Deadly Carnage – Through the Void, Above the Suns (Review)

Deadly Carnage are an Italian post-black metal band and this is their fourth album.

This is 45 minutes of creative metal, mixing black metal with doom, post-metal, and progressive influences. The band have produced an epic, exploratory journey across the cosmos, and do this via some expressive and emotive music.

The music is varied and dynamic, offering the listener a rich and textured collection of tracks to explore over time. The music unfolds to its own timescale, and has obviously been well-considered and planned out even before a single note was played. It’s atmospheric and multifaceted, with the post-metal build/release mechanic being used alongside progressive world-building, doom metal melodic structuring, and avant-garde black metal elements.

Each song on this release flows into the next, essentially making one long monolithic creation. Each individual track is very well-written and has been placed according to where it will make the most impact. The main songs are punctuated by softer, ambient interludes, which work nicely to add some extra character to already charismatic music.

The music is spacious and vast, and doesn’t always rely on distorted heaviness to get its message across. One of my favourite tracks here is the awesome Divide, which sounds like what you might get if you cross modern Anathema with a progressive black metal base; highly affecting music.

Through the Void, Above the Suns is at its best when you truly allow yourself to become absorbed and carried away by the shifting, emotive music.

This is an impressive, enjoyable, and wide-ranging album. Highly recommended.