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Review Summary: Depressive hardcore done right. As the title to their 3rd full length implies, Cara Neir are a horrifically bleak band. “Portals To A Better, Dead World” may be the most depressing title I've come across so far while going through the genre of emo, and it’s also one of the most appropriate. And looking through Cara Neir’s influences you can see why they’re such miserable bastards. Stretching from the likes of hardcore (Alpinist), to metalcore (Converge), black metal (Bathory, Darkthrone), Grind (Discordance Axe, Pig Destroyer) and Screamo (Orchid, Funeral Diner, and Portraits of Past), Cara Neir have a plethora of miserable bands to draw their inspiration from. These influences go far in explaining not only why Cara Neir are such a moody band, but why they’re also so brilliant at it.
Cara Neir have seemingly drawn from all their influences, as “Portals To A Better, Dead World” is an interesting mix of black metal, screamo, and hardcore. Atmospheric black metal vocals are howled over straining hardcore riffs and blastbeats, faint screams fade in and out through the background and a sense of overwhelming despair is put out. Thankfully these influences are mixed around in different ways. There are shorter, more hardcore and screamo influenced songs; although the black metal influence is still there, songs that mix all the influences together into standard length tracks, and one monolithic 10 minute track that is more post metal in form. But the overall sound of "Portals To A Better, Dead World" is extremely consistent. It would be appropriate to say that their influences are seamlessly mixed without any aspect warping the general sound or themes.
The last song is a testament to this, breaking down from a monolithic 7 minute post metal influenced track to a repeating riff and haunting lyrics of “atoms splitting, callous thickening, bridges burning, paradigms shifting, something's building”. This is all shrouded under a disturbing mix of feedback fading into a sample which horrifically declares that “humanity is evil”, there’s no life anywhere but earth and that “we’re alone”. But, it wouldn't work if that sample was at the beginning of the song or even at the beginning of the album as it would most likely come off as pretentious. The build-up of misery that occurs throughout "Portals To A Better Dead World" justifies the crushing finale as it simply feels like the natural progression of the album.
In short, “Portals To A Better, Dead World” is depressing hardcore done right. It doesn't suffer from the melodramatic, overwrought lyrics and pointless chaos that many emo bands indulge in, as every aching riff, howl, and blastbeat feels like it should actually be there. Quite simply, Cara Neir excel at misery.
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Album Rating: 4.5
3rd review, criticism would be appreciated
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sweet review
these guys are from my city :]
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"many emo bands..."
"... a lot of emo bands"
kinda redundant
anyway, I'll definitely give this a spin. sounds like my jam
edit: yeah man better
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
woops yeah ill change the end to something else
edit: better?
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Oh hey, a Mort review, and a good one too.
perhaps change the summary into just "depressive hardcore done right"? That would leave a better impact
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Yay, new Mortimus rev!
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
yeah i agree choccy thanks
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stream: http://caraneir.bandcamp.com/album/portals-to-a-better-dead-world
Very good album indeed, I tend to come back to it fairly often.
Review is good overall, but the second paragraph kind of verbally recycles the same argument over and over (elements from different genres blended seemlessly). See if you can spice the paragraph up a bit.
Also:
This is all shrouded under a disturbing mix of feedback, which fades into a section consisting of a sample which horrifically declares that “humanity is evil” that there isn't life somewhere else other than earth and that “we’re alone”
Reads like a run-on sentence (although it isn't in terms of length), two "which" sentences are entangled with two "that" words. I would write it like that:
This is all shrouded under a disturbing mix of feedback fading into a sample which horrifically declares that "humanity is evil", that there's no afterlife, and that "we're alone".
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
yeah i sorta realised i was recycling the same argument
didnt have as much to write about this one as i did for my other 2 so it took a bit longer and says the same thing over a few times. oh well. ill come back to it when im not so tired and have listened to the album more
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No worries man, review does the album justice.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
its cool man, thanks for the feedback, that level of criticism is really helpful
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Good review Mort, need to jam this again
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Hard props, i fucking love this band.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Good job dude
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Pos'd, also what a list of influences - it they're all definitely used in the music, I need to check this
asap.
One thing I will say is where you write 'But the overall sound of near portals to a better world is
extremely consistent', I think you need to capitalise the album title. Only a minor niggle, the review got
me interested in this just like that.
EDIT: If the opener is anything to go by, this is getting 4.5'd easy.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
Woops again yeah thats meant to be capitalized i just missed that
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Top 10 of 2014 contender, no question.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
hahah glad you enjoyed it man, though it is a 2013 release not 2014
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...Goddamnit.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
yeah it sorta flew under the radar. i only found out about it cos fantano did a review for it
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