Full Album Stream: Carnal Ruin – ‘Soulless I Remain’

It’s not real death metal unless it comes from the Tampa region of Florida. Otherwise it’s just sparkling extreme thrash.

Fortunately, Carnal Ruin are from the Tampa region of Florida and their new album, Soulless I Remain, is real-deal death metal. The quartet aren’t soulless by any stretch—there’s a refreshing amount of melody and lead guitar on the album—but they are certainly mean. Carnal Ruin wear their influences on their sleeve: Entombed, Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower, Unleashed and their ilk, giving the songs an extra kick compared to a derivative, region-specific sound.

You’ll get the best impression of Carnal Ruin’s music by listening to songs like “Epoch of Dread” and “Pale Visage of War” but Decibel grilled them for a little info about the album-making process:

“We began the writing process for this record in early 2020. We wanted to further expand upon some of the ideas we experimented with in our last release, The Damned Lie Rotting. This was a highly collaborative effort between all members of the band, which really helped us focus on song structure for each track. We wanted each song to be distinct and have melodic elements, memorable sections and, of course, ripping guitar solos. Most of the riffs were prepared ahead of time by the guitarists which allowed us a good starting point during the writing process. We were influenced by a number of bands from the glory days of death metal and black metal; bands like Hail of Bullets, Vomitory, early Necrophobic, Sacramentum, Lord Belial and Fleshcrawl to name a few.

“Lyrically, the album deals with various concepts and themes influenced by literature, philosophy, secular and religious texts, as well as conceptual horror. Many songs deal with the inherent violent nature of man, history/war, horrors of the afterlife and what lies beyond.”

Sink your teeth into Soulless I Remain now. Physical copies are available via the Bandcamp embed.