Macabre’s Carnival Of Killers: the kings of murder-metal reclaim their crown

It’s been nine years since the last album by the undisputed kings of Murder Metal and just like the methodologies employed by the topics of their affection, the more things change the more they stay the same for these Chicago sickos. Familiar folk like Gacy, Speck and Ramirez are mentioned alongside more obscure serial killers Joe Ball, Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, all delivered with that contrasting thrash/death/grind/ nursery rhyme/commercial jingle musical mix. Your Window Is Open skips along in a hail of metronomic chaos and Tea Cakes might be about as evil as Macabre have ever sounded. However, distorted novelty anthem Stinky and bastardised covers of nursery rhyme favourite Them Dry Bones and 60s German beer hall jazz hit Warte, Warte prove that sinister smiles aren’t always sinister.