CARBONIZED - SCREAMING MACHINES (1996)

Hopefully, you clowns are already familiar with the far-superior Therion forerunner CARBONIZED, but if you haven't yet had the pleasure I urge you to go back and get acquainted with both 1991's For The Security and 1990's No Canonization immediately. Excellent quasi-experimental early Swede-grind platters both, and packaged with a disclaimer that I worded thusly: "While Carbonized circa '92-and-earlier might seem like an IllCon wet dream (it is), their later work (primarily 1993's Disharmonization and 1996's Screaming Machines) is a whole other story unto itself, as their transformation into purveyors of progressive post-rock dissonance was significantly harder to swallow than the delicious grind we are here to celebrate today."
This afternoon's offering is the latter of these two releases, which served as both Carbonized's experimental/discordant apex and also their death knell. The awkward, atonal post-punk found on Screaming Machines brings to mind such disparate acts as PiL, The Jesus Lizard, or Killing Joke, and is even further from the sounds found on earlier Carbonized albums as those same albums and Therion's operatic meanderings in the mid-00's. It's just weird, weird shit--and also shit that can often come off as over-wrought or pretentious. Still highly recommended though, and a definite curiosity in the grand scheme of Swedish metal.

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