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New Model Army - Carnival review



Reviewer:
9.0

8 users:
7.5
Band: New Model Army
Album: Carnival
Release date: September 2005


01.Water
02.BD3
03.Prayer Flags
04.Carlisle Road
05.Red Earth
06.Too Close To The Sun
07.Blue Beat
08.Another Imperial Day
09.LS43
10.Island
11.Fireworks Night

Those who believe that a New Model Army review is totally out of place on a metal website are living a big lie. The prolific and consistently brilliant British band has been incredibly influential on a lot of metal bands (Sepultura, Anacrusis and Anathema, to name but a few) and have naturally made a lot of awesome, heavy music in their own right. Carnival is so far the latest manifestation of NMA's brilliance and easily one of my favorite albums of the previous year.

It seems like Justin Sullivan has satisfied his need for expressing himself with subtle alterna-folk music with his solo project since this NMA album is easily the heaviest and most aggressive they've been since The Love Of Hopeless Causes. Reportedly written from the "rhythm section up", Carnival is indeed very rhythmic and beat heavy, and as such, terribly powerful. Actually, on songs like "Too Close To The Sun", NMA almost puts their contemporaries Killing Joke to shame. Still, melody is not a forgotten ingredient in this mix and we are treated to highly anthemic and emotional refrains just as often as we are moved by the rhythm. Justin Sullivan proves once again with his lyrics that he is one of rock music's most ingenious, yet sadly overlooked writers. These are words that when needed paint beautiful pictures or describe the degeneration surrounding us with astonishing accuracy. They are also words that we can all scream out together with Sullivan in a cathartic trance and many of us probably will in songs like "Island" or "Red Earth".

Carnival is an excellent release that everybody should check out. NMA is just one of those bands that we should all hear at least once in our lives.





Written on 13.04.2006 by With Metal Storm since 2002, jupitreas has been subjecting the masses to his reviews for quite a while now. He lives in Warsaw, Poland, where he does his best to avoid prosecution for being so cool.



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