It’s been 6 years since India’s Gutslit punched me in the face repeatedly for their second effort, Amputheatre, and let the world know they were clearly one of the top, if not the top brutal death metal bands from the county, if not the region.

The line up that unleashed Amputheatre is largely intact, except for original vocalist Aditya Barve, who returns to Gutslit after a one-album hiatus replacing Kaushal LS from Amputheatre, but to be honest you can’t really tell, as both deliver the same mix of growls, squeals, shrieks, reeeeees, and bellows.

But what’s important is the band delivers the same sort of absolutely pummeling, top-notch, brutal death metal/grindcore that culls from Benighted, Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Despised Icon, and such.

Carnal blows by with the same sub-30-minute succinct tenacity and brutality as Amputheatre. And while it’s often a sheer assault of blunt force trauma, I detect a little more control and bludgeoning grooves (hence throwing Dying Fetus in as a reference this time around). The songs are a bit longer too (except for the 41-second “Insidious”), and are a little more developed in the songwriting department.

But every other song is a well-crafted stab of savagery. In particular a couple of standouts like “Bind Torture Kill” and “Matriarch” ( where the Dying Fetus vibe is really heavy, literally) as well as”Altar of Putridity”, and 6-minute closer “Primeval”. But man can they rip your face off at any given moment as well as displayed ferociously in the opener “Son of Sam” or “The Killing Joke”.

With Carnal, Gutslit has gone from ‘Hey these guys might be one of the best death metal bands in Asia’, to ‘Fuck, these guys are one of the better death metal bands out there, period’.

[Visit the band's website]

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