A Crash Course in Carnal Forge with a Review of The Fractured Process
We do a little diving.
Just the other day, our boy Black Metal “Soft Baby Music” Porkins asked around for people’s favorite albums. Having harped on enough about Disillusion, I quickly landed on Firedemon, the sophomore from Sweden’s Carnal Forge. The Guy (you know, The Guy—maybe an older sibling, maybe a senior-year stoner—that supplied teenage you with new music) had given it to me back in the early 00s, and it took up permanent residence in whatever playback device was de rigeur at the time. I was hopelessly drawn in by the over-the-top, relentless aggression of what I’ve since come to realize is essentially a beefed up, thrashy take on Swedish melodic death metal. Imagine Slaughter of the Soul without the dainty guitar parts and melancholia, jacked up on PCP and with its fists wrapped in barbed wire. Titles like “Too Much Hell Ain’t Enough for Me” and “The Torture Will Never Stop” are programmatic: no one’s trying to be smart here. It’s all-out destruction.
Just the other other day, our Golden Boy 365 asked if anybody wanted to review the new Carnal Forge EP, The Fractured Process. How serendipitous, and what an opportunity to finally check out what else the band has done, because despite my reverence for Firedemon, I never ventured further into their work apart from a few songs here and there. I was pleased to find out that follow-up Please… Die! is quite on par with my darling, and The More You Suffer and Aren’t You Dead Yet?, while marred by some sonic inadequacies, are at the very least solid. Mind you, none of these are groundbreaking exercises in originality, but the band had a trademark sound and kicked ass consistently enough to be more than also-rans of the Swedish scene.
Alas, I suppose there’s a limit to how many straightforward shredders about being some kind of personification of hell you can write, and by 2007, most of the band (sans wonderfully unhinged vocalist Jonas Kjellgren) were apparently yearning for a change. Testify for My Victims features more melodic guitar leads, choruses with clean vocals, and some chugging, bouncy parts with a mild dose of glitchy electronica. It’s a testament of the time, reminding me of mid-tier melodic groovemongers of the mid-00s like Soilwork and Mnemic, which I could never muster more than a passing interest for (“Door 2.12” slaps though, I’ll give you that). This rather shocking change is not helped by the lack of cohesion, where some songs feel like older Carnal Forge tracks with new stuff stapled on. Had I been an active listener at the time, I don’t think I would have been sad to see the band dissolve in 2010.
This brings us—finally—to the current iteration of the band. A reformation in 2013 was followed by a few haphazard signs of life before 2019 saw the release of Gun to Mouth Salvation. A return to form? Yes and no. The old sound is well and truly dead, but at least now, the band seems confident and like they’re having fun with what they’re doing, rather than bending over backwards to fit the zeitgeist while still moored in the past. And the fun is often infectious, particularly on thrash-heavy rippers like “Endless War” and “Hellride.” The more melodic and groove-oriented numbers are no slouch either, although some overstay their welcome by a bit and the clean vocals still take some getting used to. All in all, while it’s probably still nothing you haven’t heard before, this feels like a fresh wind blowing through a stuffy crypt. Carnal Forge is dead—long live Carnal Forge.
Riding this momentum, recordings for what was to become The Fractured Process began soon after Salvation was out, but since 2019 was invariably followed by 2020, the band was put on ice once again, this time forcibly. The promo text mentions two members leaving since then and several songs being scrapped, so I suppose the three tracks comprising the EP are what was finished before shit hit the fan. Musically, the close proximity to the last album is very palpable, with only a slight reshuffling of the band’s constituent parts. “The Final Enemy” and my personal highlight “Ready to Burn” put familiar but speedy Gothenburg-style melodeath front and center, while “Fragment of Sanity” boasts thrashy verses and a mid-tempo, grooving chorus. All three have the good sense to stay under 4 minutes, so there’s none of the slack of the full-length, and the driving energy is easily enough to keep you entertained. Fans of the more aggressive parts of Salvation or melodic death in general should be very happy with this. Whether it’s a sign of things to come or the end of yet another era is anybody’s guess at this point, but I’ll stay tuned this time.
The Fractured Process will be out on ViciSolum Records this Friday, March 7. Get it over on Bandcamp.
