BONE GNAWER — Cannibal Crematorium (review)

BONE GNAWER — Cannibal Crematorium album cover

Album · 2015 · Death Metal

4/5 · 2015-11-28
UMUR

"Cannibal Crematorium" is the 2nd full-length studio album by multi-national death metal act Bone Gnawer. The album was released through Pulverised Records in July 2015. Bone Gnawer was formed in 2008 by former Massacre frontman Kam Lee and prolific Swedish musician Rogga Johansson (The Grotesquery, Paganizer, Ribspreader, Demiurg...etc.), who also work together in The Grotesquery. The lineup was completed by Morgan Lie on drums and Ronnie Björnström on guitars/backing vocals. Since then Rogga Johansson has left Bone Gnawer, which means that "Cannibal Crematorium" was recorded as a three-piece. Since the release of "Feast of Flesh (2009)", Bone Gnawer has released a couple of EPs, but "Cannibal Crematorium" is their first full-length studio album in 6 years.

The two albums could have been released within a few days from one another though as "Cannibal Crematorium" is more or less a natural and in many ways similar sounding successor to "Feast of Flesh (2009)". The music on the album is horror/gore themed (especially focused on cannibalism) old school death metal. There´s nothing too fancy about it, it´s just brutal, relatively simple, effective, and very catchy death metal, like it used to sound in the early nineties. There are absolutely no surprises here. Just a well playing band delivering some relatively well written material with conviction and passion. People into cheap horror/cannibal horror movies should be able to greatly enjoy songtitles like "Modern Day Cannibal", "Chainsaw Carnage", and "Chewed, Mauled & Gnawed", and the band´s old school approach to writing death metal is definitely their greatest charm. I´m sure some listeners will find it a bit too primitive and lyrically over the top, but it´s all on purpose.

Although there are a few tracks I don´t remember as well as others, the material on the 11 track, 40:55 minutes long album is generally well written and quite catchy for the style. It´s hard not to growl along to some of the tracks because they feature such hook laden chorus lines ("Chainsaw Carnage" in particular is a death metal "hit" to my ears).

As mentioned above the musicianship is on a relatively high level, although the band don´t play anything technical. They are still well playing and deliver their music with the right amount of aggressive attitude and brutality. Kam Lee is one of the few distinct sounding growling vocalists on the scene, and needs to be praised just for that fact, but he is not just distinct sounding, he is also a skilled, intelligible, and powerful sounding vocalist, and his performance is what elevates the music on the album to a higher than standard level. With a more standard growling vocalist, the music probably wouldn´t have come out this successful.

"Cannibal Crematorium" features a raw and powerful sounding production, which is another great asset which helps the music to shine and upon conclusion this is quite a great old school styled death metal release. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.