There’s an old adage “You can have too much of a good thing”.

And for me, that “good thing” is blackened/symphonic deathcore, and I can have as much of it as I fucking want.

And Spain’s Bonecarver has delivered yet another killer addition to the genre to go with the 2022 onslaught of releases from elite acts like Lorna Shore, Worm Shepherd, Shadow of Intent, and A Wake in Providence and killer, second-tier bands like Hanging the Nihilist, Art of Attrition, Dismebodied Tyrant and Downfall of Mankind.

Bonecarver hinted at this shift on their 2021 debut, Evil, a solid brutal death metal/deathcore cross-over album. On the track “Mallevs Malificarvm” they dabbled with some epic orchestral/choral elements that were a bit out of place on the rest of the album’s more standard bludgeoning. And on Carnage Funeral, there’s is no dabbling, they have gone full-on symphonic/blackened deathcore as Mental Cruelty did on last year’s  A Hill to Die Upon. Let’s just go ahead and call it the Lorna Shore syndrome shall we?

Like Hurakan did earlier this year on Via Aeterna by bringing in a composer (Philippe Parickmiler), someone by the name of Ruben K (not drummer Ruben Contreras?) has been brought in to add to Bonecarver’s already solid backbone of brutal death metal/slam /deathcore. And he has a very Francesco Ferrini (Fleshgod Apocalypse) air about his compositions and choral/symphonic elements- very dramatic and movie score-like, and it’s really well done.

Look no further than the opening title track and first single, “Carnage Funeral” as well as the very cool orchestration that litters second track “Ancient Atrocity”, urgently epic bursts, and huge breakdown of “Pillars of Tragedy” and the absolutely rollicking, beefy bombast of personal favorites “Morgue Desecrator” and “Horror Disorder”, which comes across like Cradle of Filth meets Aborted. Closer “Bereavement” has some subtle some Middle Eastern atmospheres, but then also delivers the album’s most blistering, straight-up bruising number to end things with a solid throat punch.

On top of that, there are solid all-around performances, including a particularly feral array of shrieks and growls from Fernando Del Villar, a punishing production from guitarist Alex Tena and a strong, understated drum performance from Ruben Contreras.

The album does not outlast its stay either at a svelte, perfect 38 minutes of barbaric, orchestrated brutality that really hits the spot and puts these guys in that solid second tier of blackened/symphonic deathcore/death metal mentioned above.

[Visit the band's website]

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