### Carach Angren: Where the corpses sink forever

#### 19/06/12 || Cobal

There were two reasons why I was particularly interested in reviewing this one: first, even though it’s complicated to explain, I’ve always found a very special kind of beauty, elegance and majesty in black metal. In fact, those hidden aspects are the main factor why I like black metal at all. In that department, I believe Carach Angren from Netherlands to be an illustrative example, and I realized that by listening to their previous record, “Death came through a phantom ship”, which is a killer album. That’s my second reason, by the way. Having listened to that jewel is enough motives to really feel like checking out whatever these fucks release.

The problem of having released such a monster two years ago is that “Where the corpses sink forever” truly had a hard time being compared to it. To be honest, at first I wasn’t able to judge it objectively, and I was like this from throwing it aside. Good thing I didn’t; once one manages to understand it as a separate piece of work, then it’s finally possible to appreciate it clearly.

Something brought up almost instantly is songwriting as the strongest ace up CA’s sleeve. Going over the songs makes great trip through mysterious passages that go from the darkest and raw form of black metal, to the bizarre, rather odd interludes that prevent tracks from being predictable. Again, the final sound here, or at least the one that remained most audible after the mixing and producing, is quite cinematographic, probably due to the important role orchestral keyboards have and hold through the whole record.

Another distinctive characteristic is vocals. Instead of “singing a song”, Seregon goes for a sort of recitation in most songs. He declaims the lyrics in some cases, and in some others recites the script of a theatrical monologue. Although interesting and consistent and hell, vocals work against catchiness. Such a damned shame!

In general, I found much of an interesting record here, quite artistic shit, that’s for sure. Yet maybe it’s too pretentious and elaborate. At the end of the day, all extreme sub-genres are now looking for different elements and sounds that can strengthen their work, as if that were possible, and at the juncture experiments will keep failing and succeeding. Anyways, if their last work was a straight fucken 10, this is an

- Information
- Released: 2012
- Label: Season of mist
- Website: www.carach-angren.com
- Band
- Seregor: vocals, guitars
- Ardek: keyboards, piano, orchestration, backing vocals
- Namtar: drums, percussion

- Tracklist
- 01. An Ominous Recording
- 02. Lingering In an Imprint Haunting
- 03. Bitte Tötet Mich
- 04. The Funerary Dirge of a Violinist
- 05. Sir John
- 06. Spectral Infantry Battalions
- 07. General Nightmare
- 08. Little Hector What Have You Done?
- 09. These Fields are Lurking (Seven Pairs of Demon Eyes)