| CD REVIEW Carneia |
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Band : Carneia From the small Belgian town of Lendelede (which lays somewhere in between Kortrijk and Roeselare) comes Carneia, rising from the ashes of Heavy Rock act Kyunin in 2007! With new influences taken from the likes of Tool, Meshuggah, and Amenra, the quintet of Jan Coudron (vocals), Thomas Combes (guitar), Jille Vandromme (guitar), Kristof van Iseeghem (bass) and Terence Gevaert (drums) started experimenting by combining thoughtful riffs with melodies one can hum into a variety of rhythmic styles through instrumental improvisation, which they first presented to people with their live debut on June 16 in local youth centre ‘t Skalul (even if the “new” outfit still hadn’t a new name yet), and in October they put up some rehearsal recordings on their Kyunin page at MySpace. Having muddled about for almost a year in their search for the new sound, the band decided to start the recordings of a demo in December of the same year in the band’s own ¼“ Jack Studio (where they’d also recorded the Kyunin demo) but were delayed in that when Vandrommee had to recover from an unfortunate accident. What with the delays and everything, guitarist Thomas started mixing the album (he also mastered the thing afterwards) at the start of June, and thanks to an already existing agreement with Offerandum (who’d apparently already contacted the boys before they’d gotten on stage a first time with their new bandname) we can now enjoy this wonderful 7-track (8 if you count in the weird experimental hidden instrumental), 57 ½ minute-long (almost 3 minutes less if you cut out the silence parts before and after said bonus track) album. Musically, the band’s music is best described as an “…eclectic sound that incorporates several musical genres going from Alternative Rock to Post-Hardcore and back to Progressive Metal…” which is definitively “…dark, heavy and sometimes melancholic…”…and far from following either one of their big influences, the boys have succeeded in making something unique to their music! At times slowly building up from a balladesque beginning to a dramatic and bombastic ending (the 11-minute “The Leaf” for reference), the pace of the songs is on the calm side overall (hence the melancholy inducing effect) due to its almost Sludgy (say Doomy) heavieness, but you dó get some more exited moments as well (with a culmination during “Lat Down”!). There can be no doubt that singer Jan Coudron is the strongest link in the chain that is Carneia. His voice is simply gréat, and any past or present comparisons (by the band themselves to start with) to Channel Zero’s Franky DSVD are somehow justified! One Lore Molly is the only guest on the album, bringing a couple of lines, sung in the Spannish language, during album closing “The Black Lodge”…well, she isn’t the only guest…not really! For one “SQWIF” has taken care of the weird sounds (piano manipulation, including percussion) in the 9-minute experimental bonus track! For your aural introduction to the band, surf to myspace.com/carneia (where the guys posted mp3-files for “Lay Down” and “Fuck You Judas”. If you’re living in the Belgian provinces near the sea, you may be lucky enough to find the band play somewhere near you during January or February (check out the dates on their MySpace page)! Nice of the label to send us the CD as promo, as after all it hàs already been on the streets for 3 months! Anyway, it’s a good thing we got it before the turning of the year, because otherwize I wouldn’t have been able to insert White Coma Light into that “Best Albums Of 2008”-list of mine! 98/100 Tony. |