The More You Suffer

Thanks to the grainy photography, I can't honestly say I have any clue what is happening on the cover of Carnal Forge's fourth full-length album. Someone in a chic suit is drowning or molesting someone else against an oddly shaped bathtub? That's my best guess, but yet again we've got 'artwork' and disposable logo that just don't scream of much effort in engaging the beholder/listener when there are so many more attractive options, even in the psycho/gore metal niche. Anyway, once you ponder over the lyrics it becomes a little more evident that the Swedes focus heavily on violent outbursts, serial killers, and other subjects that seem edgy enough to match the hi octane death/thrashing, as they had since the debut; but it all feels a little redundant and frankly generic in how they structure and package the message. Musically, I felt like the band had slowly made some strides over the course of the first three records, but with The More You Suffer, certain production choices and all-too-familiar songwriting grind that progress to a halt, and it even seems a step backward.

It might just be my ears, but after listening through the CD itself I listened to it mp3-digitally and on/YouTube to confirm that the mix here just lacks the punch of its predecessor Please...die! Which isn't to say it's a horrible sounding disc, just that it feels like the mids are slightly higher in frequency, and thus everything has perhaps too much of a balance in which I lose the bass earlier against the guitars. Structurally, there's not a broad gap between this and the older material, being largely hyperactive Haunted hustle-thrash which seems like it's racing for a subway train that it's just about to miss whenever the band picks up the pace. The songs are in general longer here, mostly falling between 3-4 minutes which is on average one minute beyond what they're used to, and this extra space doesn't necessarily go to waste. Each tune is enabled with additional versatility, like the moody, overcast cleaner guitars in the bridge of "H.B.F. Suicide", and there are far more melodies and harmonies here than even Please...die! In other words, The More You Suffer seems to be tiptoeing more directly into the Swedish melodeath territory, and while the acuity of the guitars proves they aren't at all bad at this, it becomes even more generic...many of the specific riffs sounds like they're just lifted from the creative stock of At the Gates, Soilwork and Darkane but lacking the character and atmosphere that those acts brought to the field on their career-defining works.

The drums are presumably played with the same effort as past albums, and yet I didn't quite feel that their mix was as powerful: the snare seems to pop a lot more while deeper tones blend a little too much into the guitars. Jonas Kjellgren doesn't sound any less angry than on the previous material, and yet I feel like he's reached the bottom of his bag of tricks here, and a lot of the phrasing in lines seems like a mere paraphrase from Firedemon or Please...die! A handful of the songs are engaging for a few spins, particularly those on the latter half of the album ("Into Oblivion", "My Bloody Rampage") which have some tremolo picking passages that help sustain the 'death/thrash' tag, but even there you'll find some pretty boring chord grooves or methodical Swede-o-thrashing 101 which closely mirrors the more mediocre selections of Terror 2000. In the end, while it's as clean as a new razor straight off the assembly line, the production here doesn't captivate me or pummel me in the stomach like the album before it. The songs, while fiery and energetic on the whole, just seem unassuming and bland beyond their pacing. Not awful, but if The More You Suffer never existed, no one would be at a loss...not Century Media, not Carnal Forge, and certainly not you or I.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

What the fuck is this!!!!! Everyone was telling me to get into Carnal Forge because they are the linchpin in the new Thrash movement. WELL THEY WERE WRONG!!!!! i bought this cd for like 9 bucks the first day it came out. I ploped it into my cd player and was pretty happy with the first song " H.B.F Suicide" H.B.F means hell, blood, fire and i'm not sure why they abbreviated it but its still a cool song with some good vocals and terrific guitar playing by Jari Kuusisto and Petri Kuusisto. the chours is very catchy and melodic and it very good. the next song "deathblow" starts off heavy and slows down near the end. As i continued to listen to this cd i felt as if the same couple guitar riffs were played over and over again, with entirley to much melody for me. The vocalist, Jonas Kjellgren, uses vocal effects way to much. I would not even put this band in the same catagory as bands such as Slayer, i mean this is Gothenberg all the way. there is a few good riffs on this cd, poorly done drumming, an unnoticed bass, and an extremly bad vocalist. all in all a couple catchy songs but essentially the same couple songs over and over for 45 minutes. I have yet to hear any of there early material but "the more you suffer" will not give me or anyone else the motivation to hear anything else from this band.

