Carach Angren is a band that I’ve only recently gotten into properly, thanks to a close friend of mine introducing them to me about nine or ten months ago, but ever since that day I’ve been eagerly anticipating new material from them! This is surely testament to the quality of Carach Angren’s music – they’re just a band that can seemingly do no wrong, and each of their releases has been a well-constructed and coherent piece of work. Dance And Laugh Amongst The Rotten continues that trend, and showcases the band on top form once again.
Everything in the album slots in well together, from the momentous orchestrations to the relentless drums and the perfectly punctuated vocals, everything has its place and the way the album flows from one track to the next is fantastic – the coherency of it all and the way each track leads into the next shows that the band has thought long and hard about which tracks go where on the album. It’s easy to get lost in the music because of how gripping and immersive it is, and another great element of the piece is that because there’s so many little intricacies in the music, you’ll spot something new on each listen.
All of the tracks are powerful in their own way but for me personally, the highlight is Pitch Black Box. A song surely tailor-made for a live environment (Carach – I’m begging you, please play this at Nummirock), it will get your head banging along in time to it once the atmospheric introduction leads into a fuller sound, and the punchy vocals are perfect for chanting along to. Additionally, the clashing keys in certain parts of the song are incredible and add a nice bit of ‘chaos’ to the sound as well.
As a whole, Dance And Laugh Amongst The Rotten is a tremendous listen. This is Carach Angren at their best!
10/10
Check out our galleries from their show at P60, Amstelveen here and here.
