Carnalis Amatoria – Amplecti Dolorem / Carpe Mortem
Band: Carnalis Amatoria
Title: Amplecti Dolorem / Carpe Mortem
Label: Independent
Release date: July 10th, 2024
Country: USA
Format reviewed: High-Quality Digital Recording
This is a journey across the darkest places in the minds of the creators of this album. Both of them, Liliana (responsible of all music and instruments) and Hellcommander (he is the lyrics and vocals) seem to be digging in the most twisted and perverse corners of their brains and souls to bring “Amplecti Dolorem/Carpe Mortem” to the listeners’ ears… for us to enjoy, to rejoice, to twist and whirl in lust, in ecstasy, in desire… and also in pain, in extreme agony. In darkness.
Because this album has been carved in total darkness. Even if it seems that there’s a spark of light in some passages, obscurity prevails. There’s no turning back once you dive into this turmoil of pain and pleasure entwined, you can’t escape, your soul is damned forever… ah wait, it was already before…
Music is dense, evil riffs flood the songs while high speed is provided by the bass drum, at times it runs as if there was no tomorrow. The guitar solos are prominent, when the lead guitar is playing its part it’s like darkness takes a step back, just to regain its territory the second after. And what about vocals, wow… Hellcommander is not only using his lower voice register here, but also he is using all his skills to make it sound totally perverse, wicked, dreadful… and I love it.
The tracks are flooded by an unsettling atmosphere, for me as a listener it’s like I must constantly hold my breath because there’s something malignant lurking in the shadows and ready to enter my brain along with the music. And this is because of the use of keyboards, even if they are subtle most of the time, but they are there, constantly sharpening and freezing the ambiance. Providing a gloomy environment to the music, carrying you into a malicious swirl, nasty and delicious, savage but also calming. Yeah, calming, because you feel drained of all energy, emptied from within. And that can be a relief.
Lyrics are about sex, pleasure, lust, evil forces, and also against religion and some abominable acts committed “in the name of God”… and, as an ultimate message, Carnalis Amatoria talks to us about the inescapable death, and about using our energy in doing things that bring us pleasure, because death will find us one day. And, as Liliana says as an introduction to their closing song in Bandcamp, “life is filled with pain and pleasure and the balance between the two often becomes blurry. I believe one cannot exist without the other”. So, shall we dance before death comes? I think we should.
A song that stands out for me is “Dance of Death”, because of the different tempos in it: starting as a Blackened/Doom song, with that slow rhythm and an almost unbearable atmosphere, thick and heavy; shifting to a more dynamic cadence after a while (with Hellcommander vocals being ultra dark); and changing the pace in two more occasions. This brings a special flow to this track that tells us about any mortal’s unavoidable end: death.
“So come and dance with the blackened shadows
Come join the damned in the Dance of Death
Come join the souls who rejoice in nothingness
Let the harvester steal your final breath”.
Let yourself dive into this swamp of lust, sex and death. Let your ears be filled with the darkest tunes and lustful thoughts. Let there be death… in the end. 9/10 by Sílvia
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