Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

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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 […]

Music News

Witchskull to Release A Driftwood Cross April 24th via Rise Above Records

The skies are dark. The atmosphere is thick with dread. The future looks bleak. Only pure, red-blooded heavy fucking metal can save us now. Belching effortlessly classic and crushing anthems from the riffian depths, with all the power and panache of Black Sabbath at their peak, Witchskull return in 2020 to stir our souls once again. WITCHSKULL will release their new album A Driftwood Cross April 24th via Rise Above Records. Pre-order the album on Amazon and iTunes Students of monolithic, turbo-charged and fuzzed-out doom will already be familiar with this Australian trio. Erupting into the consciousness of riff worshippers […]

Interviews

Interview: Frayle

Within its short 3-year lifespan, Ohio’s atmospheric metal duo (now turned quintet) FRAYLE has birthed 2 EPs featuring its heady blend of ethereal vocals and towering riffs/rhythms, culminating now in the recently-released debut full-length, 1692. Lord Randall sat down with founding members Gwyn Strang and Sean Bilovecky to time travel back to 1692, and discuss how, though much has changed, much remains the same. BY CHOICE, NOT BLOODInterview with Gwyn Strang and Sean Bilovecky of FRAYLEInterview By: Lord Randall Rebel Extravaganza: Back in 2017 when FRAYLE was birthed, did you already have a plan in mind – an image or […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Smoulder – Dream Quest Ends

The Good Doctor must have been under a sleeping enchantment when SMOULDER’s debut Times Of Obscene Evil And Wild Daring hit the racks last year. How I could have missed an album with Michael Whelan art on the cover can only be explained by sorcery. Now comes the Canadian band’s EP, entitled Dream Quest Ends, which gives me a second chance. Epic sword and sorcery metal with a very doom-laden aura and ringing female vocals is the most succinct way to describe Dream Quest Ends. Imagine MANILLA ROAD played at CANDLEMASS velocity and you’ve hit on the SMOULDER template. And […]

Album Reviews

Album Review: Goden – Beyond Darkness

True devotees of underground heaviness and grimness will nod their heads at the mention of the band WINTER, whose brief recording career had a disproportionate impact on the metal scene. They created one of the doomiest, ugliest and most massive sounds ever heard on their landmark 1989 Into Darkness release. That sound has haunted the cobwebbed corners of the underground for 30 years now, though WINTER itself ceased to exist long ago. GODEN (named after a track on Into Darkness) are about as close to WINTER as you’re going to get in 2020 and in fact have former WINTER member […]

Music News

WOLFHEART Releases Official Music Video for New Track ‘Hail Of Steel’

Finnish heavy melodic death metal unit WOLFHEART recently announced the upcoming release of their new full-length Winter War epic, Wolves Of Karelia, out April 10, 2020 via Napalm Records. Today, WOLFHEART has revealed another fantastic offering cut from Wolves Of Karelia, entitled ‘Hail Of Steel’. The track signals oncoming war with an ocean-like wave of rhythm and hair-raising guitars, cascading into an extreme, melodic wall of blastbeats and symphonics. Accented by piercing clean vocal harmonics and pummeling double bass, the track sets the grand stage for the entire album. The new music video is equally as searing – a fiery […]

Music News

COME TO GRIEF: Legendary Sludge Offshoot Release New EP + Announce New Bassist

New England-based sludge legends COME TO GRIEF are pleased to announce the release of their second EP Pray For The End, out now via Grievance Records, as well as the addition of bassist Randy Larsen (ex-Cable, ex-Isis). Formed in 1991 by Disrupt guitarist Terry Savastano, GRIEF’s style of “extreme doom” was seminal to all things slow, doom, and sludge to follow. For more than a decade, GRIEF would release several albums, EPs, splits and compilations before calling it quits in 2001, despite a couple of reunion attempts. Fast-forward to 2014, Terry’s new version of the band (including former drummer Chuck […]

Music News

FUNERAL LEECH: New York City Death/Doom Bringers To Release Death Meditation Full-Length Via Carbonized April 17th; New Track Streaming + Preorders Available

Stream / Share FUNERAL LEECH’s ‘Statues’ At THIS LOCATION New York City-based death/doom bringers FUNERAL LEECH will unleash their debut full-length, Death Meditation, this April via Carbonized Records. Death Meditation spews forty-five soul-crushing minutes of death/doom darkness mired in contemplation of our mortal fragility. Recorded and mixed at Chapel Black Studios in Brooklyn, New York by Travis Bacon (White Widows Pact, Black Anvil, Hogwasche) and mastered by Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Tomb Mold), through the putrid resonance of Death Meditation, FUNERAL LEECH believes that death is a new beginning! Death Meditation will be released on LP and digital formats via […]

Music News

Death metal band MONOLITH (South Africa) release new single

Port Elizabeth’s MONOLITH have just released their stunning new single ‘Black Earth’s Gate’. The song is from their upcoming album The Lord Conspirator, which will be released in April via MMD Records. The band commented, “‘Black Earth’s Gate’ is our first single from the forthcoming album, The Lord Conspirator. It’s a menacing track, which achieves its sense of gritty heaviness by stripping away the speed. Punctuated by soaring melodies and steady grooves, the track appears halfway through the album, and represents a change in mood that sets the scene for the album’s final chapter.” Listen to the song HERE MONOLITH […]

Music News

RITUAL DICTATES reveal third single from forthcoming ARTOFFACT debut

It is a big day for RITUAL DICTATES, as they release their new single ‘Extinction’ – LISTEN HERE Singer Justin Hagberg comments, “We can’t wait to perform Give In To Despair live! It’s been a while since RITUAL DICTATES has performed, so we’re very excited to dust away the cobwebs and return with a killer live band and a batch of new tunes.” Over the past month, RITUAL DICTATES has released music for ‘Terror Of Time’ and ‘Given To Despair’, which was also made into a lyric video and premiered with BraveWords.com. Watch the lyric video for ‘Given To Despair’ […]

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