Type: Full-length
Label: Trinity Productions
Country: Sweden
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
-written by Noktorn of metal-archives.com
I SHOULD HAVE JUMPED SHIP FOR DUBSTEP
It eludes me just how so many mediocre melodeath CDs have managed to worm their way into my collection; I guess they're just that dime-a-dozen that a trip to Ebay can't help but net you a couple hundred at a time. Carnal Grief's two albums are just such releases; I can't recall exactly how I got them, but I assume in a lot on Ebay, because I can't imagine buying this stuff intentionally. I would say that "Out of Crippled Seeds" is the very definition of the pointless and mediocre schlock that the melodeath seen so eagerly disgorges by the gross into the ears of an apathetic public, but it manages to actively annoy me to a greater degree than most melodeath, so I can't even give it that credit. It's not that "Out of Crippled Seeds" is awful so much as lazy, uninteresting and excruciatingly cheesy- in some ways, I would prefer it actually be terrible. At least I'd feel something while it's playing.
Frankly, calling this album melodeath feels a bit generous, considering the rock influence that bleeds all over the music like an unfortunate cooking accident. While there are moments of "aggression" (if you can really call it that,) Carnal Grief's music on this record is surprisingly restrained in the tempo-and-clutter department. There's a great number of passages with slowed down, rock-based drumming, some rather conventional, alt-like chord progressions, and a generally mellow sense of delivery. I would liken it to latter-era In Flames were it not for two speed bumps: one, because I haven't actually heard latter-era In Flames, and two, because I assume that whatever In Flames did on those benighted albums they did with more professionalism that Carnal Grief. While the instrumental performances are adequate in every measurable respect (save songwriting,) the songwriting feels silly and amateurish, with a melodic sense and guitar technique that reminds me of Dark Tranquillity circa "The Gallery" merged with the silliest and most forgettable of high school melodic metalcore bands.
While we're on those guitars, actually: I wasn't exactly waiting the reemergence of the style of guitarwork on "The Gallery" with baited breath, but at least its usage in contrast to the bog-standard melodeath style is obnoxious in a way that differs from the norm. When not laboriously poking around rock tempos or cribbing ideas from traditional metal like every other melodeath band in the past, Carnal Grief likes to employ a style of guitarwork most obviously seen on "The Gallery": namely, seemingly endless arrays of high-pitched, harmonized leads functioning in the place of riffs. For anyone familiar with my opinion of "The Gallery," you can probably guess that my feeling toward this style is less than complimentary. I find it unbelievably obnoxious, especially considering that the other options are equally drab affairs. A special place in hell is reserved for the solos, I think, which seem to pop up thirty times per track: combining the most stock sense of melodeath melodic phrasing imaginable with the delivery of the most cucumber-pantsed cock rock, the conclusion of such a nefarious mixture is incredibly generic, hopelessly uninvolving melody delivered with the most misplaced sense of confidence imaginable- they're all FACE-MELTING BENDS and CRAZY TAPPING. They make me want to reach for a bottle or a gun, whichever is closer.
If it weren't for the peculiar guitar style which seems so dead-set on offending my sense of taste, I'd find this album entirely unworthy of comment. Every other aspect of it is wholly generic, the concept of "melodic death metal" reduced to its lowest common denominator and then simplified from there. Prosaic vocals, typical riffs, unremarkable drumming- if art was rated on its approximation of utterly faceless anonymity, "Out of Crippled Seeds" would probably be a lost work by Rembrandt. But it's not, so even the cover sucks.
30/100
Buy here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000W074J8?ie=UTF8&tag=encymetatheme-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000W074J8
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