This Is No Fairytale

Carach Angren had so much potential. They had three great albums under their belt, and a great gimmick and style that they could really do over and over again while keeping it fresh. What set them apart was the great storytelling and lyrical concepts, along with incredibly cinematic orchestrated moments that were actually well thought out and unique. Albums like Lammendam and Where the Corpses Sink Forever played like dark, epic movies with an awesome soundtrack. A good part of This Is No Fairytale plays like a campy student horror film filled with cheap scares and a worthless script. I can't believe they messed up like this.

The main draw to Carach Angren, at least for me, is the concept. Albums like Lammendam were lyrically phenomenal, and told a great story. I think anyone can tell just from the album title that this album is going to be quite different. The Hansel-and-Gretel inspired concept is so painfully melodramatic, it sounds like a Cradle of Filth album. The lyrics are repetitive and often stupidly phrased. The album has a dark gothic feel of a fairytale gone wrong, and it seems like it's trying to appeal to 14 year old Marilyn Manson fans, not black metal fans. The vocals are actually a bit more varied, with a strangled howling scream employed at a few points, as well as a whispered croak and some cleans, but this isn't enough to make up for the banality of the rest of the album. As far as riffs go, it's pretty much standard fare for Carach Angren. Despite a few memorable solos, all they manage to do is make the album feel like a metal record, and not a symphonic record. The drums are lightning fast and well played, but the whole album feels musically borrowed from previous Carach Angren works. It's overproduced, cheesy and impressively unremarkable.

The other great thing about Carach Angren is the way that Ardek uses symphonics. It doesn't sound like he simply pulled orchestral loops off the internet, like a lot of similar bands do. He actually puts a lot of effort into creating dark orchestral compositions to complement the music and the tone of the album. And I have to admit, the symphonics are the strongest part of this album for me. Songs like When Crows Tick on Windows, Dreaming of a Nightmare in Eden and the very well done intro have great, ominous melodies that serve as more than just symphonics for the sake of symphonics. In fact, I actually found a lot to like on the first half of the album. It was pretty great. There were some creepy components to the story, and some great cinematic moments musically. The track Two Flies Flew Into a Black Sugar Cobweb is easily my favorite on the album. It is absolutely awesome, the longest track and filled with unexpected musical twists and turns, great fluttering violins, haunting whispered vocals by Seregor and some very creepy imagery involving a clown. This track really did seem like a movie to me, and I came away from the album loving it. But it makes me wonder, "why couldn't the second half of the album sound like the first half?"

Because the second half of the album is really just bullshit. It's just a meaningless symphonic clusterfuck with run of the mill guitars playing bland recycled riffs, stock drumming and cringe-worthy lyrics about Satanic sacrifice about a witch, that couldn't have affected me less. The story after Two Flies Flew Into a Black Sugar Cobweb went downhill so fast it's incredible. I have no idea what's happening, really. There is a nice moment at the end of Killed and Served by The Devil where Seregor screeches at the top of his lungs with no musical accompaniment, which is very cool and quite creepy. But this second half of the album lacks the uniqueness. It lacks the "oh shit" moments that other albums and songs from the first half had. These great cinematic breaks and orchestral melodies are completely missing. It's really just a mess. And the album ends in one of the stupidest ways it possibly could have.

*SPOILER ALERT*

IT WAS ALL A DREAM!

Really? That's the ending the almighty Carach Angren is gonna come up with? I get it, real life is scarier than a nightmare, blah blah blah, but it makes the whole story seem so pointless and dull. Listen to this album, but stop after Two Flies Flew Into a Black Sugar Cobweb. Everything after that isn't worth listening to.