Year: 2020
Total Time: 50:41
Label: Season of Mist
Music is a mean of narration. It doesn’t matter if music is accompanied by lyrics or not. Sometimes music lacks the conventionality that characterizes what we see as narration. This is where CARACH ANGREN comes in. The band with its dark and haunted music are amazing narrators who combine wonderful musical compositions and masterful narration in the field of conventionality, in an overall accessible style. Combine all this with the cinematic sound of the band and you the experience they want to offer you through each of their releases, on a plate.
“Franckensteina Strataemontanus” is not another musical transfer of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. If you know the myths and legends surrounding the creation of this story, you know that there are many stories about Johann Konrad Dippel. There is no evidence that Shelley was ever inspired by this strange personality, but the connection is hard to ignore. An alchemist who, according to legend, experimented on dead animals and human corpses and created an elixir that would allow him to live to the age of 135.
There are three characteristics that define the album and the first is narrative. CARACH ANGREN have always been more storytellers than songwriters, and their latest work is no different: a series of stories designed to tell both scary and theatrical stories to the listener. This introduction, which seems to come from a Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale, gently puts us on the album’s opener, “Scourged Ghoul Undead”. The agony begins, as the singer, Seregor, masterfully unfolds his characteristic vocals. This time, perhaps more reminiscent of Dani Filth than ever before, their main influence on these Gothic Black Metal trails the band follows.
CARACH ANGREN is a band that has invested in both visuals and music, raising the eyebrows of many with the alluring covers, the special melodies and the theatricality on stage. “Franckensteina Strataemontanus” is no different. Just as the combination of violin and piano melodies from “Like A Conscious Parasite I Roam” seems to fade in the dark, so the final curtain goes down and closes the band’s 6th chapter, a chapter that many will visit again and again.
Rating: 8/10
Editor: Fanouris Exintavelonis
Related Link: CARACH ANGREN – Official Page
