Decapitated have released the album artwork for their fifth studio album and Nuclear Blast debut, Carnival Is Forever. The album will be released in Poland and North America on July 12th and in the rest of Europe on July 15.
Now, here at NCS, we think Decapitated is the shit. This new album is on our most-anticipated list for 2011. But, to be brutally honest (which of course is the only kind of honest we know how to be), this album cover is lame. Really, what is this supposed to be? That mask looks like something out of a Disney movie. I’m sorry, this is not metal — and it is a huge fall-off from the awesome cover that Seth Siro Anton (Septic Flesh) did for the last album (which we’ll remind you about after the jump.)
These comments about the cover from guitarist and founding member Wacław “Vogg” Kiełtyka are revealing, and touchingly honest:
“Very intriguing and quite strange for a metal album but surely staying in memory. A vital thing is that it’s a photo. We did not want any computer graphics this time or anything artificial or plastic. The same regards the production of the album. We had actually been thinking about getting a painting for the cover but unfortunately we couldn’t do it. Maybe next time.”
The album title is a bit strange, too. More on what that’s supposed to mean, after the jump . . .
About the album title, Vogg has previously stated:
“Carnival: war, rape, lies, pathology, evil displayed through certain events and situations of the latest years in the world. Is Forever – I guess it doesn’t need explaining. Both the text and the title are bitterly ironic.”
I guess the carnivals in Poland are different from the ones we’re used to here in the States.
Oh well. Regardless of the underwhelming album art and the odd title, we’re still pretty damned sure the music will destroy everything in its path, and ultimately that’s what counts. While we wait, we’ll just have to gaze wistfully at the album art for the band’s last release, Organic Hallucinosis:
28 Responses to “DECAPITATED UPDATE”
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Wow, that IS a bad album cover.
But the album will be awesome. I’ve met Rafal (the new singer) and he seemed like a great guy, with a real passion for music. And Krimh is a stunning drummer.
I saw them last year when they headlined the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour, and it was a jaw-dropping set. We put up a bunch of photos from that show here (the Decapitated pics are at the very bottom):
https://www.nocleansinging.com/2010/08/24/summer-slaughter-part-2/
Rafal also has a better voice than Covan imo.
And cooler hair. Which is always important in a death metal band, cool hair.
No question about it. Cool hair is critical, especially if you can get your hair to do what Rafal can do with his:
https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Decapitated2.jpg
This is an example of how lightening-fast my reflexes are with a camera.
Actually, i thought twice about the album and didn’t think it to be bad choice. There’s something pyschologically sick and demented about it without immediately resorting to the usual shock tactics. I think this album will surprise many.
Surprise in what way? I haven’t yet read much news about the music.
By surprise i mean, there are a lot of people waiting to see what they’ll do after the tragic events, and i’m confident in the new lineup’s abilities to surpass expectations.
Simply optimism on my part.
I understand now — and i share your optimism. I was really impressed with the line-up when i saw them last year, though they weren’t playing any new songs.
i like the album cover a lot, a bit unusual for a death metal band, but like George mentioned there is something twisted and demented about it, the album name on the other hand, just sounds weird, i was expecting something like halucinogenic spheres of inorganic dementia.
anyway i am very curious to see what this new lineup brings, both live and studio, and if so far their live shows have been killer like Islander and many others have said i have no reason not to be excited about the new album!
BOth a weird album title and cover artwork…and I’ve read mixed opinions about the new lineup and some of the new material that has been played live. Certainly be interesting to finally hear this album.
The whole cover just makes me think of Bahktin and his idea of the carnivalesque…
Not sure why they don’t run with that concept, and skip the whole war, famine, blah, blah, blah….
Dude! I think you have just elevated the level of intellectual discourse on NCS to heights never before achieved. Mikhail Bahktin? You have outed yourself as a brainiac! I really wonder if the connection was known to Decapitated. If so, they have just outed themselves as brainiacs, too!
My dark secret is that I have a masters in classical Japanese literature. :_(
But yes, that Bahktin! That’s immediately what I thought of though! I think it would be an excellent concept album, and you could really work in some unique carny sounds to really freaky things up.
AND! It’d be a nice change of pace thematically. I don’t mind bands focusing on war and evil and so on and so forth, but I wish there was a little less of it. It’s starting to get a bit cliched…
Also, I think that, in many ways, extreme metal is very much the world turned upside down.
A celebration of life via a glorification of death?
The pageantry and ritual of religion inverted?
The momentary escape that subsides the moment you leave the venue (much like the brevity of the Carnival itself)?
It’s not a perfect parallel, but I think it’s close enough to be interesting….
This is really causing me to reconsider the album title. But only momentarily, because we still have Vogg’s explanation of it . . . which is all about rape, lies, pathology, etc., etc. There’s definitely a concept album waiting to be born from these ideas, but I suspect we won’t find it in the new Decapitated.
A Masters in classical Japanese literature? This actually doesn’t surprise me. 🙂
We probably won’t…this is the time when I wish I had musical talent, so I could take my *brilliant* ideas and make them reality.
Hey, look on the bright side. If you had real musical talent, you could be making a living creating art, be worshipped by fans from countries near and far, and hunted by packs of nubile women wanting to partake of your precious bodily fluids. Who the fucks needs that noise?
Oh, not me. Definitely not!
*weeps softly*
ALSO!!!
You outed yourself as a Braniac by knowing what the fuck I was talking about!!!
Swirly time!
More like a weird capacity to remember, almost photographically, all sorts of arcane bits of learning amassed over an ungodly amount of time, but an inability to remember where my fucking car keys are, the due date for bills, or my brother’s birthday.
A nicer way to put all that would be that you can clearly remember important things, but not silly unimportant things. 😉
Could you please add calendar reminders to yourself to send me this message once a month? More frequently if possible.
I wish, but I don’t have a calendar and I can’t even remember half the important shit I should….
You could just copy that and make it new the new NCS banner though.
That would be a long banner, but I’ll see what our graphic artist groverXIII can do with it. It would make for a more cumbersome acronym, though. Instead of NCS, we’d have to get used to ICCRITBNSUT.
I agree with the sick demented psychological quality of this album cover. I haven’t found many death metal albums that discuss or dig into the depths of the the human psyche. I mean you do see a lot of human depravity in death metal and in brutal death. Yet you don’t hear as much about albums that discuss real psychological disorders and the like. I think a concept album about schizophrenia or manic depression any of those disorders would be an interesting thing to explore instead of the usual doom and gore topics.
I agree, that would be an interesting (and rare) type of concept album for a death metal band.
Also, I’m beginning to wonder if my ho-hum reaction to the cover is a sign that I myself have a sick demented psychological quality.
Do you really need an album cover to tell you that?
I like the cover. It’s a bit different, but there’s nothing wrong with that. While Prho may be able to connect the cover to something, I think it could just be that the masks don’t always come off, hence Carnival Is Forever.
Very interesting insight — Carnival Is Forever because the masks don’t come off. I guess we’ll have to wait for lyrics to find out if Decapitated is as clever as you are. 🙂