CarnageSlumber - Sadistic Mechanical Evolution

There are infinite different purposes behind the art which bands create. Artists aim to express reverence for nature, induce mosh pits and headbanging, invoke a sense of brotherhood, convey the deep-rooted philosophy of individualism, spit blasphemy, or any number of other artistic and ideological goals good and bad. The key to successfully portraying their goal, in music as with any medium, is a unification of the medium and the purpose. With CarnageSlumber and Sadistic Mechanical Evolution, pinpointing a purpose for their art is difficult. The album doesn't truly highlight any specific elements. The lack of melodic separation between the tracks, the constant muted tremolo picking, the singularity of overall tone, and the artificiality of the drum tone points to something assembled for a reason but missing parts. Sadistic Mechanical Evolution is a piece of equipment without gauges to read, without a user manual, without input or output; it's an engine idling and producing little. The moments where the album succeeds, songs such as "Mitochondria" and "Vibrating Dead Tongues", to a lesser degree, offer just enough to hint at something underneath. Two songs which come ever so close to marrying the medium and the message.

The tone of Sadistic Mechanical Evolution is modern and urban, yet also past-prime. Guitarist Salvo Di Marco summons Morbid Angel who found and honed a similar springy, murky guitar tone on Heretic and, to a lesser degree, Gateways to Annihilation, but where those albums offered something purposefully old, swampy, and dank, CarnageSlumber mix this laden tone with the crisp snapping artificiality of mid-2000's era death metal drums found on Krisiun's AssassiNation or Decapitated's Nihility. CarnageSlumber also exaggerate their spongy guitar tone to a degree of magnitude where singular notes higher on the register would be more at home at a ten-year-old's birthday party in the bouncy-castle. Lower registers have a boomy upfront presence which is resounding yet truncated. It's a unique choice of textures to process and, at least to my sensibilities, a mystery. The tone never seems to engage me the way similar tones have, such as on Golem's Dreamweaver, which is similarly unique but better mixed and supported. Lorenzo Reina is, tone aside, excellent on drums, especially in his grand finale drum solo closing out the album on "Sideral White Creator."

My least favorite element is the monotone gruff vocals of Paolo "Zodd" Sofia. His performance is admirable with little to complain about technically. Zodd comes across as urgent, powerful, and gritty; all things you'd want in a vocalist. Combining, however, his vocals with the other elements of the mix and things start to blend in a way which bores me. There is no bass guitar, so his lower range stands out against the guitars, but because there is a genuine lack of melody in the vocals, this low end is filled with essentially a bassist playing one note for the duration of the record at rhythmic intervals. The short songs are served well by Zodd's urgency and immediacy but his often truncated barks of vocals begin to lack variety by the third or fourth song. Were there some contrast in the vocals melodically or dynamically or tonally, it would go a long way to propel CarnageSlumber. The current style doesn't capture the vivid lyrical matter or express what I feel is a wellspring of performance inspiration.

Regarding which, I did absolutely enjoy the thematic content, as choppy English as the lyrics were. Songs mainly focus on human medical experimentation. I imagine Dr. Kevorkian rewriting Carcass lyrics in Engrish. The imagery in a song like "Termical Visions" can trace it's heritage to Italian classic Giallo films in lines such as 'No one survives to the predator, no one will deny him his trophies, more you oppose more violent will be your end'. "Vibrating Dead Tongues" captures the scene of a corpse in a suspended state, with only a tongue retaining movement, being self-aware. "Mitochondria", likely my personal favorite song on the record for the atonality which is welded to it's structure, has the most vivid lyrical content, proposing the outcome of all genetic diversity in the moment of existence's destruction contrasted against the moment once again of creation at singularity. Other songs are similarly vivid taking form as poems which open the mind to what would surely be disturbing science fiction concepts.

CarnageSlumber has work to do in terms of coalescing their sound into a unified whole and a recognizable purpose or soul. There are a lot of elements and moments which speak to their artistic capability, technical prowess, and uniqueness but none which clarify what the band is trying to say with their music. There are moments on Sadistic Mechanical Evolution which I really enjoyed, but those moments do not shine light through the shadow of monotonous textures and sapping energy. As colorful as the lyrical content is, without a matching soundtrack we are given two separated cranial hemispheres which aren't exactly communicating. I could see fans of bands like Meshuggah enjoying this, but also fans of technical death metal, because of Di Marco's rigorous guitar playing. A bass rolling underneath, supporting all this with some nuanced melodic variety would be a huge addition - especially a bass with an unconventional tone - as would some vocal refinement and variety. CarnageSlumber could produce something of genuine originality in the future if they stay the course and make some arrangement tweaks to what they are already doing. The packaging on this Extreme Metal Music release is professionally done with all the lyrics included and a memorable cover courtesy of Cristina Cammarata.