Full disclosure: I am not a classically trained musician, and though I’ve taken years of lessons on various instruments over the years I have never studied jazz. So when I say something sounds “jazzy” I’m merely referring to a certain aesthetic as my ears perceive it. I make no claims that I’m some kind of jazz expert, so please, all you music elitists who just LOVE to call us out given any opportunity, shut the fuck up.

Anyhoo, Poland’s Samo. To these ears they sound pretty jazzy at times much like Carnal Rapture, an unsigned band from Italy I discovered last year who were my unequivocal favorites. Unlike Carnal Rapture, Samo seem to take a lot more influence from modern metal, incorporating Meshhuggah-esque grooves (but NOT Sumeriancore in the slightest) and Dillinger spazz-outs into their avant-garde attack. Suckalo Mike Dix sent us a link to Samo’s MySpace page over the holiday, and I’m pretty much blown away by everything therein. You should be too.

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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:

Click to read more…

Technically disqualified from my year-end list because their record came out in 2008… but damn, this Italian band is just plain awesome. I’ve been spinning Carnal Rapture’s 5-song demo pretty consistently on my iPod. Jazzy, techy, proggy, heavy, and most of all DIFFERENT metal… jam their song “Precious Time” below then listen to more on their MySpace page.

Carnal Rapture – “Precious Time”

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Italian experimental metallers Carnal Rapture sent us their latest 5-song EP several months ago, and though I only just got to listen to it recently… HOLY SHIT!

The first good sign was the design of the CD itself: one side is completely silver and one side is completely black (but not silkscreened — the plastic is actually black). After inserting the CD into my computer silver-side down as I would most CDs, my computer spit that shit right back out at me. Having the black side be the side with the audio on it? METAL!

But most importantly, Carnal Rapture’s style of metal is like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Seriously. And you know we hear a LOT of shit (I mean that in both senses of the word “shit”) here at the MS Mansion. Carnal Rapture certainly take inlfluence from progressive extreme metal bands like Cynic and Gorguts, but theirs is a much more modern, refined, completely new, and yes, much heavier sound. And while their music is certainly “technical” to be sure, it doesn’t veer anywhere near the modern tech-death “weedily weedily” fests that newer bands like Gorod and Obscura peddle (I love these bands too, but I’m just sayin’). Carnal Rapture take things way more in a decidedly jazzy direction… heavy as fuck jazz, naturally. The only current band I’d even moderately liken them to would be Intronaut, specifically that band’s early material. This is music that’s heavy, heady, progressive, technical, jazzy, artful, concise… pretty much everything I look for in a new band.

So upon opening and listening to this stellar gem of a record, I emailed the band’s vocalist and guitarist Emilio Trillo to ask his permission to post a track. Here it is, “Precious Time,” the EP’s opening number. I hope you like it as much as I do. If you’d like to hear more, visit Carnal Rapture on MySpace.

Carnal Rapture – “Precious Time”

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