Sideral Torment

- I have downloaded the entire album off the band’s official website -

This French trio (at the time they were a trio) sure know how to use the lead guitar and solo whenever they get the chance to show off the lead guitar but also know when the vocalist comes in to growl his lines. No, you can’t make out what he’s growling about either and there’s no sign of the infamous blastbeat anywhere on this album, oh no, this is a death metal shred-fest with solos and riffs popping out of the bands ears.

“Sacre Bleu!”

Influenced by the likes of Death, Judas Priest and Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Carcariass play technical Death Metal with plenty of relish as the guitarist masturbates to the levels of kitten massacre – when the vocalist isn’t looking anyway. You can imagine the vocalist having to rewrite songs because of the guitarist’s inability to stop having a wank.

“Damnit! Do you realise I have to rewrite that last song because of you? Asshole!”

Still, I’m sure he’s happy to have someone who can produce some good solos and play guitar like his life depended on it as opposed to someone who can’t do so. As a consequence of the guitarist going postal on his strings, the songs themselves are mostly longer than four minutes, with the first two longer than eight minutes; which are “Distributed Thinking” and “Indians Eviction”. In fact, the average length is somewhere at six minutes and thirty seconds (give or take a few seconds).

Of course, the songs themselves, although nicely put together, can be over-long and samey in execution, which is a shame really as Carcariass are a talented band who let their riffs do the talking and not the drumming. For riff addicts who don’t want any artificial nonsense in their riff salad, Gothenburg not included.