Cephalic Carnage – Xenosapien [Relapse Records 2007]



Yet a record I have found under endless counts of dust, revitalized and gotten into, even though it has been a couple of years since it was released. Seminal records need words to go along with them, and think if someone, not knowing Cephalic Carnage, if such a metal head should exist, should stumble across this review and get into the band or this album...

Cephalic Carnage is insane, and has always been like that, when it comes to arranging their massive attacks on what we know as extreme metal. 'Xenosapien' is yet an album to the discography of the American band's visionary to renew death metal into a grinding maniacal inferno of heavier than heavy riffing, faster than fast blasting, icier than ice coldness and claustrophobic grinding atmospheres that could conquer, even the most sane person amongst us.

We are getting 12 tracks on this album and we get all from vintage Cephalic Carnage grinding madness with insane elements of what we can't imagine, and not expectable touches. If it is the age or simple clarity that has caused the band to handle some of the tracks, as 'normal' metal, as plain death metal, still done the Cephalic Carnage way of course, sludgy killing riffs, growls and screams, as less radical bands within extreme metal genres could have used. I don't know though it works really well.

Just take the fourth track 'Touched By An Angel', a distorted bass intro, which continues below the freezing wall of melodic black metal riffing and blasting double bass drumming and the rasping vocals, with a break with a pretty plain melody, when thinking of Cephalic Carnage, then a march rhythm, before it goes back to the main concept, nicely done.

I don't think we ever will come across a easy listenable Cephalic Carnage album, though if there has to be one so for, it is this, though we still have the insane trademarks, do not worry, though some more traditional composing have been used as well and that fit really well, into the devilish mixing pot we know as Cephalic Carnage. 'Xenosapien' must have been one of the best metal albums of 2007!

http://www.myspace.com/cephaliccarnage

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