Prior to the Great Plague, Holdeneye discovered the vile charms of Germany’s Carnal Tomb and was quite taken with their sophomore outing Abhorrent Veneration. He appreciated the mixture of old school and Swedeath and the band’s ability to weave in restrained proggy elements without upsetting the corpse cart. Several years and many weird societal shifts later, we get their third helping of gruesome bits, Embalmed in Decay. The band’s basic template remains in place though it shifts the focus more completely to old school death with fewer gratuitous Swedeath d-beatings taking place. Their style lands someplace between Autopsy and Cannibal Corpse with a penchant for big, greasy grooves and brain-reducing chugs adding extra layers of gristle and guts to the chamber pot. This is a solid foundation to work with and Carnal Tomb know what they’re all about — no-nonsense, ugly death with a bad attitude and body order issues. I respect this.
After an overwrought piano-based intro, things get real with the plodding, skull-cracking grit of “The Putridarium.” It’s like Bolt Thower having a bro down deadlift contest with Cannibal Corpse and it’s spectacularly beefy, heavy, and brainless. This means it’s really good. No sooner do they brutalize the infrastructure of your skeletal system, do they take a step back and dabble in lightly progged-out death on “Cataclysmic Maze.” Fear not though, as it’s still plenty beasty and stomping despite the technical edge in the guitar and bass occasionally venturing into later-era Death territory. The big highlight arrives with “Cerebral Ingestion,” which is a World Eater of a death ditty, designed to push your face in the muck and mire with huge grooves and chugs that feel utterly unstoppable. It reminds me of the best stuff from Re-Buried’s opus from earlier this year and I can’t get enough of its low I.Q. brute force. I want 45-65 minutes of stuff just like this.
The band does a good job blending a knuckle-dragging core sound with fluid, melodic, and mildly progressive guitar work, never letting the latter overshadow the back alley violence of the former. On solid tracks like “Draped in Disgust” and the extra-inspired “Morgue Supplier,” the emphasis is kept on heaviness and sheer mass, yet they leave a little room for musical adventurism with good results. It’s actually a minor miracle that the flowing, beautiful guitar work in “Draped in Disgust” somehow fails to lighten the song’s crushitude one iota. Are there some weak points here to be uncovered? A few. There’s a weird guitar line that keeps appearing during “Defiled Flesh” that just doesn’t fit at all and it pulls me out of an otherwise good death tune. The title track is decent but skews a bit too generic, and closer “Eyes of the Chasm” is a really good 4-minute song stretched to almost 7 minutes. It loses me around the 4:30 point despite some outstanding guitar work on the back half. I also find myself wishing for more monster cuts like “Cerebral Ingestion.” That one is so good it tends to overshadow the remainder of the album.
I’m a big fan of the vocals by Marc Strobel. He’s got that classic guttural caveman delivery and he sounds wet and infected. Sure, his delivery is a tad one-dimensional, but it’s a good dimension nonetheless. Strobel and Toni Thomas deliver ace guitar work and offer a large collection of fat, ugly riffs that will cause bruising and discoloration. The solo work is a whole other level and sometimes feels like it drifted off Individual Thought Patterns or Symbolic. This is a highly talented bunch even before we get to ace drummer Daniel Sturm and tremendous bassist Mustafa Kaya. Kaya’s bass is omnipresent and he and Sturm bring the rhythm section to high places even on the more pedestrian cuts.
Embalmed in Decay is a good death metal platter that threatens to be a very good one. When Carnal Tomb locks their formula in, they are lethal. They just need a bit more consistency in their writing. This is a band that could unleash an extinction-level opus if inspiration hits just right. For now, I’ll take what they are cooking and enjoy it with some moldy bread and week-old sushi. You should too.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Testimony Records
Websites: carnaltomb.bandcamp.com/album | facebook.com/carnaltomb
Releases Worldwide: November 3rd, 2023
