Karnivool are a quintet from the land of Aus who have been around for a decade. They describe themselves as, “Australia’s most avant-garde heavy rock band who took on the challenge of conquering the rock nation.” If they are the most avant-garde band down under then there must be a lot of extremely mainstream ones as well because there’s nothing particularly adventurous on Themata. It’s a collection of passable, modern rock songs that personally I can take or leave. I find this record to be, well, alright, not bad, fine, but nothing out of the ordinary. Their bio suggests that it will, “appeal to anyone who desires a truly unique sound.” Leaving aside the degrees of uniqueness that are possible, one thing this record is not is unique. The sound and style herein is replicated many times the world over and many times, it’s done better.  

Opener Cote starts proceedings off well being noisy, then quiet and comparatively tuneful and the title track itself is fairly spunky and angular but from there on in everything gets a bit samey, to be honest, a bit dull. I have to admit, for instance that track five Roquefort is particularly tuneless and does very little for me. 

Scarabs is at least mercifully short at just over two minutes of racket but other than that there are no redeeming features to this song. Sewn and Silent is a bit more like it, it’s the nearest thing to a ballad on the album given that it’s acoustic and shows that Karnivool can carry a tune when they so desire. This song is by far the best thing on the album and features an impassioned vocal performance from Ian Kenny. Mauseum is up next and isn’t bad either possibly because the pace is still fairly slow and the band doesn’t feel a burning need to show how progressive they can be. 

Unfortunately, Synops meanders along for over four minutes without getting very far and Omitted for Clarity is a whole twenty-two seconds long and is barely audible whilst I have great pleasure in nominating Change Pt1 as by far the worst song that I’ve have the misfortune to have to review. Ever. 

Previously I have been ruminating on how many goodies there have been thus far in 2007 but I’m afraid that there is no way that I can include Themata in that list. Apparently the band are sorting some UK dates out and you may well wish to check them out if you like your rock to be modern but I shan’t be joining you down at the front.

Themata is released through Bieler Bros on April 9th

Let us know your views on 'Themata'

Track Listing

Cote
Themata
Shutterspeed
Fear Of The Sky
Roquefort
L1Fel1Ke
Scarabs
Sewn And Silent
Mauseum
Synops
Omitted For Clarity
Change (Part 1)

Line Up

Ian Kenny - Vocals
Drew Goddard - Guitars
Mark Hosking - Guitars
Jon Stockman - Bass
Steve Judd - Drums