The Wacken Carnage

Popular bands = lame. I get it. Bands made up of dudes from various popular bands = DOUBLE LAME. Loud and clear! Just wanted to get that out of the way for all the closet trolls up front, and then to deliver a nice swift FUCK OFF! If you've written off Bloodbath for this reason, it's not my loss, because there's nothing more or less here than a group of skilled musicians & friends having a great time paying tribute to a style of music they love, that gave most of them their start, and writing some damn catchy tunes in the process. 2008 was a particularly great year to follow the Swedish 'supergroup', not only for two new studio recordings (The Fathomless Mastery and Unblessing the Purity), but also because they would unleash a pretty goddamn great sounding live album. In fact, I would not be exaggerating to claim this was one of the better produced and paced live sets I've heard on CD from any band in the genre...

There is the caveat that this was a little late in coming, recorded back in 2005 at Germany's metal Mecca and then mixed in 2008 for release, but it sounds just as effective in 2014. There are also the limitations most of these recordings present, in that you'll have to use your imagination to picture the band on stage, but you do also get a DVD included for when you're not listening to it in the car...thus The Wacken Carnage is already one step ahead of many of its peer releases. In fact, I doubt I'll ever purchase another live album which offers anything less than this very format, even if if sounds as fantastic as this one does. Now, this was the 'classic' Bloodbath lineup, with Mikael of Opeth handling the vocals, Blakkheim/Swanö on guitars, Renkse on bass and Axenrot on drums, so if you're not into Åkerfeldt's growling in comparison to his later replacement on Nightmares Made Flesh, I can understand some hesitation on hearing that material, but trust me when I say that the guy sounds fine and it makes little difference. What really took me by surprise was just how pungent and fuzzed out the guitars here sounded, just as much as either of the earlier studio albums and they frankly sound as clean as a studio overdub...to the credit of the band's stage techs and the mixers and engineers who worked on the final product. I suppose it's so thick and consistent that there lacks some dynamic range through the performance, but it's not necessarily a band I approach with that in mind...

Granted, the band had a limited amount of material to work with at the time, only the debut EP and two full-lengths under their belt, but they compact it all down to a 13-track extravaganza with nary a stinker in the lot. Even the Breeding Death material, which I consider their weakest, gets a nice injection of life, and it's represented in its entirety, with the rest of the set leaning more heavenly on Nightmares than Resurrection Through Carnage (sensible, that was their 'current' album for the performance), six choices from the former and three from the latter. There are some pretty glaring omissions, like "Year of the Cadaver Race" which has some of the best riffing they've ever written hands down, but I'm not complaining about what they muster up, and tunes like "Outnumbering the Day" and "Eaten" are practically worth the price alone. The drums pop right atcha, the guitars richer than hi-fiber oatmeal, the vocals pretty nihilistic and blunt though I can't say much for Mikael's on-stage personality (even when I've seen him with Opeth). Jonas doesn't develop much of a presence through the recording, but then even on their studio albums the bass is subordinate to the rhythm guitars so it wasn't like I expected much more. The tremolo melodies also don't stand out very much, often as gloomy as the chords, but these are really the only production issues and it's still vastly superior to most live sets I've seen or even heard from festivals...

The DVD is a little better yet, because you can see the guys traipsing around in their blood-spattered whites, but it's more impressive just that they're actually playing as tightly as the audio translates. I'm just used to hearing more flaws in a performance, but then it's probably not the most difficult material to reproduce for any of the involved parties. If you DO like randomness, jamming, inconsistencies, then admittedly this might not be for you, and if you hate Bloodbath to begin with then it goes without saying, but I have no regrets about any of the purchases of their stuff I made that year, and if you're down for some punchy throwbacks to the sounds of Dismember, Entombed and Unleashed in the early to mid 90s which don't sound as if they were recorded in a latrine, then these guys come immediately to mind. Nothing new or original, but they can write a goddamn riff that I'll remember 5 years later. Hell, 10 years. The Wacken Carnage isn't a purchase I'd make over any of the three studio full-lengths, but unlike some live recordings, I did feel that you got what you actually paid for.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

I was a little skeptical when I first came upon The Wacken Carnage. In my experience, most live shows from any open-air festival, especially Wacken, tend to have terrible recording quality; The bass is lost in the mix, the drums sound muddy, and the guitars screech. So, when I first picked up the Wacken Carnage, I was of course worried that this would just be another death metal album that would end up gathering dust in my closet.

Bloodbath didn't just prove me wrong, they took my doubts and shredded them into a thousand pieces. The Wacken Carnage is, in my humble opinion, the best live release of any death metal band EVER. First of all, the overall quality and balance of the sound is superb. Axenrot's drums absolutely rip, Dan and Blakkheim's guitars sound especially evil, Jonas' bass ties into the guitar sound perfectly and bring's Martin's drums to life, and Mikael (of course) takes absolutely no prisoners with his vocal delivery, even on songs he wasn't in the band to write! These Super-Swedes come together in a way I only have ever heard from Death, and that's saying quite a bit. There's an all-for-one sound during the entire set that makes every song feel powerful and deadly. Bloodbath's live attack is a fine-tipped spear, forged to be diamond hard and absolutely unforgiving. Every member gave 100% of their energy to this performance, and it shows.

The little touches, however, are what set this album apart from any other live death metal release. Every song has moments not present on their studio counterparts, and finding these little bits of fan service is absolutely fantastic. The outro on "Furnace Funeral", the super-speed delivery of "Ways to the Grave", and the brutal, slower picking on "Eaten" are all elements that exemplify these touches. Without these small touches, this still would have been a monumental release. But with these little elements added in, The Wacken Carnage becomes all the more powerful and special.

