The Carnival Absoluuttinen Syntymä CD
Yet another band I had never heard about but I am now glad I have: the CARNIVAL from Finland. Discogs tells me they have been going since 1999 and have been very prolific, and yet it doesn’t tell me why it took me more than 20 years to listen to them. I guess my Finnish informers are not that good. I really enjoy this latest album Absoluuttinen Syntymä, and the fact that the CARNIVAL were able to write such a heavy, energetic, powerful work shows that, twenty years on, the passion is still intact indeed. The music proves to be hard to describe as it is very versatile. The first song has you believing that you’ll get a traditional bollocking from a mean and classic Finnish hardcore band that does not take prisoners, which I usually do agree to, but then other songs are doomy, old school FROST-inspired creepy metal, while I can definitely hear a late RUDIMENTARY PENI influence on others (and in the beautiful artwork, clearly). The album conveys a great atmosphere of occult darkness but remains very dynamic, tense, and genuinely rocks. The range of paces and styles is important, but the whole never sounds disconnected or disjointed, it always makes sense. Great deep, pissed vocals in Finnish and a thick, organic production highlight the music’s qualities and moodiness. They are difficult to compare to others, but they remind me of both a more atmospheric KERETIK and a more aggressive AKRASIA. A definite win for me that entices to further explore their discography.