The For Carnation
The For Carnation

THE REVIEW

Plin - A slow descent into hell through dark and heartbreaking sounds that this group embodies in 6 unique and long pieces that seem never-ending - plin - a gradual loss of clarity in front of a sound that starts from nothing (the 1st track "Empowered Man's Blues") to reach, after a good 4 minutes, the introduction of the sound of six guitar strings just hinted at, thin and sharp like the fingers of a hand resting on our neck ready to tighten, or the sound of soft violins embroidering classical partitions on the atonal and hopeless singing of the leader Brian McMahan - plin - In the second track "A Tribute To" the rhythm becomes syncopated and unsettling with soft guitar arpeggios just coloring the submerged and elusive words of a hypnotic and alluring track like few others - plin - With the track "Being Held," it starts from the distant echo of bells (Tibetan?) to build a dramatic and obsessive track based on a single tone that takes nothing away on the expressive level but, with the powerful and heartbreaking entry of the drums, expands the range of the dark and particularly gloomy sensations of the piece - plin - "Snooter" is still an ode to slowness, to calm that has all the flavor of defeat, as if the silence validated a renunciation, a desperate sense of bitterness for something irretrievably lost (an opportunity? a love? a life?) - plin - With "Tales" recorded live at the Crypt, we return to explore the slow despair of souls that dwells among the members of the band, which here, finally, results in a collective delirium, a sonic sacrifice to the God of Desolation - plin - Thus we arrive at the last "Moonbeams" and return to the rarefied and intimate atmospheres retracing (and remembering a bit) the track "Being Held" once again creating the magical alchemy tasted in the various tracks already heard and which, while delineating a well-recognizable and precise style, similarly demarcates the expressive horizons limiting the band to a style that will hardly know renewal unless it confronts the under-the-skin demons that accompany it - plin - An album damn "serene" in its disquiet, "calm" in its obsessive quest for escape, very interesting for the contrast between the "calmness" of the execution and the "tension" of the intentions palpable and present from the beginning to the end of the 46 minutes of the record - plin - "slow, ruthless and inexorable" like the drop falling on the prisoner's head to force him to reveal a secret (or to finish him off altogether) - plin (indeed).