Carrion – Morbid Nailgun Necropsy
Release Date: 3rd March 2023
Label: WormholeDeath Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Deathgrind.
FFO: Cattle Decapitation, Aborted, Suffocation.
Review By: Andy Spoon
If you’re a rabid fan of brutal death metal, you might want to check out Carrion’s new release on March 3rd, 2023. Hailing from Belgium, the three-piece act started playing together a decade ago, but is bringing their heaviest and best-produced album to date with Morbid Nailgun Necropsy, featuring ta mix/master from Kohlekeller studio, which has lent itself to some gigantic death metal recordings. The end result is a grinding, heavy, blend of older-school vibes like Suffocation and more contemporary brutal death that follows in the wake of bands like Aborted and Benighted.
Speed and intensity are two words that accurately-describe the fury of Morbid Nailgun Necropsy, which is absolutely packed full of the heaviness that only comes from the maturity and insanity of producing grinding, shredding death metal on this level. Vocally, the range is dynamically-diverse, allowing the mid-level scream/throat vocals that hint of Travis Ryan (Cattle Decapitation) from the band’s earlier days in the grindcore world. On the higher side, vocalist Svan Van Severen absolutely carries over the mix with extremity and a huge range. I absolutely loved how varied the vocal techniques were on the record. It always seemed like each part of a track was highlighted with a unique flair, reminding us that metal vocalists have just as much of an instrument as other musicians, something that I think is overlooked in some death metal or grind bands.
I think this is going to be an album to watch for the deathgrind fanboys, anyone who liked Cattle Decapitation’s pre-monolith work, and fans of Aborted. The overall pace features the grindcore elements with an addition of little teensy pieces of melodic death metal here and there in small enough pieces that the listener can get excited about. There’s more than enough blast beats and gritty drum riffs to boil your blood. Morbid Nailgun Necropsy is an album that generally exceeds (through quality) the overall gritty hyperbole of the gore content featured in the music and on the violent album art, which is awesome, by the way. If I had to try and put a finer point on it, Carrion have released an album that punches above the class of its competitors through sound quality and production.
Instrumentally, the guitar is 100% old school death metal-inspired. No one here has attempted to rewrite the genre, something that keeps the content of Morbid Nailgun Necropsy more genuine and relatable. What it does is allow people who normally listen to goregrind and grindcore, and deathgrind a high-quality, well-mixed album that doesn’t rely on the “fuzzy” sounding recording as an element of the sound. As an example, the snare doesn’t have that tinny, hollow, “ugly” snare drum sound which, frankly, I am happy about. This is an album that uses contemporary recording quality, edging-out out the desire to have the busted garbage can sounds of the band’s cohort. Further, listening closely, I could hear moments where the bass guitar dots the musical “i”s and cross the “t”s to a satisfying degree, although I think I would have liked to hear some more.
This was a solid listen, giving me a great vibe while I enjoyed it. “Violence and extremity turned up to 11 with a heaping dose of a wild vocal attack” could be an apt description of the album. I think it’s a solid 3.5/5 across the board, being above-average in its genre, and also being good enough to bring in listeners from both grind and death metal.
(3.5 / 5)
