CEPHALIC CARNAGE
MISLEAD BY CERTAINTY
RELAPSE RECORDS
The blind swordsman steps into the forest with chainsaws tied to his hands and begins chopping at will as thousands of bullets rip through everything around him while at the same time a tornado touches down filled with man eating piranhas and angry gorillas.
Try to imagine that state of insanity crammed into your ears and you begin to realize what it is to listen to a Cephalic Carnage record. This is a band that has taken extreme noise and grindcore to a new level, a fact that stays constant on their new album Misled By Certainty. This is grindcore and noise married on such a level that few could match the power much less the technical excellence.
Misled By Certainty is a record that works on two separate levels merging to form a monolith of sound and fury. At first there is the technical prowess by which Cephalic Carnage live and breathe. Everybody in this band is top of their game when it comes to actually being able to master their instrument. At the same time the band puts tremendous feeling into what they do. So often when the ability is this high the emotion gets lost or the emotion is there but the music fails to live up to it and the entire thing sounds like panic gunfire in a crowded theater.
On the flipside Cephalic Carnage fire controlled bursts in all directions, which is so much more effective. Misled By Certainty feels like general chaos but if you really listen to what’s going on there’s structure, timing and real songwriting on the album. Cephalic Carnage even manage to work dynamics into what they do, not just musical highs and lows but emotional downturns and upswings that allow you to identify with the music, feel something for it and experience it your own way.
With grindcore and other music like this the idea of connecting to a person gets lost in the need to create an all out assault. Either that or you get a flat performance where the guitars are allowed to shine while everybody else just backs them up. Cephalic Carnage allows each instrument to add a verse to the overall song.
At times it can sound like the drums, bass and guitars are all playing a different song while the vocals call out from some other place entirely. Just when that feeling becomes too much the band pulls it back together and shows you just how tight they really are.
As anybody involved with true extreme music can tell you, there’s little to talk about in the way of specific songs. Cephalic Carnage and the few bands like them create musical movements via carnage, think of it as classical music for the end of the world.
The only drawback I could find to Mislead By Certainty was a lack of real bottom end. Don’t get me wrong the album is heavy, but that bowel moving thickness is lacking. Outside of some nitpicking Cephalic Carnage prove with Misled By Certainty why they are one of the few bands left that can use chaos with style and artistic flare.
CRAVEONLINE RATING 8 OUT OF 10
BLACK SLEEP OF KALI
OUR SLOW DECAY
SMALL STONE RECORDS
Black Sleep Of Kali (aka BSOK) also brings a sense of chaos to what they do but instead of ramping up the destruction they lay it into a solid groove. Part High On Fire, part Slayer then adding their own dash of this and that Black Sleep Of Kali are another band pushing what groove or stonerrock is into the next wave.
The days of slow stoned grooves are being replaced with a sense of anger and urgency, as if all the stoners found out their stash was gone and got pissed. BSOK’s new album Our Slow Decay is testament to what can be done with groove Sabbath inspired rock when the right people are involved.
Often when a band decides to follow a Sabbath track they abandon all other forms of metal in order to try and write Masters Of Reality II or their own version of a Sabbath record. BSOK are fully aware they have a Sabbath tint so to offset that they bring in elements of thrash metal. It all follows the same musical track but the push/pull of the two styles gives Our Slow Decay a three dimensional depth that a lot of bands in this genre lose. BSOK also knows how to write really cool riffs and then beat the shit out of them.
Much like High On Fire the true secret of BSOK is their drummer who elevates each song into something completely different. A song like “The Crow And The Snake” revolves around a riff that it would be so easy to just lay into with a groove beat. Instead the drums are everywhere, playing weird patterns, off times and fills that sound like they should fail but don’t. It’s not that the drummer (referred to as Gordon) over plays, it’s more that he’s decided to be another guitar in drum form. The grooves are there but so are the notes and solos and all that which is usually left for only the six string.
Our Slow Decay is a record largely shaped by the bands ability to manipulate the low end. This isn’t just bass heavy low end BSOK stake out a territory where everyone adds an ingredient to the low-end stew. The guitars aren’t just heavy they are harshly fuzzed out and scratchy. The bass has it’s own gritty sound to it that calls up images of the strings being so loose the swing off the body. Even the drums seem tuned particularly low and thick. Using that mixture Our Slow Decay has the feeling of a drunken blackout, or at least that fuzzy head you get during the next day’s hang over.
The one Achilles Heel to the album is that the songs tend to go on a little longer than they should. Most bands, even the masters in this genre, tend to get carried away with the "jamming” element when in reality they should get in and get out. A few of the songs here could have been shaved by a minute or more but how do you fault a band for going too long when their whole genre is guilty of it? Black Sleep Of Kali is a great band who combine heavy groove rock with elements of thrash and that kicks ass. If they could rein in the songs a bit they’d be almost unstoppable.
CRAVEONLINE RATING 8 OUT OF 10
