So they finally did it,
Bloodbath has finally released a live album.
The Wacken Carnage is the band's first live album but if it is going to be their first or last no-one can tell. Anyway, the live album contains both a track disc and of course a live disc that features the whole show. The tracks that has been chosen are some of the band's best tracks like
Soul Evisceration,
Ways To The Grave,
Eaten and
Furnace Funeral. There are three tracks from
Resurrection Through Carnage, six tracks from
Nightmares Made Flesh and the whole
Breeding Death EP which includes three tracks. I didn't know what to expect when I was going to listen to the album, but there was one thing that destroyed all my expectations: The guitar sound from the RTC album... ''No no no''. That was my first thought when I was listening to
Cancer Of The Soul. All tracks are performed with skill and energy but that goddamn guitar sound destroys a lot of the actual sound. All the tracks from
Breeding Death and the RTC album sounded pretty good but the newer tracks didn't sound so good compared to the original record.
The DVD is of good quality though, you can see the crew in their bloody and filthy outfits (except the drummer) and the enormous crowd that's yelling: ''Bloodbath Bloodbath Bloodath!!!''. Mikael Akerfeldt and Dan Swano are probably the only two members that seems to be the most excited compared to the Katatonia bassist who wonders all alone by himself on the stage. In either way, the band is energetic and all the songs sounds like on the studio versions. Everything is fine except Akerfeldt's incredibly lame pause talk. You have to have a corny sense of humour to laugh at Akerfeldt's jokes. Some of the jokes are fine but most of the time he is so lame that you will get embarrassed by listening to him. His pause talk is huge minus but his vocal performance is a completely different thing though. He growls his way through the track list with very few mistakes and he handles the NMF tracks with ease.
The Wacken Carnage is a well-produced live album with only two major flaws, a rotten guitar sound and the corny stage talk from Akerfeldt. If I would complain about something else then it would just be that I'm slightly disappointed that the band didn't included tracks like
Cry My Name or
Draped In Disease, Everything else is great. All the tracks sounds fine, none of them are changed or tempered with except
Furnace Funeral where Dan Swano performs some melodies with the guitar instead of the a keyboard. The band is energetic and they are focused on what they do, even if Akerfeldt's vocals fail a little now and then... Fans of
Bloodbath should get this, or at least give it a listen. This is necessarily not a must-have but
The Wacken Carnage is one of the better live albums out there so people within the death metal scene would appreciate this album.
RTC = Ressurection Through Carnage
NMF = Nightmares Made Flesh
Positives
+ Very good sound quality compared to most live albums.
+ Akerfledt handles the NMF tracks very good.
+ Very good selection of songs.
+ No tracks sounds deformed or strange compared to the studio versions
Negatives
- People who hate the guitars on RTC will most likely be disappointed when they listen to this album.
- Akerfeldt's pause-talk is so lame most of the time.
Final rating will be a 3.5/5
damn that's my favorite RTC song.
