Album Review: The For Carnation

The For Carnation released their one and only album in 2000.  It opens with the eight minute slow burn of Emp Man's Blues, Brian McMahan's monotone vocals drone on as the understated music creeps alongside it, a little guitar here, a touch of keyboard there.  The track drifts in patiently and deliberately, and it's ably followed up by the stealthy, vaguely threatening A Tribute To, which though pacier than what came before, is darker still.  Being Held consists almost entirely of machine drones and Steve Goodfriend's drumming, yet it manages to convey a deeply sinister, stifling, suffocating atmosphere.

Snoother is, if anything, more downbeat, the band sounds utterly out of breath, creating a bleak slab of sound to lose yourself in.  Kim Deal contributes a vocal to the spidery guitars of Tales (Live From The Crypt), but on the closing slow grind Moonbeams the band finally shows their vulnerable side.  More emotive than anything which has gone before, it's an uplifting trudge with low key guitar, keyboards and cello combining to produce a rather affecting tune.

If it's reminiscent of anything, perhaps it's the darker side of Smog's Dongs of Sevotion.  But for an unrelenting album of basically all shade and no light, it's pretty addictive.

Album Review: The For Carnation - Promised Works

Promised Works is a compilation of The For Carnation's early, mid 90s material, drawn from 1995 EP Fight Songs and 1996's mini-album Marshmallows.  Grace Beneath The Pines is à quiet start, Brian McMahan's whispered vocals underpinned by vaguely threatening rising and falling guitars provided by McMahan and David Pajo.

 

After brief guitar instrumental How I Beat The Devil, we get the steadily creeping Get And Stay Get March.  On The Swing invents the higher quality end of the 'Quiet is the new Loud' troubadours of the early noughties, while Imyr, Marshmallow has a soothing, conventional melody and Salo growls moodily.

 

We also get Slint-like workouts like I Wear The Gold, Winter Lair and Preparing to Receive You which have borderline atonal guitar lines.  Interesting to see where so-called 'post-rock' sprang out of.