Best Tracks: H.B.F suicide and deathblow

Those Swedes are starting to really piss me off... first they bring us the Gothensuck sound, and now there's this offshoot - a few more thrash riffs, and a lot more aggression, but in general just as utterly BORING. (Oh yeah, there's Opeth too, which deserves its own circle of Hell, but we're not gonna talk about them here.) The main band of that genre is The Haunted, and then there are the slightly more thrashy versions like Carnal Forge.

Yes, there's the occasional thrash riff in here... however it's of the boring new kind (see also Dew Scented and the like) and in general this is a very uninteresting album. There's also just a bit too much crappy Swedish melodicism to be found here (see that brilliant "thrash break" in the first song around 1.40).

We start with "Heil Butt Fuck" or whatever the first song is called - it's okay, even though it's got that really shitty interlude. The second song is a bit more solid overall, but the thing is, by then the formula is starting to wear thin. Ironically, when they play fast they are okay but boring - when they slow down, they turn really terrible. The chorus of "Deathblow" for example. There's that nice groove riff to be found in that song, which makes it halfway decent. Though of course it's been used by everyone and their grandmother, including Metallica. (One) If late-era (past Ride the Lightning) Metallica uses it, you know it's a tired riff. Ripped and Torn takes a while to get going before it turns into the usual fast stuff.

Destroy Life - now there's an okay intro riff. Then, it just turns into the Same old Shit. This makes Reign in Blood sound like the epitome of variety here. They throw in a trebly death-metal passage before a killer thrash riff around 1.05. So they do know how to thrash, but they just don't do so nearly enough. A dumb interlude follows... am I the only one that hates that style of vocal distortion? Anthrax seems to have fallen into deep butt-love with the idea, and Slayer's latest also has this tendency. Yeah, that's another thing that this album sounds like: the latest Slayer. Though it is better than that pile of shit - but the vocal ideas tend to be kinda similar when Carnal Forge turns on that damn distorter.

Cursed is a silly groove number - a bit slower than the previous stuff, and really would not be out of place on the first Machine Head album. A thrash riff in the middle carries that part of the song but the rest of it is pretty bad. Dying Killing Breed Machine tries to get all melodic on us in the beginning, sounding like a Gothenburg album before it goes into the usual Carnal Forge sound. Deep Rivers of Blood is a total Gothenburg-sounding song. Didn't I hear something like this on the first Soilwork album, only with better leads that time? Breaking Boundaries has two decent riffs and a lot of shitty passages. The vocals are just in general mixed in far too loud in the song, because otherwise the flow of this song would be quite enjoyable, especially in the middle portion.

Into Oblivion - very generic shriek to start things off, and also a very generic riff. The riff at 0.15 is far better but too bad it lasts only 6 seconds before the song descends into mediocrity. It goes into the forced post-thrash Machine Head/Chaos AD sound around 1.15 and then into a more traditional Swedish Haunted-style sound later. Generally worthless. My Bloody Rampage (as opposed to that of my next-door neighbour) is pretty much representative of the entire album, with the one cool thrash riff coming around 1.05 in and then another one at 1.57 - occasionally they really manage to nail what they are doing, but then there's the shitty passage around 2.10 that totally ruins everything. What happened to the riffs?

Baptised in Fire - well then, that settles it, the only thing that someone hasn't been baptised in is vomit. There's been fire and ice (Bathory), blood (Helstar), semen (Regurgitated Cow Fetus), shit (some band I can't remember right now) and now just plain fire. Oh yeah, the song is generally very boring, but there's the obligatory one cool riff at 0.57. The middle section is utter shit, though. "I was born in Hell..." Let Me Bleed is completely like everything we've heard before, so there's no need to discuss is separately.

So what we have here is a very average album that wears very thin by the end, especially as the decent thrash riffs become fewer and fewer in frequency, and the dumb Gothenhaunt shit ideas rise to the forefront. Vocals too accentuated, occasionally too distorted, and the riffs just are mediocre at best. If you like this new Swedish sound, this is right up your alley.