Worm Gear

There was a time not so long ago, when the South American scene produced 100 Sepultura’s and 100 Krisiun’s as many fans from that hemisphere of the globe became inspired by both bands and molded their craft around them in hopes to capitalize on the popularity. Perhaps there is a level of blasting intensity found on the Brazillion born Lacerated and Carbonized’s second full-length, The Core of Deception, that rivals Krisiun, but the clarity in their playing and good sense to ease up on the speed hammer and present songs with variation and hook laden technicality took center stage on this well crafted album. I haven’t had my ear this far south in a decade and it seems that times are changing.

I anticipated hopeless brutal death metal, but Lacerated and Carbonized quickly surprised me with their memorable songwriting style that presents a lot of motion and a mild thrash flair in the tight palm muted riffs and energetic changes. The band also embraces melody quite effectively as found on the excellent track, O Ódio e o Caos that begins as a turbo charged ripper with a searingly catchy verse riff, only to show the bands songwriting maturity in a mid-paced push in the tempo and highly skilled leads that embrace a twin guitar attack. In fact, the guitar work throughout this album is quite impressive with challenging leads for every song and note bloated rhythms as found on The Candelária Massacre, that give the songs a playful melodic death presence. This element further allows a bit of light to seep into the darkness of this album. Perhaps this was the very point as the musicians struggled to emulate through their music the class struggle of wealthy tourism and the often hidden dark underbelly of poverty set in constant conflict in their hometown of Rio de Janiro. Vocally, Jonathan Cruz has a war ravaged set of pipes that grind in the mid to lower range of death abominations. The confidence in his performance is evident and his ear for sculpting independent vocal lines that break away from the main riffs at all the right times is also noticeable as he unleashes a bloody fury to help give this music a full dimension of intensity.The production is booming and incredibly crisp when taking into consideration the speed L&C often works with, and all the thanks goes to the German Stage-One Studios and Producer Andy Classen who has manned the knobs for thrash gods such as Destruction, Tankard and even Krisiun.

The Core of Disruption was a nice surprise as it’s not the style of death metal that I normally listen to these days, but Lacerated and Carbonized have effectively embodied the grind, thrash, death and tech genres and infused their own advanced sense of memorable songwriting to the core foundation of their sound to arrive at nothing new per say, but just very well done. You can feel the conviction leaping out of these songs and the delivery is infectious. -Marty

Mulligore Production

~ by martyworm on August 7, 2013.

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, L-reviews
Tags: Krisiun, Lacerated and Carbonized, Mulligore Production, south american death metal, The Core of Disruption