(written by Islander)
Although the Swedish death metal band Carnal Savagery released their first demo only five and a half years ago they’ve kept their feet jammed on the gas pedal ever since, releasing six albums in rapid succession and now with a seventh one on the way. Their album titles brazenly brandish their musical devotion to themes of supernatural horror and foul decomposition: Grotesque Macabre; Fiendish; Scent of Death; Worm Eaten; Into the Abysmal Void; Graveworms, Cadavers, Coffins and Bones; and now Crypt of Decay.
Here’s part of the tantalizing linguistic preview of the new album offered on behalf Moribund Records, who will release it on November 28th: “The band’s seventh full-length album, Crypt of Decay, is a brutal exploration of human depravity, darkness, and death. This savage collection of tracks will drag you through the deepest catacombs of sonic devastation, where death metal, blackened riffs, and dark atmospheres converge in an unholy union of chaos.”
As a more tangible sign of what the new record delivers, we’re now premiering a horrifying video for the album track “Curse of the Catacomb“.
Carnal Savagery‘s core duo of Mikael Lindgren (ex-Cromlech, ex-Divine Souls) and Mattias Lilja (Desolation, ex-Divine Souls) are in harness once again, drawing from death metal traditions of their own native land as well as influences from the other side of the Atlantic to create experiences that are both ferociously traumatic and intrinsically unsettling.
“Curse of the Catacomb” is a fine example of what they’ve achieved on the new album. It’s gruesome and ghastly but also a bone-shaker, a macabre manifestation of dread and deviancy that will also get listeners’ muscles throbbing. (It’s also as catchy as chlamydia.)
The song quickly creates a blood-congealing aura of the supernatural with a riff that insidiously and hungrily slithers and squirms, backed by clobbering drums and corrosive chainsawing tones. As murderous howls enter the fray, the band slow the pace into a gruesome lurch but also accelerate into a gnashing but fiendishly jubilant bounce that carries a variation on that squirming-maggot lead riff.
Coated in filth, the music groans but also swarms like carnivorous insects. The vocals elevate into mad howls. The bass brutally grumbles, and a guitar solo ecstatically convulses. The pacing repeatedly staggers and then shifts into higher gears. And that wicked opening riff reappears. Heads will move, and death metal fiends will relish the musical horrors.
Speaking of horrors, the video is a fine display of grave robbery and ghastliness, of the smoking dead coming back to life, of a catacomb indeed cursed. It makes for a hideously good pairing for the song.
Crypt of Decay features lead-guitar guest appearances by Matias Quiroz (Bleak Flesh) and Sascha Samayoa (Beyond Chaos, Crown of Decay). The album was produced at Studio LV5 in Sweden (Horde of Hel, Nordjevel), and it was mastered by none other than Dan Swanö at Unisound Studios (Bloodbath, Edge of Sanity, Nightingale, Diabolical Masquerade). The eye-catching cover art was created by Sidjimbe Art (Blasphemous, Decomposing).
Moribund Records will release the album on CD and LP vinyl (in black and clear cemetery green), with apparel. They recommend it as mandatory for fans of Entombed, Autopsy, Dismember, Cannibal Corpse, Slayer, Unleashed, Death, and Grave. Check out the locations linked below for more info, and also get murdered by the album’s previously released opening track, “Entangled In Barbed Wire“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://www.moribundcult.com/
https://carnalsavagery.bandcamp.com/album/crypt-of-decay
CARNAL SAVAGERY:
https://www.facebook.com/carnalsavagery
https://www.instagram.com/carnalsavagery