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Carnal > True Blasphemy > Reviews
Carnal - True Blasphemy

There is Definitely Audio Here - 15%

Akerfeldt_Fanboi, July 19th, 2014
Written based on this version: 2002, CD, Goregiastic Records

Brutal death metal has such a wide breadth of quality it's no wonder sometimes you just stumble into the absolute turds of the genre. Where one band can create a truly sickening atmosphere while still pummeling you with riffs, others drop the ball so badly all that's there is a dead mess of Colombian snares and plastic distortion. Some get away with obscene, grotesque lyrics just off the backs of their writing and others - like Carnal - have to scrape by with their overwhelming blandness.

True Blasphemy isn't alone in this regard, either. It's not as if this band are some pillar of garbage that rises above the rest of the junk. I only call this out because it was part of a grab bag, and a band that I had just never heard of before. When I learned they were Colombian it all made sense, especially when the music started and the only thing to be found on the disc was a salvo of blastbeats, occasional chugging, and sloppy tremolo everywhere. I thought it had a pretty cool cover, so I figured I'd give it a shot anyways.

The music is, like I expected, barely appreciable as anything other than one of countless South American hyperfast blastfests, oftentimes devoid of anything distinct to even pretend to be interesting. Every once and a while, such as "Infestation of Evil," it almost sounds like a band writing riffs that contain something other than a vague sense of the harmonic scale or blistering tremolo for minutes on end. The horrible cacophony of faux-brutality masked as death metal is sometimes left aside for a few seconds of actual sonic mayhem and evil, only to be replaced by that snare clanging its way into the forefront. Don't get me wrong, I love that sound, but for once I think the Colombian snap-crackle-pop is lifeless and totally useless for the album as a whole. It doesn't make the breakdowns any more neck-breaking than they attempt to be, and it certainly doesn't help when a good 20 minutes of this record is an onslaught of blasts. The vocals are equally monotonous and dreary, only letting up their guttural belching when the band decides - seemingly at random - to showcase a riff or segue into a safe haven for the gurgles.

That said, the album is quite clear and the production isn't a pile of sludge masquerading as music. At the same time, however, the clear snare and up-front vocals shouldn't be this loud and omnipresent if the band wanted to create an actual atmosphere or even pretend to have one. While the band's lyrical identity isn't especially unique for death metal, the imagery of the album art immediately evoked a specifically dark, noisome atmosphere not unlike Necrophobic's debut. This is where the clarity of the production, and the dry pummeling ahead, failed for me. There is no blasphemy here, not even a hint of it. The album tries its damnedest to prove to the listener that yes, it is indeed evil, and somewhere along the line it forgets what the point even was.

a good album for your Colombian brutal collection - 75%

bassbrutality, April 3rd, 2008

The Colombian trio CARNAL produces some brutal death very much in the vein of all their compatriots: non-stop sickness and straight on your face. Their sound is quite similar to the recent pack of brutal albums from Bogota and around, maybe with some more insistence on the palm-mutings ala Internal Suffering, the Supremeā€¦ era.

Vocals looks like they've been recorded a bit low, and the fact that the singer has a bullfrog-type register doesn't help their presence on the mix. Bass shines even less, but since the correct mix of this instrument is still a to-do task for almost every band, we will not stop too much here. Drums have that funny metallic sound on the snare that many people find annoying but I like it quite a bit. Guitars stand somewhere between the above mentioned heavy rhythms and the mess-of-very-fast-notes schizophrenia where we sometimes find some melodies.

One point extra for including all the lyrics in the booklet, even though the satanic subject is so used and abused and doesn't fit too much on a brutal death band. The cover by Jon Zig is unusually far from his typical style, being it cleaner and more pagan than what we are used to see with his signature on. Overall, a good album for your Colombian brutal collection.

(Originally written for and published on www.pitchline-zine.com)

non-stop blast beats from hell - 80%

optimuszgrime, February 12th, 2008

A band truly birthed by the Colombian scene. Nothing but blast beats and breakdowns, although the riff structures and the switches are very strange and very unexpected. The guitars sometimes cannot be heard over the drumming and frog like vocals produced. There seems to be an entire lack of bass guitar on this recording, and the guitar sounds like it is just going at a very different pace then the drums, but then the drum plays accents that are spot on with the guitar and that is just a marvelous, beautiful thing. Can compare them to previous efforts of Colombians like Suppuration and Goretrade, but these guys do tend tot stick to their own sound. The recording is down and dirty South American style, brutal, deep, bass laden and grimy as all fucking hell. A very strong album, with very catchy riffs, but the guitars are kinda weak sometimes under the blasting. Ah well, cannot be perfect, but still a fucking awesome album