This is the fifth album from US death metallers Carrion Vael.
I enjoyed 2022’s Abhorrent Obsessions much more than I expected to, so I was pleased to see Slay Utterly appear, (it turns out I’d completely missed 2024’s Cannibals Anonymous too, which is annoying). This new record offers up 42 minutes of premium Carrion Vael, and it’s pretty damn good.
Best described as melodic tech death, Carron Vael don’t mess around on Slay Utterly. They assault the listener with sharp melodic death metal, shred them with technical precision, and raise up their lacerated corpse with heavenly clean singing, stirring symphonic enhancements, epic guitar solos, and a lot more besides.
Fast and vicious, but also rich in melodic colour, the songs on Slay Utterly speed by in a torrent of knives and teeth. There are quite a lot of detailing and ideas spread out across the album, and it offers a meaty amount of content to bite down on. The bulk of the material is melodic technical death metal, but around this lie many interesting features. This might be cleans, keyboards, classical guitar, deathcore breakdowns, piano, or much else; Carron Vael are clearly not short of inspiration.
Slay Utterly is yet another strong outing from Carron Vael. The songs are enjoyable and satisfying, delivering a record that fires on all cylinders throughout its running time.
Highly recommended.
Wonderbox Metal 