Fuck You All - Carpathian Forest

Carpathian Forest's most recent album, 'F*ck You All!!' (2006) moves away from the somewaht polished, keyboard-heavy and commercial (yet still wonderfully punky and crude) sound of its predecessor 'Defending The Throne of Evil' (2003) in favour of a decidedly thrashier sound, and whilst the band once again mix bouncy-up-tempo punk with black metal influences there is much less emphasis on cheesy synths and more on heavy, crunchy,, mid-paced grooves this time around. As always the band's trademark tongue-in-cheek humour and cartoonish, ridicuously exaggerated satanic aesthetic are present, with some thorougly entertaining songtitles and lyrics and another ...  Read the complete review

The most recent studio album from Carpathian Forest seems to confirm the rumour that they've been going increasingly downhill since their inception, moving ever further away from traditional black metal towards a strange and ultimately unsatisfying hybrid of black metal and hard rock that would be a pretty cool idea, if Darkthrone hadn't thought of it first. The catchy guitars are pretty much all that stands out on this release, which presents song after repetitive song of slow riffs, creepily rasped vocals and tempo shifts that slow down just when you thought the song had already hit its slow nadir. Songs like 'Vi Åpner Porten til Helvete' seem to go on ...  Read the complete review