Cadaverous Condition

Burn Brightly Alone

Written by: PP on 04/01/2012 04:35:33

Cadaverous Condition is the name of an Austrian metal band that has been in existence since 1990. They haven't released too many albums since then, with "Burn Brightly Alone" being their fifth album so far. The band describes themselves as a 'death folk' band, which is basically a meeting point between death metal and acoustic folk. In fact, if you ever wondered how acoustic death metal sounds like, then this is the album where you'll find out. The verdict? It sounds much better than one would imagine.

The album is roughly divided into two different styles of music. One is your standard groove-based death metal that draws from the 90s sound of the genre, which is not bad all-around but nothing special to report on here. See "Driftwood" or album opener "Ghost" as an example. It starts to become intriguing once elements from a wide variety of other genres are added into the mix. "We Knew They Were", for instance, is a piano-based track that could technically be on a Paradise Lost album given its soothing melancholic mood and doom-laden guitars that follow, where the roughened, growled vocals add curious texture to the song. But this, too, is a rather heavy track compared to the real gems on the record, such as "Wicklow Nightfall", which brings in a ton of neo-folk / acoustic folk influence through an acoustic guitar that drives the song forward after a melancholic, doom influenced opening. It's here, where things start getting real interesting: a harshly growling dude over typical acoustic folk instrumentation (granted, added bass and drums)...well, that's not something you hear about every day. See "Into My River" for an even more acoustically tuned track.

I keep repeating the word interesting because I can't decide whether the growling is genius or ridiculous during the acoustic songs. In the metal songs the band plays your standard death metal by the books, so it's what you expect it to be, but when you add it over campfire-friendly acoustic material, it stands right on the fence between the two, as wildly experimental music often tends to do. What's more, the band delivers a wonderfully daring cover of "We Both Go Down Together" by The Decemberists for good measure. Basically, it comes down to how you'll perceive the growls on top of the acoustic guitars, leaving you with three options: a) you love this for how unique it sounds, b) you think it sounds retarded and you hate it for that reason, or c) you find it an interesting experiment worth being investigated further on a full acoustic release with the death metal parts dropped out altogether to really highlight the unique sound. Me, I'm in the c) camp.

7

Download: We Knew They Were, Wicklow Nightfall, Into My River
For the fans of: Paradise Lost meets death metal and acoustic folk
Listen: Bandcamp

Release date 23.09.2011
Starry Records

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