEATH THE LEVELLER’s Cruz Del Sur debut is to be seen as a continuation. And thus, so armed, to Bandcamp I did go, armed with 4 EUR ($4.34 for USsians), and was summarily impressed by the emotion found within I’s four expansive tracks, ‘Gone Forever’ especially showing a band with promise and clearly with its eyes to the future, albeit bleak. Now comes II, and the wailing guitar stunt-doubling […]

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