CoC : Brimstone - Carving a Crimson Career : Review

Brimstone - _Carving a Crimson Career_
(Nuclear Blast, 1999)
by: Paul Schwarz (6.5 out of 10)

With their strongly melodic musical core which leans towards death and black metal (especially by virtue of its rasping vocals) but utilises heavily the conventions of traditional heavy metal, Brimstone have created a reasonably varied and nicely constructed debut in _Carving a Crimson Career_. Comparisons to Children of Bodom are easy to make and reasonably justifiable, although Brimstone don't concentrate on being quite so over the top with solos and melodic manipulation, and thus tap a different vein of enjoyment to that of CoB. Brimstone begin with the continually flowing attack of "Breaking the Waves" and mirror this approach on such songs as "Autumn", but thankfully alter tempo and structure to give us the likes of "Pagan Sons", which riff with the much more pronounced on/off character of vintage Celtic Frost. Brimstone do not sell themselves short by using melody only to place a simple, catchy and easily graspable theme throughout each song. They layer fills and keyboard parts effectively over each other to achieve a deeper musical scope and thus not fall into the trap of tedium that many of their retro generation do. _CaCC_ is a good crack at making melodic, catchy and enjoyable heavy metal which also combines the more harshly aggressive elements of recent death and black metal genres (the vocals are the most significant facet of this) and though Brimstone do embarrass themselves with the chunky but messy riff-o-rama of "Heavy Metal Kid", overall they do more on their debut than many, and as much as some of the better of the new crop.

(article published 9/12/1999)