Astral Carneval - Astral Carneval (Promo 2003)

*=Staff's pick	Intro Addiction Breakdown* Day By Day* A Toda Madre* All You Ever Wanted*

Genre	Thrash/Death Metal	Per	Vocals
Tracks	6	Kenneth	Guitar
Runningtime	19 Min.	Magnus	Guitar
Label	-	Ivan	Bass
Release	05 Sept. 2003	Janne	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Carnal Forge, The Haunted, Darkane

There are not only engine roars from the speedway course that screams nowadays in Eskiltuna, Sweden. Since the summer 2001, Astral Carneval has been busy doing hard metal. If it wasn't for the info that goes along with this promo CD, my guess would be that the Astral Carneval members were living in the thrash metropol Helsingborg - not Eskilstuna.

This is the first time that I've heard anything from this band so it is with childish enthusiasm I tune up the volume. A instrumental intro with a cool "emergency beep" and kinda low speech starts the carneval. The meltdown are upon us. Astral Carneval performs well-played modern "swedish thrash", in the same league as Darkane, Terror 2000, Carnal Forge and the Haunted. These are the bands that I think of directly. But on "Breakdown", its getting obvius that these guys arent clones of earlier named bands. Astral Carneval has indeed an own sound, almost of an "american style" sometimes. As I said its very well performed and very cool arrangements on each instruments. Its something desperate and aggressive over Astral Carnevals music wich I think makes it more meanful.

It feels like these guys have a message that gives the music an extra dimension. Very good. And its getting better, on "A Toda Madre" it all explodes with a Overkill sniffing riff, and with an aggression that are just beautiful, creativity is the word. It all ends with the heavier "All You Ever Wanted".

This band has what it takes to stich out among all the bands in this genre and I´ll sure that this wasn't the last time we heard of Astral Carneval. There are simply no chance that a competent and serious label can ignore this band.This can be something really extra in the coming future. So open your eyes and ears for Astral Carneval.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	7	9

Summary
8 chalices of 10 - Tim