Sinister
The Carnage Ending

Dutch sinister death metallers of Sinister are returning with a new album, it is called The Carnage Ending and as far as I can make out from the press material the title does not refer to what will happen to the band. A band which are said to be one of the most respected death metal bands in Europe and that might be true considering the solid history they have behind them with lots of experience in many albums and of course being rather popular for the genre as well. A genre which anyone unfamiliar with the band’s music would guesstimate to some kind of brutal death metal when looking at the album cover art and their logo, the titles are sort of alluding to such a genre as well. Not a genre I am terribly familiar with, or a fan of but I know some good bands of said genre and Sinister’s latest album was rather good and I even did an interview with “Aad” about that album. Now, almost two years has passed and things can change in such a time.

Stylistically though not much has changed, it is still the same kind of brutal death metal with guttural growls and an overall sinister musical presence. The production is also as grande as it was one the first one making this one of those rare brutal death metal bands that doesn’t sound extremely lame and ridiculous as many of those bands do. There is a lot of power and brutality in this album and it gives of that sort of sinister, almost evil and a bit unnerving feel that a good album of the genre does. But sure, it is still true enough to the genre so it will not scare off the ones who thinks music should be unchanging and stale if it is brutal death metal, just change the words and keep the rest of the songs as they are is their philosophy about new albums. Luckily that is not the philosophy of these guys and they present to us a very solid product in terms of the production.

It is also a good album that will most likely appeal to the fans of the band and of the genre, I am not as sure as to wether or not this is something to really delve into though as it is more or less the same as the predecessor. I could actually repeat the judgement from there by saying that the vocals are a bit of a letdown in that they show no nuances through the album which makes the entire experience of the album a bit stale. I think the vocals would need a bit more variation not just that deep guttural moaning as is going on now, the songs are otherwise could and quite varied and the album (besides the vocals) doesn’t become stale and the songs have a decent variation to them making it an overall quite good album.

I think this album feels evil and brutal enough to be a good death metal album, it is a bit exciting as well but slightly let down by quite dreary vocals which is a bit of a shame because there is much going for this album. Still, for a fan of death metal of the brutal kind this may be right up your alley.

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