Review Summary: The Truth Is You Cannot End Your Suffering
In these times where deathcore has become a sort of novelty with the most recent efforts of bands like Lorna Shore, Slaughter to Prevail and Brand of Sacrifice highlighting the eccentricity of vocal performances, walls of sounds, glitchy alien noises and of course, bear wrestling, some of the legitimacy of the genre seems to become lost in these clout tactics. I guess in reality, the genre itself has always had a sort of bombast that either draws in the crazies or drives away the normies. With all that being said, the genre itself hasn’t attracted my attention for a bit with most of the newer acts certainly taking strides to introduce this chaotic genre to the masses through tik tok and other such medias but ultimately offering more style over substance. I won’t begin to pretend that a band like Carnifex exists outside of that label because deathcore as a whole need to embrace style whether it be demonic imagery, blood and gore, terror, horror or other aesthetics that allude to the disturbing nature of the music. However, Carnifex have a way of taking real life horror through the veins of suicide, death in general, anxiety, depression and other human emotions to offer a more personal experience glazed with stylistic traits that complete their aura.
Musically, Carnifex have remained fairly true to their roots of very death metal influence deathcore while adding heavy blackened aspects as well as symphonics to round out their sound. ‘Necromanteum’ is certainly not an outlier with the album leaning heavily into chugging guitar patterns, blast beats, orchestral bombast and haunting black metal inspired chord structures amongst other things. I think it’s fair to acknowledge that many Carnifex naysayers complain of sonic similarities and repetition between songs and to that, I can agree that they certainly lean into the structures and patterns that work for them. I believe it might just be my own personal bias of loving this band and all the records they’ve released over the years, but I really enjoy hearing this style over and over and over again. The nuance of the background effects, the groovy/bouncy riffs, the absolute onslaught of drumming technicality; these things just tickle my fancy especially when listening to deathcore.
There’s also the added benefit of absolute beast of a vocalist in Scott Ian Lewis whose range just seems to grow more gnarly with every record. His gremlin highs and demonic lows when combined just create a cacophony fit for the lowest pits of hell. As previously mentioned with how the lyrics tend to take a more realistic approach to horror, Lewis has a terrific ability to meld those words and ideas into the chaos of the music without having to rely on the gimmick of snorts, snarls and gargles. His vocals are certainly abrasive but of the deathcore vocalists that exist in the scene today, I can actually understand what is being said without reading along to the lyrics sheet which is rather impressive. His articulation is in fact very excellent and his knack for word placement really accentuates the natural grooves that Carnifex have in their songs.
‘Necromanteum’ as a collection of songs offers some of their strongest work to date. The opener “Torn In Two” leans heavily into the symphonics of their sound, really capitalizing on the start/stop approach of orchestral bombast to compliment the groovy, chunky chugs that litter the track. The title track features a rather melodic chorus section made up of fast paced single notes backed with symphonic ebbs and flows. ‘Infinite Night Terror” features a very tasteful, melodic guitar solo amid some absolutely insane riffs and breakdowns. It goes without saying that if you’re a fan of theirs, this record will offer you ten more tracks that sound like Carnifex. I won’t pretend like this breaks new ground or changes the landscape of deathcore but, it offers me forty minutes of mosh-worthy, beefy cuts that groove so hard with an abundance of bass drops to make your speakers rumble.
