Originally written by Erik Thomas
It’s only thanks to Between the Buried and Me, Within the Ruins, Wretchedand San Diego’s Carnifex (I’m waiting to hear new signing Pathology) that I still have some shred of respect for Victory Records.
With their third safe, but relatively enjoyable album, Carnifex have taken the predictable leap that many of their peers such as Whitechapel, Job For A Cowboy, Annotations of An Autopsy and Suicide Silence have taken with their latest releases: drop the more kiddie deathcore/Hot Topic and focus on a more pure if slightly superficial death metal approach. That all being said, Carnifex aren’t going to be convincing any die hard death metal fans that they belong, but on Hell Chose Me, they certainly deserve a little more respect and attention than many of their pierced lipped, baseball shirt wearing peers.
Armed with a typically clean but burly Zeuss/Planet Z production, Hell Chose Me rumbles with a direct menacing approach that has less breakdowns than the previous two efforts. Though there are still some rumbling slowdowns (“Hell Chose Me,” “Names Mean Nothing,” “Dead Archetype”) amid the clicky but fierce blasting. Vocalist Scott Lewis has the requisite growl and blackened shriek and there’s a feral, burly energy about the material that’s rampant for the album’s brief 35-minute duration. Only “Heartless” starts with some acoustics and some somber melody before careening into the more familiar throes.
My feelings for Carnifex can be summed up by this recent story: I friend of mine wanted a deathcore compilation. I put together a nice little 15-17 track CD with all the usual guilty parties and all my favorite deathcore songs that I enjoy and thought he would enjoy. The thing is, when it came to finding aCarnifex song that stood out or that I absolutely recommended – I simply could not recall or find one from any of the band’s three releases. That’s not really a black marl against the band (I had the same problem with Suicide Silence) but truth be told as much as I enjoyed Hell Chose Me while it’s playing (or any other Carnifex release for that matter), I’m more apt to throw on Oceano, Whitechapel or Chelsea Grin for my deathcore fix.
