CARNIFEX - Pathological Rites CD

In every respectable man’s exploration of old school death metal he eventually hits upon the inescapable truth, and resulting enlightenment, that early Finnish death metal offered the ultimate carnage-fueled variance of late 80’s/early 90’s death music. In exhausting the well-raped skeletal coffers of Finndeath apropros a scarce number of graves remain untouched. It is surprising that demo only band Carnifex hadn’t been properly collected and given respectful tribute by now, but at the same time listening to them all in succession you can hear a band clawing amidst their scene discovering what’d stand out. This compilation collects the original 1991 demo ‘Decadence’, their split with Festerday from that same year, as well as a rare third demo from 1993 that is generally impossible to find even among tape rip traders.

I have my own ideas about the tiers of quality when it comes to Finnish death metal but I think most folks who dig into the demo scene can at least marginally agree that demos from Abhorrence, Phlegethon, Xysma, and Sentenced were vitally important early on. From there I think any supposed second tier was either emulating their exploration of sound or creating their own. Carnifex, for my taste, sits in the same space with demos from Adramelech, Funebre, and Demigod in terms of compositional ability and recording quality. This is all arbitrary ranting that allows me to namedrop a bunch of great bands but it is worth suggesting that though great things were going on in Sweden at the time, Finland was creating an arguably more unique set of death metal groups around the same time.