I keep saying here one of the many reasons I embraced Metal music as my own is because it deals with undesired emotions all the time. Whole albums were written around themes like anger – the easiest – pain, misery, angst, fear, despair, resentiment, love and hate – many times both together -, in a nutshell, all human emotions that other genders skip, or even, neglect. Our emotions are what makes human beings in the first place, in practical terms, they are what defines us as sensient beings. There are cold persons who can hide their emotions, but there aren’t emotionless persons.
I’m writing all this because “Chapter Two – An Evil Within” is an album that relies on emitions. Very strong emotions. As all concept albums there is a story behind it – sometimes there are stories. Here we’ve got guitarist and vocalist Luke Cahill to give us some infomartion about the album:
‘Chapter Two – An Evil Within’ is our 2nd full length release and we are proper made up with how it turned out. Compared to our first album ‘Chapter One – Fallen,’ there are a lot more nuances to be heard and this is actually a concept album. The concept idea came around when I (Luke) was in a relationship with somebody I fell in love with and they left me, I had all kinds of emotions running through me and it was devastating. I had everything going for me but the fact someone who I genuinely cared for jibbed me off like it was nothing was, in all honesty, quite soul destroying. I found it quite therapeutic to write about, and it happened when I’d pretty much wrote all the material for the first album.
So lyrically, obviously I wanted to write about my experiences and I think that somebody going through the same thing or has been through, can relate in one way or another. I wrote the music based on what was written lyrically, even if there were no lyrics I still had an idea of how to write something based on what I experienced.
Musicwise, “Chapter Two – An Evil Within” is a very dense album not in the meaning of dark, but due to the emotions captured the music in here follows the emotional content the author intended, for that reason, the songs tend to be in a very dark places. The album in a crescendo as album opener “End of One Chapter… Prelude to Another” is a delicate intro with a strumming guitar, a bass and some drumming. To some extent, it sounds as a 1970’s Prog Rock. That’s one of the many facetes of the album. Later on, the album really gets going with “An Evil Within” which gives the tone of the rest of the album, that is, the kind of Thrash Metal Brazilian bands as Chakal, Holocausto, Mutilator, and Sarcófago made famous with the compilation “Warfare Noise.” The same tones are used here. In general, the album has the same technical tools thar were used back then. Same mood and atmosphere except that it’s possible to hear perfectly the bass and the guitar strummings don’t fall into a mass.
After a glance all over the album, my dear child of the night will notice the harsh poetry within it. Among all Thrash Metal features, there are some instrumental gems almost hidden in some passages and movements along the tracks. “Nihilist” has some of them not only in its intro, but also all along the track here and there. Some drumming and bass lines have that thing of Jazz. The track showcases also a lot of despair during its eight minutes. That’s a second facete of Carcinogen which mixing subtly some Jazz and other elements to Thrash Metal blend.
This is a very interesting album to listen to because it has some out of the box elements as its tones. The unexpected mix with some jazzy elements here and there is also a highlight. But, there is always one, the element I liked the most was the courage to show their feelings, a thing we don’t see everyday not even in Metal music. An open heart is a very difficult to find these days.
Ah, by the way, I almost forgot. There is a very personal cover of The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry.”
Carcinogen “Chapter Two – An Evil Within” was released on September 08th via Carcinogen Records UK.
Track Listing:
- End of One Chapter… Prelude to Another
2- An Evil Within
3- Nihilist
4- Desolated Confliction
5- Eye of the Beholder
6- Omen
7- I.O.U.
8- ? (Boy’s Don’t Cry Cover)
Watch official lyric video here:
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