Now with only a week away until Christmas we come to a much darker side of the festive season, so far have had the greats of :
- Jakub Zyteki – Wishful Lotus Proof
- Agent Fresco – Destrier
- Cain’s Offering – Stormcrow
- Tesseract – Polaris
- Unleash The Archers – Time Stands Still
- Lamb of God – VII : Sturm Und Drang
- Lindemann – Skills and Pills
- The Black Dahlia Murder – Abysmal
- Amorphis – Under The Red Cloud
- Steven Wilson – Hand Cannot Erase
- Saurom – Self Titled
- Napalm Death – Apex Predator
- Blind Guardian – Beyond The Red Mirror
- Between The Buried and Me – Coma Ecliptic
- Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody – Prometheus
- Cattle Decapitation – The Anthropocene Extinction
- Symphony X – Underworld
Carach Angren – This Is No Fairytale
One of the staples of an Album of the Year has to be a sense of the unique. Combining truly horrific tales with some of the best Symphonic Black Metal out there Carach Angren are simply in a league of their own. With their modus operandi being the classic storytelling in a delightfully twisted style. From the opening of “Once Upon A Time” we’re introduced to two young children who suffer the most cruel of fates. Taking the original story of Hansel and Gretel and to use Ardek’s words “totally fucking it up” the band have created a truly damaged piece of music.
As each song progresses further Carach Angren digs it’s truly remorseless hooks in. The genius behind the band lies in the sense of story telling. Often convoluted, the concept album can sometimes be hard to interpret. Here the band have laid out the story, using theatrical pronunciation and understandable ghoulish howls our lyrical trickster lacerates the listener, highlighting specific key moments in the story with fantastically placed symphonic elements. Depending on a sense of pace the tracks like the harrowing “Two Flies Flew Into A Black Sugar Cobweb” illustrates the children’s futile attempts to escape a house bred on violence causing them to go out of the frying pan and into the fire. Therein lies the (black) magick of the album, regardless of surroundings, mood of or company This Is No Fairytale breaks down the door pursuing the listener until it’s truly horrific finale. Yet simultaneously feeding off that most human of qualities, curiosity. Leading the audience to carry on the morbid tale.
Fans bred on Horrror will adore this most pustulous of releases. Unique in their idea, unequalled in it’s delivery Carach Angren worm their way into your psyche and will not let go. I won’t spoil the story but let’s just say our protagonist’s eat their words… A truly brilliant, unique theatrical tour de force never relenting whilst also retaining a sense of limitless playback making for “Killed and Served By The Devil” or “When Crows Tick On Windows” to have become a classic. Encapsulating the theatrics of cinema, the symphony of music and one of the most terrifying stories to be told in music. If you love the macabre it truly is essential.
