Hello metalheads! This is John with a new early album review. Carnosus is a progressive death metal group that is based out of Örebro, Sweden. Their next album “Wormtales comes on out October 18th via Willowtip Records.
I unfortunately slept on these guys real hard last year. I remember seeing an incredible amount of hype for their previous album “Visions of Infinihility” which was released just last February! I finally listened to it earlier this year and was totally blown away. This album has as much darker feeling than their last offerings. It’s so much more grimy and dirty feeling like they are well, telling a “Wormtales”.
One of the things that didn’t hit me right away is just how truly dense the music is from Carnosus. This is where the “progressive” tag is really earned. They always have multiple layers of some kind of going and constantly shift ever so slightly between genres and grooves. This is an album I probably listened to four times before I finally felt like I had a good feeling of what I wanted to write. I really love when I can listen to songs or passages over and over and still pick out little ideas or details and appreciate them in different ways.
The one aspect of this band that took some time for me to really get used to is the vocals. Jonaton has a very unique tone to his voice. His technique is flawless sounding but again VERY unique. It’s almost has a gurgling as if its distorted in some way timbre when he does a lot of his vocals. He rolls his “r” sound like crazy at certain points which sounds so brutal. His range in sound is incredible too, he goes almost shrieking high, with absolutely disgusting gutturals as well. I reached out to the band via Facebook messenger to see if Jonaton had a certain technique he uses. He uses Fry, False Cord and Epiglottal(which explains the distortion sound) when performing.
“Within Throat, Within Heart” is the second track on the album, but first that the band put out as a teaser. It is a great fast paced and aggressive track right from the start. The groove that they show off at the beginning stays through but goes through many different drum beats including blast beats, fast double bass and even a thrash feel as well. This changes slightly just before the guitar solo into an accented groove. This changes as the vocals come back into the original groove which they break down into a calm instrumental passage to end the track. Really a solid introduction of what to expect on this album.
My favorite track on this album is “Wormcharmer”. It starts with a nice slowchugging introduction followed by some fast paced double bass drum and faster guitar patterns. It then returns to the slow chugging beginning before going into a bass solo, which slowly transforms into a guitar solo. The vocals on this track are primarily low growls with some accented high pitch shrieks for added contour. This track is just slow and methodical with very good use of faster passages to add some serious contrast.
Most albums I can pick a favorite track right on my first listen, “Wormless” took me at least five listens to truly pick out a standout. This whole album was consistently great the entire way through and very dense as I mentioned before. The amount of information in death metal form that this band conveys is amazing. This one a very easy 9.5/10 on my rating scale. The guitar work is fast, consistent and technical. The drumming is so in the pocket and keeps such a good feel for the rest of the band to play in. I already talked extensively about the vocals, and last but not least, the bass player is rumbling down under and doing his job perfectly.
https://www.facebook.com/Carnosus?mibextid=LQQJ4d
Categories: Album Review, Death Metal, Uncategorized