A BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Like many (nearly ALL) doom and death metal groups that had any inkling of self respect near the beginning of the new millennium, Green Carnation embraced gothic rock/metal to keep tasting that slight commercial appeal. Opeth went fully non-metal with Damnation, and do I even need to mention the movements of Tiamet, Anathema, and Katatonia? Yeah, it was a popularity move, but I can understand ? it's a pretty solid style that wishes most of all to meld pop rock with dangerous stylistics. But how often can you say you mine this area of contemporary sound for material you can cherish? Well, if you're anything like me, you'd probably answer with C. The answer is always C if you have to guess.

'Crushed to Dust; cuts back the flab of prog and the annoying black metal bucket whumping, guitar frumping noise-rock whatever ya got. It's hard rock all the way, with a nice, suitably ear-catching riff, and I'm glad he clean sings, because it better fits the song. Most of the songs are well built around fantastic electric guitar themes (such as the guitar harmonizing 'Writings on the Wall'). The music is primarily mid-tempo heavy crunch rock with overdistorted axes and aggressive, non-radio oriented clean singing. There are still many influences for the folks responsible for Blessing In Disguise ? namely those groups which began as death metal and slowly softened their sound over time.

Much of it is yet saddled with the rambling lack of excitement all the way through. 'The Boy in the Attic' simply bores me. The added piano's more than iffy, and the singing does quickly become repetitive. It's an improvement, and shows the group is more than your generic third rate goth rock group (they're a GOOD generic third rate goth rock group).

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