I am new to the sounds of Sweden’s Carnosus.  They remind me of Denmark’s Crocell, before Crocell went black metal.  This is pretty high-quality melodic death metal, which has a good chunk of brutality to it.

Wormtales is their third album, and I picked up their previous releases after receiving this promo.  I mean just look at this album cover of the gruesome portrait – it screams death metal!!!  With the average song length of four minutes, this is the perfect amount of time for this type of death metal.

Opening with “Birthless” there is a great bit of heaviness with the melodic guitar soloing right in the beginning.  Jonatan Karasiak has a set of good pipes, alternating between higher rasps and mid-range gutturals.  The song gets into a quick pace, then slows down to a bit of a crawl with some pretty intricate guitar work from Rickard Persson and Marcus Jokela Nyström.  These two truly shine throughout the album with the guitar work. Impeccable, lots of solos as well.  The song is a bit noodly, but not like the tech-death noodly type of sound.

Jacob Hedner really lets things rip on the next song, with his blast beats as he punishes the drums on “Within Throat, Within Heart”.  Vicious blasts and Jonatan going into deeper guttural ranges which adds another element to their brutality.  Marcus Strindlund’s bass guitar is present and can be heard throughout some of the unbridled aggression, which takes place on this song.  This song has its melodic moments with solos and such, however the brutality is ramped up on this song.

“Worm Charmer” has a killer opening and an extremely chunky guitar riff.  The added harmonies are also excellent.  The song picks up the pace and then slows back down.  This main guitar riff is catchy and will permeate and resonate with you – it is that heavy and well done.  The rhythm section shines hugely during these moments.  Ripping double bass during the mid-paced portion is an added plus.  Terrific guitar solos ensue alongside some pinch harmonics a tad bit later.  Then right into a killer blast beat and vicious vocals.  The main riff returns yet again to cause buildings to topple over and this song is outstanding through and through.

“Cosmoclaustrum” begins like a brutal death metal song.  It has a killer opening mid-paced section with phenomenal guttural growls.  This opening is my favorite part on the entire album.  I just want to start swinging.  The mid-paced moments are excruciatingly heavy.  The track gets into a mid-paced gallop then right into a blast beat.  The groovy elements will attract a pit or two in a live setting for sure.

“Solace in Soil” ends the album and is the longest song at just about 6 minutes.  It’s more melodic and brooding with some cool solos.  They do ramp up the brutality with some blast beats, however, the song title fits the mood of this number.  Wormtales is an excellent album from Carnosus.  It’s nice to see the band not going for the classic Swedish HM-2 death metal sound, from their native country.  When people sometimes read melodic death metal, as this band clearly is, they must understand there is always a lot of brutality in this type of music.  There’s just going to be more guitar solos always having a melodic edge, as well as added guitar harmonies.

Make no mistake Carnosus does in fact bring the brutality and this is a very well-produced album.  It has quality stamped all over the musicianship and writing.  What a pleasant brutal surprise this band is!

 

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