CARNAL RAPTURE BRING “NO BLAST BEATS” DEATH METAL

December 16th, 2009 at 4:00pm
Vince Neilstein
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In October I published a piece about Carnal Rapture, an Italian band that had recently sent me their 2008 demo. That 5-song disc still stands as the best demo I’ve heard all year from any independent metal band, anywhere in the world. It’s great; it’s fresh, it’s technical, it’s jazzy, it’s soulful… and most of all, it’s original. Carnal Rapture’s music doesn’t fit into any easily-definable micro-genre of metal.

Guitarist and vocalist Emilio Trilló recently answered some questions for Spine Language, and unsurprisingly his answers are just as intricate and detailed as Carnal Rapture’s music. Trilló talks about the history of his band and drops some serious metal knowledge in the process of the 10 question interview; it’s a great read. Here’s an excerpt on the history of blast beats and the lack thereof in Carnal Rapture’s music:

In the beginning, death metal wasn’t as strongly associated with blast beats as it is today. The prime movers of the Floridian death metal scene weren’t even using this trick to begin with. Obituary, Nasty Savage, Death, and Atheist had some of that classic Slayer-esque fast, straight beats but they all soon went their own ways creating their own beat trademarks. At some point that up-tempo beat thing, which death metal inherited straight from Slayer and Dark Angel, is taken to the next level in terms of speed by artists like Morbid Angel, Carcass, and Deicide, and then you had the first blast beats prototype.

According to its development through almost 20 years of abuse, the blast beat lick has established itself as nothing but a single stroke roll practiced with one hand on snare and the other on a cymbal, with the latter doubled by the bass drum.

More death metal history and a Carnal Rapture download after the jump:

Dozens of bands in these 20 years have based their song structures, sounds and careers on a single stroke roll and went away with it. And what else? Nothing but racing on the edge of ridiculous metronome speeds. Something athletic one may argue. Not even that, I say.
Bottom line is, when they go to record their albums they all end up quantizing and triggering even their grandmothers. Is this what you call musical progress? What kind of innovation has this spawned within extreme metal aside from ever-increasing performance speed? And again, is speed as such a factor for musical innovation? Sometimes I wonder what’s the substantial difference between the former Morbid Angel and, say, Nile or Behemoth. The speed maybe, as in athletics – only with the difference that athletes don’t have Pro Tools or Beat Detective.

Read the full interview… the rest is just as interesting as this. In case you missed the stream & download I posted in October of the song ” Precious Time,” here it is again. Dig that funky death metal shit, then go listen to more on Carnal Rapture’s MySpace page.