Album Review: Carnal Desecration – Ancient Malediction
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Belgium’s thrashing blackened-death crew, Carnal Desecration is all set to release a second full-length slice of fetid filth with their sophomore record, Ancient Malediction. Four years on from the Sacrificial Death debut, the four-piece continue to celebrate all-things deathly, whether they be from the frozen wastes of Sweden, or the steamy swamps of Florida, it’s as old school as F.
Ancient Malediction opens with its title track and from out of the gates this leaves the listener in no confusion as to what kind of a ride they are in for. Almost immediately we’re greeted with filthy riffs, courtesy of guitar duo, Works of the Flesh pairing Pieter Van de Putte and Den Beuk, who tear up a storm, accompanied by Sam Vanhove’s Morbid Angel-vibing bass drums and singer, Kristof Hector’s guttural vocals.
Carnal Desecration seem to have deliberately set out to explore the expanse of the genre, ramming the pedal to the floor with speedsters Infested, where Sam’s crystal-clear drums and the savage bends all come together in a quite obvious upping of intensity. Dismembered Voices opens like a rite, with a tolling bell, before presenting its hook-laden, whiplash delivery; and Nocturnal Blood, set late in the piece, feels like it’s been chomping at the bit the whole time.
Yet, even in the maelstrom of musical madness, there can be found oasis of tranquillity: Infested, for all its pace, takes a mid-section moment to get techie and prog. The thrashy Under Cosmic Command finds time within the spiralling guitars and edgy-sounding vocals, to slow things down to build an atmosphere of sheer dread; the rapid fretboard runs that punctuate the closing moments aren’t quite enough to shake the nagging feelings of unease.
The Casket Born is a title you might expect to find on a record by Death themselves, and here, Carnal Desecration, show their brooding, doomy chops, building atmospherics across the whole of the piece, revelling in the vastness of the scope and the darkness of the ambience. Album closer, Consumer of Flesh brings those contradicting elements into sharp focus, through brutal aggression and an almost fragile middle, which acts like something of a bridge between the band’s clear old school influences and their movement to refine and redefine the limits of the style.
Apophis is something of an outlier, it being an eighty-second, windswept guitar interlude, which doesn’t feel as out of place between Disembodied Voices and Under Cosmic Commandas you may imagine.
I’ve saved mention of Bones Beneath the Chapel until the end as, in my humble opinion, it is Ancient Malediction’s crowning glory. It feels big from the start, a measured and cinematic composition that builds layer upon layer; the riffs are in the great death metal tradition, until the mid-points takes a turn for the doom death; almost funereal in pace, it draws waves of exquisite misery from all instruments until it has created an epic and impressive façade to darkness.
The combined experience of the band belies Carnal Desecration’s outward inexperience, and it doesn’t take too long in the company of this record to know you’re in safe hands. Having shared stages with the likes of Incantation, Asphyx and more, it’s surely time that this Antwerp mob got wider exposure. Ancient Malediction could well be the catalyst for that to happen.
For all the latest news, reviews, interviews across the heavy metal spectrum follow THE RAZORS’S EDGE on facebook, twitter and instagram.
