ALBUM REVIEW: Embalmed In Decay – Carnal Tomb
Although quite a lot of old school death metal has a tendency to opt for sounding like a classic band as opposed to trying to match the musical quality of those bands, in recent years a few groups and records in this style have begun cropping up regularly that are genuinely impressive, adding to the genre as opposed to merely imitating its key tropes. One such band who have been doing this extremely well are Germany’s CARNAL TOMB, who liberally flavour their thick and crushing brand of death metal with subtle progression and cleaner moments, making the Berlin-based four-piece stand out from the majority of their contemporaries. Their latest, third album, Embalmed In Decay, is another brilliant slab of interesting and visceral death metal that has something for the vast majority of fans of the genre, old school and modern alike.
The bombastic and eerie Intro is an ominous start to the record before launching into the first full track The Putridarium. This an incredibly sharp and caustic piece of death metal with angular leads, energetic drums and dense vocals which create a ferocious sound right off the bat. The track draws heavily from old school death metal without feeling like a carbon copy of this style, lending it a timeless feel and lots of imaginative hooks to draw the listener in. Cataclysmic Maze makes great use of a cleaner guitar sound and a layered, progressive edge that possesses a jazzy quality at points, hinting at an experimental side to the band, although the bulk of this track is made up of chunky basslines, meaty riffs and bursts of chaos that make this an adventurous and rabid offering.
Defiled Flesh leans prominently into these frenetic and bellicose moments, providing very little in the way of reprieve from unflinching intensity and aggression, other than some disjointed melodicism, with the vocals and guitars especially cementing this track as one of the album’s most visceral and uncompromising efforts. Draped In Disgust proves to be a fairly straightforward slab of death metal, albeit with jarring rhythms, doom-laden leads, polished tones and tight, intricate drumming which push the sound closer to death-doom without straying outside of pure death metal, showing that even when the music is at its most formulaic, the band are able to inject plenty of variety into the mix.
Cerebral Ingestion sees the music take on a demented and technical aspect, embracing the cacophonous core of a song like Defiled Flesh, whilst making sure to temper it with the experimentation and intensity of Cataclysmic Maze to craft a nauseating and eclectic hybrid that brings together both the band’s savage and progressive sides with excellent results. Morgue Usurper, with its dramatic ambience and slow-burning build, is a great piece of music that returns to the sinister, biting sound of the opener, coupling stringent riffs with sludgy basslines and weighty, chugging rhythms which complement the throaty harshness of the vocals extremely well. It’s another track that on the surface feels like classic death metal done really well, but interjects it with some virtuosic guitar work and subtle nuances that show there’s a lot going on just beneath the surface.
Embalmed In Decay serves as a muscular juggernaut with domineering, bulky rhythms and bestial, grating discordance that ebbs between mid-paced focus and blistering ferocity with ease, making it an incredibly punchy and wide-ranging effort. Eyes Of The Chasm – a ponderous and brooding offering – brings together the hints of experimentalism, melodic hooks and punishing death metal that have featured throughout this album together in one place, making this final, lengthy affair an impressively imaginative and engrossing piece of music that draws on the full range of the band’s sound to bring this album to a close in magnificent fashion.
Embalmed In Decay is a great album, bearing many of the same hallmarks that made its predecessor Abhorrent Dimensions equally impressive – from the atmospheric instrumental, unhinged aggression and energy, to the obvious talent for writing punchy, adventurous death metal – but it’s clear that CARNAL TOMB have grown more confident as songwriters in the four years since the release of that album, willing to throw interesting elements and a broader mix of influences, from death-doom to a slight hint of jazz, into their music, and ultimately making it far more immersive and diverse in the process. The OSDM core of their sound is still strong, but they’ve shown a greater creative flair than many of their contemporaries with these songs, turning this not only into a magnificent OSDM album, but a great album even within the wider spectrum of death metal.
Rating: 8/10
Embalmed In Decay is out now via Testimony Records.
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