My Way To Honour Peter Steele.

Back in 1987 I was totally into Thrash Metal with bands as Slayer, Metallica, Testament, Sacred Reich and more stuff like that. And then there was the album Retaliation by the band Carnivore. I never had heard something like this. It was so extreme, I loved it immediately. From the tasty intro Jack Daniel's And Pizza until the last track Sex And Violence this album was a blast in those days. (Remember that Death Metal was a relatively new thing in 1987!) This album was the best thing Peter Steele ever did. Don't get me wrong, I like some Type O Negative stuff (Especially Bloody Kisses), but I love Carnivore a lot more!
If some people are interested in the first band of Peter Steele called Fallout go here.


Under the term "Metalcore" we have a real trend of combining Hardcore attitude with Thrash/Death Metal riffs. But this idea is anything but new, in the 80s that ran under the category “Crossover" (before bands such as FAITH NO MORE, MORDRED, ...) and had bands like D.R.I. and SUICIDAL TENDENCIES as their forerunners. Not to forget Peter Steele’s (TYPE O NEGATIVE) first band CARNIVORE and their ultimate hate fest "Retaliation".

For me this album is one of the best Crossover albums of all times. Here the rough catchiness of old VENOM and the mean guitar attacks of a Tony Iommi are hunted through a wind tunnel and then unleashed upon mankind. And where is the connection to Hardcore Punk? Who knows the super fast riffs knows, right? But with all speed CARNIVORE never forgot to put in variety and used several slower, but all the more brutal parts in their songs. If this album hasn’t inspired several of today’s big Death Metal bands, I’ll lick my own anus.

I can’t say much about the extreme lyrics, because the free beer pressing of Roadrunner Records back then did not have any, but as our chief Alex had told me a while back, the lyrics are very brutal, but not fascist. The CD has been re-done a while back with several (demo) bonus songs. As extreme Metaller you need to know that.
(From The Metal Observer)

Carnivore - Retaliation (1987)

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Jesus I beg of thee
don't take my life
return me to the womb
from which I was torn
birth is a sin
and the punishment is death
I wish you had left me unborn
(From Ground Zero Brooklyn)