Label: Askio Productions
Origin: Greece
Rather than reinventing the extreme metal wheel, Carnal Misanthropy have instead adorned the rims with rusted iron spikes and painted the spokes sanguine red and obsidian black. Release the Wolf is a blood-soaked demo with Harley horsepower. It maintains the ferocity of the wolf emblazoned on the cover with chainlink growls and mind-bending distortion, while tremelo-picking a murderously fast path to death and glory.
Kicking the violent, relatively short (22:51′) demo off, standout track “Fury of Battle” thrusts the listener to the heart of war with the soundtrack of a nearby medieval gore-fest. In the confused midst of battle, a lone guitar rips open unholy organs with punishing distortion, putrid power chords oozing out of the festering wound. Minor notes of mysticism reign from the skies above, and a sole, cursed growl unearths itself from the loam to meet the warriors in the open. As the track finds its pulse, Carnal Misanthropy demonstrates their supreme command of the entire production. Each blast-beat and guitar-laden hook pierces every penetrating shriek with precision and finesse. The cadence of the vocals ruminates on Immortal‘s style, whilst the vocals’ content incants a throatiness not uncommon in Watain‘s book of spells, both statements being extreme compliments. The furious battle spirals to a close with the prancing riffs of the victorious and the tortured screams of the vanquished.
Fury of Battle (0:00 - 6:44) https://askio-productions.bandcamp.com/album/carnal-misanthropy-release-the-wolf
The entirety of Release the Wolf is heavily pilled with intensely fuzzy guitar tones. There is no better example of this than on the second track, “Release the Wolf.” Opening with a deeply forested soundscape, a lone wolf howls in hunger, before being quickly joined by the pack. With a sense of dread injected into the listener, an exhumed power chord resonates across the forest, accompanied by unseen air raid sirens warning of impending extermination. The aforementioned tones are expanded upon in the third track, “Absolute Nihilism.” Melodic, blackened minor scales slither through the cracks of the aging woodland, with overdriven tremelo-picking crackling down from above like lightning. Densely corrugated power chords return, thundering through palm-mutes with depraved deliberation.
These passages channel Mayhem‘s genre-defining EP, Deathcrush, namely “Necrolust,” the fifth track off this seminal record. No band has yet eclipsed the sun-stroke of genius flared from the bowels of Deathcrush. Carnal Misanthropy prays alongside these influencing titans, and bows to the same icon on the altar of black metal. Final track, “Nocturnal Visions of the Ancient Monument” reads like an Inquisition track but sounds like an early 90’s Scandinavian masterpiece. Drill-sergeant shrieks in the face of tempered minor chords terrify, and pummeling drums deliver the apocalyptic message with precision and fire. Before drawing to a close, Release the Wolf sucks “humanity’s last breath,” curb-stomping all other acts of pedestrian heavy metal.
The mysterious Greek recluses of Carnal Misanthropy manifest themselves in this masterfully produced black metal demo. Nodding to the many previous purveyors of extreme metal, Carnal Misanthropy have conjured up Release the Wolf as a bleak commentary on humanity and convention, warning of the inevitable demise of any and all who dare cross the wolf.
FFO: Watain, Immortal, Mayhem, Urgehal