CARACH ANGREN — Death Came Through a Phantom Ship (review)

CARACH ANGREN — Death Came Through a Phantom Ship album cover

Album · 2010 · Symphonic Black Metal

5/5 · 2011-01-15
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Death Came Through a Phantom Ship is Carach Angren’s second full-length album, released in 2010. Lyrically this continues with their theme of conceptual albums about ghost stories, this time they’ve given us a tale of a ghost ship backed by some of the best black metal this reviewer has heard from 2010.

There’s an intro track present here, Electronic Voice Phenomena, which lasts for a little under a minute. The aim of this track appears to set the atmosphere of the album which it does exceedingly well with its use of sound effects which suddenly burst into the first actual song the band gives us which is The Sighting Is a Portent of Doom. This and the third track ...And the Consequence Macabre are like partners lyrically, forming as distinct part of the story that the album tells. The songs do not follow a traditional song structure of verse – chorus – verse – chorus etc, the lyrics are continually moving on, this is a story after all and it is always advancing, never repeating. Since this is not commercial music no chorus is actually needed as a sing-along reference point and the lack of one has made the results all the better.

These two songs really set the pace of the record. The black metal stuff is great on its own but these are some of the best symphonies backing it that I’ve heard from any symphonic black metal band. At times the music is almost classical, especially in the album’s final track, The Shining Was a Portent of Gloom. The vocals of Seregor are also top notch black metal style growls and what’s really great about them is that it is not actually that difficult to make out his lyrics even on your first listen of the album and without having the booklet to follow the songs with. To top the package off the riffs are kept interesting throughout, resulting in one really solid album that is almost up there with the very best of them, with my personally favourites of the bunch being The Sighting Is a Portent of Doom, ...And the Consequence Macabre, Bloodstains On the Captain's Log, The Course of a Spectral Ship and The Shining Was a Portent of Gloom.

Overall I’m very impressed with this album and won’t hesitant to recommend it to not just black metal fans but to all metal fans because this isn’t the typical under-produced raw black metal that some bands play, but something from a much higher level of musicianship on all fronts. The symphonies that Ardek writes and performs give a real atmosphere to the album that really fits with its concept in a way that words cannot do them justice, so maybe it would be best not to try. I’ll close this review by saying that this album was my introduction to Carach Angren and I’ve recently checked out their back catalogue and they are now firmly installed as one of my favourite black metal bands, with this being one of the best black metal releases of 2010.

(Review originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)