HISTORY
Time to leave the Swedish death-metal scene, lets pay attention to this non-death band. This review will focus on a Swedish metal band, a band that will give you bruises and lots of serious whiplash injuries. This band is called
Carnal Forge, formed in 1997 by two members from the swedish melodic death-metal band called
In Thy Dreams. The members were
Jari Kuusisto (guitars) and
Stefan Westerberg (drums), this is their so-called side project, this band plays an extreme style of death-thrash. But I would say that this band has more elements of thrash rather than death-metal elements, their music is highly aggressive, very heavy, extreme and very fast. If this has made you interested you should read more about this, if you don't you might regret it later.
ALBUM INFORMATION
As I said before, don't care about the Swedish death-metal scene, this is just as extreme as death-metal. This album has twelve songs and all of them are filled with extreme high-voltage thrash-metal, ready to get pumped into your ears. This album is called
''Please ... Die!'', the band has been considered to be a death/thrash-metal band, though I think this is pure speed/thrash-metal. I can't find any typical death-metal elements in this album but this is enough as it is, the overall production is great, the material is very catchy and very heavy and none of the songs are slow. Here you have two guitars, molding a rock solid wall of sound, a killer bass that screams metal, variated and skilled drum work and vocals similar to
Alexi Laiho's vocal work plus some deep growling here and there. The lyrics in this album is though pretty basic for extreme-metal bands, the themes are often about violent stuff, hate against people and the rest would be easy to figure out.
THE BAND MEMBERS
Jonas Kjellgren - Vocalist of this band, these vocals are great for the genre. The vocals are harsh, shrieking, intensive and very forceful, if you forged
Alexi Laiho with
Phil Anselmo then you might have a slim idea how this singer may sound like. I think he sounds pretty similar to
ALexi Laiho but thats just me, what I want to say is that this singer has a great vocal tyle that really suits their extreme music.
Jari Kuusisto /
Petri Kuusisto - The guitarists, this is awesome guitar skills I must say. The overall guitar sound is very heavy, crunhy, loaded with energy. The shredding and riffage are rock solid, most of the riffs are very catchy and technical, here you have chuga-chuga riffing and lightning fast shredding and then add some technique and skill on top of that. The guitar solos might not be as awesome as the rhythm sections and lead work but these solos are pretty good though. The solos are most of the times quite half-melodic, pretty energetic and technical, there are not many catchy solos but this is not amateur stuff thats for sure.
Lars Linde'n - Finally a bassist with a clear but yet very heavy sound, this bass really stands out if you compare it to other bands. You can definitely hear that there is a bass behind the violent guitars, though there are not any standout performances from the bass but there's no need to, this bass really helps to create the brutal and forceful rhythm section
Stefan Westerberg - Drummer of this band, and he knows wat this is all about. This guy takes no breaks, he churns out drum work equally as awesome as the guitar work, the patterns has a great variety (not to great though) and the overall drumming feels very heavy. This is classic thrash-drumming, played in extreme-mode, these drums turns basically every song to a catchy song.
MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS ALBUM
My thoughts about this album just gets better and better the more I listen to it, first when I saw that the band was classed as a death-thrash band I becamed a little suspicious but my mind changed when I got the album. One thing I really liked was the massive guitar work, it was fast, technical and it had a great sound. If this was death-metal the riffs would be more reptitive (at least in my opinion) but they waren't, this was definitely thrash-riffing in the purest form and I really loved it, this was the best guitar sound I have heard since
Artillery's ''Terror Squad''. A second thing that I liked was the bass, finally a bass that really shined through the thick guitar sound. This bass had a clear, grinding sound, it made the songs sound so brutal and so dead-serious, really good bass I must say. The vocals was also a thing I really liked, I like basically most singers both skilled and crappy singers, this singer really grabbed my attention. I have heard
Alexi Laiho's (
Children Of Bodom) raspy black-metallish vocals and I thought that these were the only vocals that I could refer to. To bad that there was so few growlings in this album though, you could hear some growls here and there in some of the songs but they later died out and the basic vocals was left. The positives are overwhelming against my negative thoughts but if there was something I would complain aboutit would be the vocals, I really loved them but they got to much sometimes. It felt like
Jonas was trying to overcome his own performance some times, this happened not to often but you could hear when it got to much.
MY CONCLUSION
Man, I'm very thankful for finding this album, I was suspicious against this album as I told you but I was so wrong. I can tell you that this is straight-up in-your-face extreme thrash-metal, this is extreme music played in a very fast paced but there are many songs here with catchy patterns. If you like other extreme bands like
Hypnosia,
At The Gates and
Children Of Bodom you will like this. This album has the right mix of brutality and energy if you want to release your anger at something or at someone. This band has made five albums total so far so I suggest that you leave your house or whatever and look for some
Carnal Forge. I think that this review has been a good guidance and if you have questions or critics don't be afriad to send them to me.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Hand Of Doom (
Highly recommended)
-- Everything Dies
-- Butchered, Slaughtered, Strangled, Hanged
-- A World All Soaked In Blood
This album will be given a 4.5/5 because of the massive and thick guitar work, grinding bass, extreme vocals and the endless stream of pure energy
