The Duke's European Metal Odyssey - Page 2

Still, as related up yonder a few sentences back, it really is value-for-money if you like this kinda shit. And at least it'll keep you off the streets for three hours. Good work, Acid Drinkers.

Less embarrassing, if not really any less dated, are the folks in Green Carnation, who peddle progressive metal which, whilst occasionally lacking in the lyrical department, is, for the most part, highly emotive, truly memorable.

The sad thing, as far as The Duke is concerned, is that the concert what serves as the centerpiece in Alive And Well… In Krakow, seems to take place before an audience who couldn't really give a toss. It's a shame, seeing as how those Acid Drinker morons had all manner of moshing and stage-diving and stage-invading and so on, and these much more deserving folks get barely a raised fist.

The concert is entertaining and all, but personally, I found my appreciation of the material to be upped considerably upon listening to the bonus acoustic recordings what hide amongst the special features. There's a bunch a tracks what appear in more metallic form in the live show, alongside straight-faced renditions of Stay On These Roads by A-Ha and Wicked Game by Chris Issack. Of their own material, Crushed To Dust and The Boy In The Attic turn out to be rather tender, highly melodic folkie type affairs.

There's also a really good, quite lengthy interview with the band, and a couple performances taken from bootleg videos of other shows. If you're a fan, this is well worth the money, is what The Duke would imagine, and if progressive, pretty intelligent metal is your bag, then you could do worse than give these fellas a minute of your time.

Good work, Green Carnation.

Best of the bunch though, arrives in the form of Destroy Live!, a concert DVD featuring none other than Carnal Forge.

If maybe you were about to ask something along the lines of who in the sweet majestic fuck are Carnal Forge, then allow The Duke to explain.

Carnal Forge are none other than the Swedish psychopaths behind such albums as The More You Suffer and Please…Die! Since releasing their debut album, Who's Gonna Burn way back in the midst's of 1998, they've gone on to tour with the likes of Testament, Immortal, and even Rob Halford, the fella what used to sing about Breakin' The Law, Breakin' The Law and Living After Midnight as frontman for, I believe, The Iron Maidens.

Musically, Carnal Forge are the most impressive of the unwholesome trio discussed herein. A sort of grindcore, Death Metal affair, with, it has to be said, some stunningly inventive song titles. Too Much Hell Ain't Enough For Me, Welcome To Your Funeral and, the piece de resistance, Butchered, Slaughtered, Strangled, Hanged. To be fair, though, I think the latter one would probably make more sense in reverse.

Article Author: Duke De Mondo

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