Rebel Extravaganza

Heavy Metal And Other Occasional Musics And Cultures

Roadrunner Records

Album Reviews

Album Review: Guilt Trip – Armour Of Angels

I dislike raking a band over the coals, but GUILT TRIP from Manchester, UK make it impossible for me to do otherwise. In light of that, their name is especially ironic. Because this is absolutely one of the most generic, non-creative and unoriginal records I have ever heard. Only the fact that FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH exists keeps me from saying it is #1. There isn’t a riff, solo, vocal line or any other aspects of the music on Armour Of Angels that hasn’t been done to death many, many times before. They call their music hardcore, but it’s only […]

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 […]