By: Anders

Posted: Sep 10, 2005

I got acquainted with this rather weird French band on their previous release "Fear Not", and to be honest I was quite scared when I saw the promo disc contain the following quote: "What if Mr. Bungle had and overdose of Morbid Angel? Fear Not Carnival In Coal". That description was pretty accurate on that album and the band back in 2001. Though not anymore, due to the band have softened up a bit, and has a more quiet and rocky approach to the music nowadays.

The music is often very messy, pulling the listener in many directions at once. If music could be diagnosed as schizophrenic, this for sure would get that predicate. The party kicks of with 'Party At Your House', where we get some heavy and crunchy guitar riffs and weird voices all over the place, the many vocals and voices are used all over the record, this is a good example of vocals being used as instruments. They differ just as much as the music, and are a big part of building up the atmosphere and binding the single tracks together. Next up is 'Fuckable' which starts out with some jazzy easy listening and then goes into to death metal riffing and growls, goes back, returns with an almost black metal scream, and yeah the album continues like that, with the addition of some cartoonish elements once in a while. If not anything else the compositions are well made and they do paint the scenes, which are illustrated in the listener's head.

This is a tough nut to crack, I guess this pretty much is an album that people will either love or hate, though I haven't really made up mind on that, I'm caught between 2 chairs. There are many really good moments, but often they drown in too messy elements and too crowded compositions. There are good pop-like easy listening parts with a jazz feel, death metal parts, blast beats, hip hop and r 'n b stuff as well, and often mixed up in one track. Though if you are open-minded do check it out, you might be caught by Carnival In Coal. And by the way, the overly sarcastic 'Right Click… Save As…' is hilarious, you might have figured out it's about illegal downloading. A strange band with many weird ideas and elements, which works once on a while.

Rating: 7/10

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