I also have to give huge props to the setlist. If you ever want to know what the definition of "fan service" is, look at this live set. The inclusion of the entire "Breeding Death" EP, along with the brutal numbers from "Resurrection Through Carnage" and "Nightmares Made Flesh" is perfect. If you ever doubt the power of these songs, watch the DVD of the show. I have never seen more people headbanging together than on "Like Fire".

This release is a true testament to death metal's never-ending prowess. Long live Bloodbath, and long live the fucking Wacken Carnage.

Bloodbath for those of you living under a rock is a Swedish death metal group in the truest sense of the word. With members including musicians from Opeth, Katatonia and Witchery not to mention the one time involvement of Euro scene stalwarts Dan Swano and Peter Tagtren, expectations have always been a bit unfairly high for Bloodbath. At the end of the day, it’s a bunch of musicians coming together to play brutal old school death metal and that’s pretty much what they did through the course of two albums and an EP.

2008 has already seen the band release an EP Unblessing the Purity and now comes the band’s first live recording from their first ever live show recorded from their 2005 appearance at Wacken. The sound is perfect for a live album, not too polished yet clear enough for the discerning listener. Mikael Åkerfeldt is a terrific frontman and his growling is right up there with the best in the business. The guitars of Anders "Blakkheim" Nyström and Per Eriksson are spot on through the show and sound terrific right through the album.


What really works for me is the fact that Bloodbath was never a band that I was a huge fan of but the versions on this live album are so unapologetically raw and old school death metal that you can’t help but enjoy it. It also helps that the twelve songs here include the best that this band has written. There is no filler material and no letting up the intensity as song after songs comes at the listener like a jackhammer.

Åkerfeldt sounds like a masterful frontman and his interaction with the crowd is nicely captured on this album while his growls are very impressive. The band sound heavy as fuck and pretty damn brutal while wearing their old school hearts on their sleeves. The set list is pretty kickass and when Soul Evisceration, Ways to the Grave and Ominous Bloodvomit come at you one after the other there is no real reason to complain.

This is a fun and at times truly great live album from what sounds like one memorable show.

Originally written for http://www.kvltsite.com

Bloodbath's cool, but I've totally burnt myself out on them in the past 7 or 8 years. I was really excited about this when they announced it in 2004, I kinda forgot about it until the new EP came out. (sucks by the way). Anyways, after waiting almost 3 weeks for Amazon to get it back in stock and to ship my preorder, I received the package. The album came in a very nice and sturdy Super jewel box and had awesome artwork. After popping it into my dvd player, I was pleasantly surprised by the tracklisting. All awesome songs; the entire Breeding Death EP was included. Another thing that was awesome was the cut and bloodied shirts and faces.

So, anyways. The music is good. Really good. Everyone's proficient and clear, except for old Dan Swano. (I never realized he looked like a caveman) Swano plays well, but often his guitar his hard to distinguish from Ander's. Also his backing vocals are just that, in the background, not clear at all. Aside from Swano's being in the background, he preformed well. The biggest problem was Mr. Akerfeldt. He's an awesome singer, one of the most distinguishable and easy-to-understand death metal vocalists. Don't get me wrong, he growled well, he just messed up several lines, and made some really, really lame jokes.

The other disappointment, and perhaps the biggest for me was fact they DIDN'T play the cheesy keyboard solo in furnace funeral, but I understand they probably didn't want Per Wiberg all bloodied up, but still. Swano's version of it on the guitar really blew. I also wish there was some type of supplemental videos or something in there, but for ~13 bucks, that's good enough for me.

So, anyways, you should probably pick this up if you like Bloodbath, if not don't. You might get a few laughs out of Akerfeldt, but I know me and my friends just made fun of him.

9 years after their formation, Bloodbath finally releases their first (and maybe last) live-record. That’s quite late when you look at bands like Iron Maiden, releasing live-album every 2 weeks (exaggeration).There are 2 sorts of live-records: the ones with very shitty quality where you can’t make a difference between singer and guitar, and there are those where you think that you are standing in the first row, seeing your favorite band live.
“Wacken Carnage” can be found definitely in the second category because this is the perfect possibility for every Bloodbath fan to hear their favorite band a second time, live with Åkerfeldt.

Let me start with the sound in general: the drums are really present, the double-bass sounds like a down-toned heavy machine gun and the snare sounds like a snare has to sound, you know that special muted metallic sound. Great!
The same for the guitars: the first moment you hear those guitars, it’s hard to say if it’s live or not. The guys who have mixed the sound for this record have done a really great job and I don’t find any point to criticize. Yeah all right, there are for sure some ways to make the guitars sound even more evil and brutal, but hey this is a live record, and when a live record sounds better than the usual albums, then go and record you next LP on a festival.

Which bothers me sometimes at live-shows on CD is the fact that you can’t hear the crowd, which is pretty important for the atmosphere. A good example for this is the “Live in Tokyo” by In Flames where you almost can’t hear Tokyo. But at “Wacken Carnage” you can hear that there are a lot more than 43 people in the crowd.
Highlight of the gig is for me definitely Mikael Åkerfeldt. Holy shit, this guy proves that he has one of the best growl-voice ever! There are no weak moments in his chant and he masters also the faster songs. Needless to say that Åkerfeldt, like always, animates the crowd with his very dry sense of humor, another reason to buy this record.

Great sound, a well mixed track list with 52 minutes of pure death metal and dry humor by one of the best death metal singers on this planet. Do you need any more reasons to move your ass into the next CD-Shop to buy “Wacken Carnage”? No!

Written for: www.mfgreview.wordpress.com