Review of Kanine - Karnage

Now THAT is an album cover. T-shirt immediately purchased.

But how is the music?

Well, Lacerated Enemy has taken a break from symphonic/blackened deathcore and delivered us a fucking monster of a slam/brutal death metal record from France’s Kanine. And if you thought Organectomy (whose Nail Below Nail releases the same day as Karnage) or Extermination Dismemberment was simply and unquestionably going to walk away with the year’s best-slamming death metal albums,  Kanine is here to make you think twice.

While certainly a slam death metal record, there are small variants that fit into brutal death metal, deathcore and downtempo and sneering beatdown, so fans of Ingested, Paleface, or even Distant will get into this as well as those that thought Korpse’s Insufferable Violence from last year is the bar that’s been set for the slam genre lately.

With a quick intro and an instrumental closer, there are 7 non-frills, no-nonsense (other than a few samples) songs,  where Karnage is a brutal, relentless, quick punch on the face that will leave you seeing double, a trickle of blood from your nose, and a ringing sensation in your ears. The mix and master from  Demigod Recordings, who have the likes of Pyrexia, Rendered Helpless, Organectomy, Analepsy, and such in their portfolio, should clue you as to how heavy this bitch is from a pure sound standpoint, and musically these guys deliver the goods as good as any of those bands as well. You want bleghs’? They got you. You want breeeeeees? They got you. You want gigantic, heavy-ass fucking bass drops and breakdowns? Oh fucking boy do they got you.

Listen, explaining how heavy some of these tunes are is like explaining paintings to a blind person. Just go listen to the likes “Furie”, “Gangrene”, “Abysses”, “Snakepit” or “Counter Slam Bass Drop Offensive” to have your rectum prolapsed in 3-4 minute increments. This is the album to listen to with the windows down to piss off the redneck neighbors who set off fireworks from June to August at all hours of the night and day. OK, maybe that was a little too much personal information…. Closer ‘Frost” then somehow shows the band’s more progressive side with a surprisingly restrained, melodic instrumental chug fest.

Along with Xenotheory’s  Ridley Scott/Alien/Aliens-inspired Dawn of an Eyeless Realm, France has somehow delivered two of the very best slam/brutal death metal records of 2022. Who would have thought? Vive la France!