The Swedish guttural groove monsters are back, this time with their fifth bludgeoning full length that captures everything that is wholesome and good about the Swedish death metal scene. The Swedes haven’t released a shoddy album in their short six year tenure, indeed their release rate is mightily impressive and considering the quality of each release is also extremely laudable. I have also admired the artwork on their previous albums too and I’m assuming Hand Rot Art has had its hands over the cover for this latest effort as well, as they all follow a similar rotting zombie like theme, which now should be their mascot, like the Mad Butcher for Destruction or Vic Rattlehead for Megadeth.

Anyway onto this awesome new album and clearly the band isn’t prepared to venture any distance from the groove like deathliness that infested their previous albums. Why change anything if the formula is working… right! Opener ‘Defleshing Bones’ typifies what this Swedish band are about, that guttural groove I penned on another review of their albums is hugely significant because it identifies what Carnal Savagery are about, the unabated ferocity going hand in hand with riffs that stick in your head. Adding to that you get a drum performance that ensures the songs are supremely catchy at all times.

‘Morbid Death’ follows and immediately you are immersed in slower quagmire of sonic sewerage as the chainsaw guitar sound makes everything that bit more aggressive and inhuman. There are similarities to modern compatriots Entrails but you could name any act from the 90s Swedeath scene to get an idea of where the band is coming from musically. The tuneful hook is one that pierces as the dread like aura of the main riff filters in after. In some respects there is a slight death ‘n’ roll styling here due to the beat and the way the song has a distinct swagger as the speed is amplified on ‘Stench Of Burnt Decay’. Smashing in with unceremonious wrath the song has rancidity and filth permeating its every note as they punctuate the tune with a ton of fills and half blasted segments.

Listening to the album is like a rollercoaster, fast, slow, fast and now another slow one titled ‘Column Of Maggots’ which I tried to visualise as the slow eerie build-up affords the track that sense of foreboding terror. The smooth transition to brutalising buzzsaw barbarity is phenomenal as the looser drum work crafts a catchiness that sets your head nodding with ease. ‘Limb By Limb’ is very Dismember like from their debut album, where a tuneful melodic guitar piece is surrounded by opaque ominousness that the slower pacing really enhances. Retaining a slower ethos is ‘Choke To Death’ where that slow pacing feels like a tightening around your throat before the cool bass riff break signals a tempo shift upwards.

Two minutes of bedlam greets you on ‘The Revenant’ its short duration belies the fact that is packed with musicality which in the live environment will utterly slay, as will the title track but in a different way, with its slower start with a dense bass riff and massive dread styling. It is pretty short too but loaded with plenty of changes and some fine lead work, which I’ve not mentioned about this album yet. ‘Raped In A Coffin’ is immensely oppressive, the sludgy pacing gives it a menacing feel before the stamp on the accelerator and a cool chopping riff hacks into the mix.

Closing the album is ‘Buried Alive’ and where I expected a slower tune to conclude the album instead we get a full on sonic mauling as the excellent grisly vocal style has a clarity you can really pick up on if you pay attention close enough. The closer is prime Swedeath, fast, ferocious and fetid in all departments and ensures that Carnal Savagery leads the field in this style of death metal.

(9/10 Martin Harris)

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