Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

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Album Reviews

Album Review: Lord Dying – Clandestine Transcendence

LORD DYING’s third album, Mysterium Tremendum, set the Portlandians (Portlanders? Portlandites?) firmly amid the bands that release watershed albums in which they could’ve really gone any direction from where they were. Brushes with previous prog elements became more intentional, and it helped the foursome in carving out its own niche in the somehow currently crowded sub-genre of doom in all its facets. Clandestine Transcendence sees founders Olson and Evans return with a new rhythm section, and slowly, almost languidly ushering us into ‘The Universe Is Weeping’ with guitars reminiscent of WISHBONE ASH or PROCOL HARUM when they knew they had […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Nobody’s Fool – Time

‘Cherrie’ kicks off the NOBODY’S FOOL’s fourth album with an effects-drenched guitar tone that sounds alright at the start, but when it’s kept up for the entire song, it turns what could be a neat introduction to the band into a something the trained ear has to struggle to “listen past” in getting to the meat of an otherwise-decent opening. Things seem to be reined in a bit more on ‘So Wrong’, and we’re able to see NOBODY’S FOOL has some chops, and know the ‘80s Sunset Strip sound well, ticking all the boxes. Clean, higher-register vocals, blue collar rhythm […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Slope – Freak Dreams

‘Talk Big’ takes shape slowly, fluidly, almost slow funk influenced before the actual funk is kicked into gear. Problem is, it’s not even really that funky, recalling more (Hed)PE half-assing its way through an early RHCP cover. Conversely, ‘It’s Tickin’’ kicks with a BEASTIE BOYS flavor circa Hello Nasty for the most part, only the outro dragging down any of the momentum SLOPE was close to gaining. ‘Chasing Highs’ carries on in this style, a very slight CIV presence revealing itself in the chorus but keeps the energy up for the entire tune. ‘Hectic Life’ is another winner once it […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Atronos – Erwachen

Enter in ATRONOS of Germany for its second full length, despite being together less than three years. Chalk at least some of that up to lyricist/vocalist Baptist and (now) skinbasher Valfor doing double duty in underrated EISENKULT. Still, ATRONOS be helmed by Henker, who is responsible for music, guitars and bass, so no laurels to rest upon here. ‘Was uns so schrecklich hasst’ begins, fully formed and hoisting the banner of pagan black metal proudly. Baptist’s delivery here is markedly different from his style with EISENKULT, more mid-late ‘90s, reminiscences of when the genre was stepping out of the shadow […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Engulf – The Dying Planet Weeps

While the solitary black metal entity has become a known genre trope – almost to laughably sad proportions – over decades, often losing part of what made it special in the first place in the sheer glut of what should never have been a “scene”, death metal has yet to trip over that stumbling block. Hence, when a death metal project arises where one person is responsible, win or lose, I’ll at least approach with an open mind. After three EPs, New Jersey’s ENGULF (in the form of Hal Microutscicos) marks its first full-length with The Dying Planet Weeps. ‘Withered […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: ÚLFARR – Orlegsceaft

Ever get tired of the lyrics of your favorite black metal bands being written in some obscure “eldritch” dialect that with a short visit to Google Translate becomes known as modern Norse or High German? Do you see Chaucer as a false for using Middle English in Canterbury Tales? Feel like Cascadian black metal’s “alright if you like that sort of thing”, but long for something evoking your eldritch and Cumbrian ancestral home? Behealdan ÚLFARR! Birthed and guided by founder Dominus (aka Hfran), in 2011, ÚLFARR has unchained new material regularly since, yet Orlegsceaft be its first march into the […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Vemod – The Deepening

Time. It does what it does. It marches, onward and steady, each of us warring against or accepting, but still at its grim behest and beneath its law. Art – for those who create such – is a means to capture a moment or period from Time and leave a mark. “I was here.” “This is how I saw the world or myself.” When we rush to make that statement, that claim, it can be done poorly, or not fully thought through, yet it remains in the universe, the half-work of a creator who couldn’t comprehend what they were experiencing. […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Swim Or Drown – Trapped [7″]

There’s just something special about hardcore/punk from Scandinavia and the surrounding area, from the legendary kangpunk/d-beat sound of Sweden to the somewhat more technical yet still as powerful Swiss and Dutch scenes, the latter of which SWIM OR DROWN is a part. The title track of this 7” barnburner slams back and forth between ALL OUT WAR hardcore and FREYA metallic bursts, each style coming across as legitimate, no shred of gimmickry to be found. The gem for me here is ‘Human Scum’, a raging early INTEGRITY-styled diatribe with razor-sharp guitars and a boiling bottom end, scarred vocals spewing justice […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Iron Front – Hooked

It’s easy to judge someone’s skill, technical ability and “deservedness” to be on a label putting out music in their teens. And quite honestly the judgement is often on point. Shit, think of the first garage band you were in. Could 30 or even 40-year-old you play those “songs” with a smile on your face not born completely of nostalgia or should you just tank them, never to be spoken of or heard again. None of us are the same people we were in our teens, and if we are, we have some growing to fuckin’ do. Oakland, California’s IRON […]

Short Sharp Shocks

Blind Chaos – Very Metal Christmas [EP]

What do you do when you’ve got some downtime during the Christmas season? If you’re BLIND CHAOS of Oslo, Norway, you find a historic church, light your torches and…record a Christmas EP! ‘Last Christmas’ is infectious, probably more faithful to the original than lead throat Chris Wiborg probably wants to admit, making for an engaging jam. ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ punches, ending in a holiday wish for something warmer than cider, if you get my drift, and ‘Santa Baby’ is sure to get portly, bearded men in red lining up to hurry down chimneys of good (and […]

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