I had the CARNAL FORGE album “Firedemon” at one point in time, and it was a decent, if very generic slab of modern thrash. Their latest album, “Testify For My Victims” sees the band mature by doing a better job of ripping off other bands.
CARNAL FORGE haven’t gone through many lineup changes, but the latest and most important has been a vocalist change to from Jonas Kjellgren to Jens C. Mortensen. The old vocalist had a pure European standard style scream, from about a mid to high range. The new vocalist screams all the time, but he always has bit of singing tone within his scream. He isn’t quite unque, as it sounds like he’s doing his best Jens Kidman, Peter Dolving or Björn “Speed” Strid impressions.
The band themselves has changed around the vocalist to make an extremely fitting evolution. In the past they may have been just another modern thrash band, but this time they’ve done their homework, and listened to fellow Swedes THE HUANTED, IN FLAMES, SOILWORK and even a tiny bit of MESHUGGAH. TheIN FLAMES and SOILWORK direct influence comes without techno samples or keyboards, but it does come with many of the attempts a catchy harmonies and melodies, as well as few of those drop-hopping riffs that recent SOILWORK has become much too comfortable with.
The SOILWORK coping is probably the most obvious throughout. Some of the choruses as very vocal driven, and the harsh/clean styled harmonies are exactly what Björn “Speed” Strid does. Considering the fact that Carnal Forge is able to make an album that flows up and down between heaviness by adjusting the amount of harmonies, melodies, and crunchy riffs, they’ve actually managed to beat SOILWORK at their own game by not making the same song over and over.
Considering how over saturated melodic death metal is, Carnal Forge has a unique blend of bands they’ve decided to rip off, as well making a fairly decent execution with way more hooks than the average low-tier melodeath band. I’m sure if they’re putting effort forth in their craft, they could own the second tier of melodic death metal, just below IN FLAMES, DARK TRANQUILLITY, AT THE GATES, SOILWORK and a select few others. I can’t say they’ll beat the masters at their own game in terms of popularity, but they’ve certainly beaten SOILWORK in terms of underground credibility.
7/10
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Carnal Forge at Candlelight Records
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