Rating: 7.7

Country: The Netherlands

Release Date: 2007

Record Label: Urethra Records
(now known as I Hate Humanity Records)

Track list:
1. Gouge of Eyes
2. The Necrophilic Aspects of Existence
3. Heavy Weight Gore
4. The Face Horribly Disfigured And Violently Asphyxiated
5. Sentenced To Hang
6. Guillotined And Quartered
7. Entrails Yanked Out
8. In Gory Detail
9. Outroduction

Band Website: Carnival of Carnage

Carnival of Carnage - Where's The Beef?

Rogier - Bass, Voice, Guitar, Programming

Carnival of Carnage is yet another one of the innumerable creations by the indefatigable gore-genius Rogier. Where's The Beef?, apart from having a very offending title for a cow-worshipping Indian like me, happens to be this one-man band's latest full length album, released just after their 2006 release, Crashing Through The Carnage. However, it is mentioned in the album's booklet that the recording for this album was done way back in 2001-02. There's nothing to worry though, because Rogier was a genius even back then and his music sinister and deadly as ever.

The story is, a futuristic spaceship crash-landed on our dearest festering planet and bearing a large jobless audience as witness, out popped a creature the size and bulk of an overgrown male elephant wearing a modded mechanised gear of a paraplegic astronaut. Standing on its two pillar-like metal legs and towering over the rodent-sized humans, this colossal otherworldly creature mutters some indecipherable words and turns slowly towards them, its ponderous movement comparable to a beached liner attempting to extricate itself. And then the unthinkable happens. This huge creature, that until a moment ago had problems even shifting, suddenly begins to RUN at a mind-boggling speed, that too in the direction of its petrified listeners with the fierce intention of squishing them like plump red grapes under its metal feet, each weighing several tons. Throughout this album you hear puny humans screaming in intros out of fright and pain only to get flattened and stuck on the ground like used chewing gum.

Featuring an unprecedented sound of early Godflesh covering Catasexual Urge Motivation, the music of Carnival of Carnage is pant-shittingly terrifying. The rumbling and distorted sound sprints out of your speakers on its metallic (drum) machine legs and tears it like a horror movie paper poster. These brilliantly programmed beats are the highlight of the band's music. Probably the best in the trade, the beats are so cool and catchy, your heart latches onto them instantly, and throbbing with their kind of pace it is only a matter of time till it explodes like water balloon. Unlike the pencil-thin sounding drum machines employed by other cyber/goregrind bands, Carnival of Carnage has the heaviest sounding one you will ever hear, with each of its beats literally making the ground shudder under its heavy impact. Centre stage having been taken by the bass and drums, the riffs merely serves to intensify the menacing music. Amidst the metallic carnage, however, there is an inherent groove that makes this experience an enjoyable one all through. The accompanying twittering sound seems to be originating from a new species developed by the mating of the vocalists of Negligent Collateral Collapse and Cock and Ball Torture. And with that as their pitch-shifted war cry, Carnival of Carnage rampage furiously through your stunned world, exterminating human race like it were a joke of the universe.

Strangely enough, of the 21 minute-odd duration of this album, the first eight songs constitute for only about 10 minutes and “Outroduction” hogs the rest. What's so strange about it is that this last song sounds like several songs clubbed into one - Carnival of Carnage periodically cease their heavy weight music for the intros to make themselves heard and then resume their mayhem and so on, repeating the process several times. It's almost like the band completely loses track of what's happening. Over and over again it stamps on your pliant body little knowing that the composition of a human body is different from that of a cockroach. Its fitful brutality shatters your meek resistance to turn you into a gooey red paste by the time it is all over.

Where's The Beef? is a tremendous album, if a tad unsatisfying due to its brief length and arrangement. But that shouldn't deter you from acquiring tickets to this peculiar gory carnival.

September 30th, 2007