Exclusive Track Premiere: Carnophage’s “From Possibility to Actuality”
Join the revolution.
On August 2, 2024, TRDM legends Carnophage will release Matter of a Darker Nature, their 3rd LP and 1st for Transcending Obscurity Records. Back in 2016, Spear complimented the group’s second LP Monument for “[hitting] hard” yet doing so with much “finesse.” When I heard the upcoming album’s first single “Underneath the Horrendous One” back in January, I described it as “sick and slick” while also noting that odd quality of brutal death metal to almost become some kind of easy listening. I think it’s precisely that admixture of hard-hitting riffage with finessed song construction noted 8 years ago by Spear that undergirds that counterintuitive sense that you can slap on a band like Carnophage and almost be soothed and carried along gently by the absolutely relentless and hammering riffing, the barrage of a boisterous rhythm section, and intelligible gutturals. To be succinct about it all: shit’s smooth as mother’s butter.
Today, we’re stoked as always to bring you an exclusive premiere of “From Possibility to Actuality,” the third single from Matter of a Darker Nature and the album’s impeccable closer. Fans of legendary brutal/technical death metal acts such as Suffocation, Defeated Sanity, and Dying Fetus will find much to adore here, as the band slides and glides frictionlessly between hyper-tempo grooved-out blastbeats and the kind of neck-snapping palm-muted moshfests that make BDM such a fun genre. A quick, simple fill at 1:16 separates two distinct registers for the band, moving from relentless blasts to triplet chugs smothered in precisely timed barks. It’s an effortless transition for the band, and it’s also a moment for Oral‘s vocals to shine. The passage has a beefy beatdown quality to it, one that deserves to be repeated a few times before moving on. A squealing, piercing solo punches through at 2:37 before transforming into an extended quasi-technical noodle that harmonizes with the big riff it’s supporting. It’s certainly an ogre’s form of technical death metal, one up from the swamps and using menial tools, but it adds a charming hint of classical grace to track. Just shy of 4:30 in length, “From Possibility to Actuality” transitions from a song you’d possibly listen to again immediately after it ends to actually definitely becoming a song you listen to a few times on loop.
The lads from Ankara are a thoughtful bunch, and they offered this quote about the new single:
“The song, inspired by Jaques Mallet Du Pan’s famous historical quote “Like Saturn, the Revolution Devours Its Own Children”, is about millions of innocent people who wanted to change something in the entire history of civilization with good intentions and became victims. Get ready for ‘Matter Of A Darker Nature’, which is far from trends and keeps the listener on their toes while staying true to the roots of death metal.”
There’s much to be made of the Royalist and anti-revolutionary Jacques Mallet Du Pan’s infamous prediction of how the French Revolution could or would end. Truly, it is a dark matter, what it means to look at a revolutionary moment and wonder if what awaits the fate of all who wanted to change things for the better might end up torn apart by mouse monsters, winged demons, hellish skeletons, and other unholy beasts and enemies, or fall victim to unstoppable internal, autophagous machinations. Will the revolutionary children grow to revolutionary adulthood and make the change they hope? Will they cannibalize themselves? Can good come of the latter? Can evil come of the former? Carnophage wants you to ponder this question the best you can while they cleave your brain into two useless hemispheres with a guillotine forged by the legends of brutal death metal. Have a listen!
Matter of a Darker Nature is out
August 2nd, 2024 on Transcending Obscurity Records.
Pre-order it today, along with a slew of sick merch
from their official bandcamp.
Keep it groovy, folks.
