Carnifex - Graveside Confessions Review

During the second hearing of this Carnifex “Graveside Confessions” I finally had a epiphany. Why not listen to each track of the album thinking as if each one of them was a graveside confession from a tormented soul that has suddenly left this sad and lonely and pathetic little planet but hasn’t crossed over yet? At once all the album started to make a lot of sense.

Following this direction I can really say that all the plot twists and all the emotional and musical ups and downs are totally explained. It’s now easier to understand why Carnifex change their music so much. All fifteen tracks of “Graveside Confessions” have different moods and atmosphere and, of course, musical direction inside Extreme music. Some are full of wrath and angst, others have some melancholy, and even others deliver a deep feeling about life and the afterlife as the album tittle says. So, an album that really manifests all human feelings as I always say about Extreme Metal. In this very especific case, manifests is the right word to say.

I always say that veterans bands have a lot more to offer in terms of Metal music. Carnifex show that this is the pure truth. “Graveside Confessions” is the living – or undead – proof of what I talk about. It’s very hard for an Extreme Metal band to write songs that are actually very different from each other as we have here in the album. I sit here and imagine all the lost souls in a graveyard having a conversation with this particular dead. Maybe the conversation reached all the tittles Carnifex chose for the album. Or maybe, just maybe, it is only one tormented soul that has just left and can’t crossover due to all the sins that torment it. A track as “Collaborating Like Killers” and all its guitar squeaks and the desperate vocals tell a lot about the album. Pay attention how the vocals change during the song and how the guitars follow the change of hearts of vocals. Subtle things that only extreme metallers pay close attention. And only veterans bands – ok, not only – deliver to their fans. The same happens to “My Heart In Atrophy” whose desperation can be felt from here where I am. The cavernous vocals os of last, and to end it all, track “Slit Wrist Savior” may be the hint of what is to happen to the tormented souls of this sad and lonely and pathetic little planet.

And then, after all these words I took a closer look to the album cover. It kind of proves me right. The tormented soul reflecting of all the sins commited and death as the judge of all of it. “Death comes to us all.”

Carnifex “Graveside Confessions” will be released on September 03rd via Nuclear Blast Records.

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