Karnarium
S/T

February 2009
Released: 2008, Blood Harvest Records
Rating: 3.0/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

Karnarium from Gothernburg, Sweden, sounds like a thousand fucking deaths, as they want to advertise the band. However, I think you can also translate ´thousands fucking deaths´ in other way. Easiest way to describe how Karnarium sound like actually, is to point you a road sign, that says: ´Filthy, raw, primitive and brutal old school road that have once been walked through by the true torch bearers of underground death metal greats as Nihilist, Autopsy, Grave, Incantation, Treblinka and other groundbreaking pioneers of the genre...´. Or something like that. By following that road you will surely know what you are about to find from the end of this road, won´t you?



Karnarium indeed does sound filthy, brutal, primitive sounding and all that – and yes, it´s hard to deny the fact they wouldn´t appeal to most of us old school death metal diggers (they didn´t impress the hell out of me either, but I still gotta admit I like them pretty much myself though), but all this type of shit has already been done a long time ago – and slightly better in my opinion. There´s neither anything to be invented any more – nor there are some new weapons to be grabbed on within this genre that could be brought to you out from the masses. These are the facts.



However, if you take Karnarium as they are, you will find lots of ´guilty-pleasure´ listening value in them. Karnarium reeks strongly of the old corpses of demo era Nihilist, Autopsy, Grave and such – and if that specific reek of the ancient kings of death pleases your nostrils, then I even don´t have to ask you to check them out as you have obviously done so already. Pretty good these three murky-looking Swedes are at what they do. Just don´t expect them to drop a bomb or two on your neck, or you´ll probably become disappointed.